I am sure you would prefer a few quality real estate leads over many poor-quality leads at any time.
However, it is easier to fall into the quantity trap focusing only on generating as many leads as possible.
Quality leads may cost more per lead, but they often convert better and lead to successful real estate transactions, ultimately saving you money in the long run.
Today’s article digs a bit deeper into how to get quality real estate leads discussing…
- What they are, and what specific characteristics do they have
- Why quality trumps quality in real estate lead generation
- The causes for poor quality leads
- The strategy to generate quality real estate leads
What Are Quality Real Estate Leads?
In simple terms, quality real estate leads are potential real estate clients highly likely to convert into actual clients.
It’s the potential buyers and sellers who have shown genuine interest in your services or properties and have the ability and willingness to take action.
Let’s discuss characteristics for a second.
Firstly, they are relevant to your real estate business, fitting your target audience truly needing your real estate services.
Secondly, they have interacted with your brand in some shape or form, thus interacting with your website, social media pages, or other marketing materials and channels you use. Here they have shown a willingness to learn more about what you have to offer.
You may also want to read my article about the different types of real estate leads and awareness levels.
Thirdly they are qualified (read my article on the importance of lead qualification here).
Regarding buyers, they have the financial ability and credit score and enough income or assets to buy.
Regarding sellers, it’s the serious intention to sell and work with a real estate pro such as a realtor or, in the case of a motivated seller, also a real estate investor.
Both potential buyer and seller leads have a clear goal or timeline for their real estate transaction.
Finally, they are easy to communicate with, meaning they are responsive regarding email, phone, texting, or in-person meetings. It’s because they should value your expertise and time and are open to your advice and guidance.
To summarize the characteristics of high-quality real estate leads, it’s…
- Relevance to your real estate services
- Intent: they actively seek real estate services or properties and show genuine interest
- They are receptive to communication and willing to engage with you
- They qualify as serious buyers or sellers
- They are more likely to convert into successful real estate transactions
Why Quality Trumps Quantity in Real Estate Lead Generation
Do you know what vanity metrics are?
One example is when you feel proud about a particular number of followers you may have on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.
The numbers alone may look impressive on paper.
However, they do not necessarily translate into tangible business results.
More interesting would be to know the percentage of followers seeing your social media posts, then the percentage engaging with them, and after that, the conversion rates of these engaged followers into email subscribers, and finally, how many of these email subscribers become customers.
Or the percentage of followers seeing your post, clicking on it, and then directly convert into a real estate transaction(the direct follower-to-sale conversion rate).
You may read my article about Twitter for real estate in this context.
The same “vanity focus” can happen regarding the quantity of real estate leads you may generate.
Yes, it can be tempting to prioritize quantity over quality, but investing in high-quality leads can save you money in the long run.
How so?
As I have often discussed in my articles (e.g., this one about real estate lead costs), you may have to pay more per “quality” lead.
However, this higher cost is mitigated by a much higher conversion rate and a likely higher lead-to-closing rate.
Why a higher lead-to-closing rate?
When you remember the characteristics of high-quality leads, one is that they qualify as serious buyers or sellers, which means they are closer to doing a real estate transaction (higher customer awareness level).
This means you will have an easier job regarding closing a transaction with them.
So you will spend less money overall to make a sale when you don’t have to put in so much effort as with cold leads (e.g., following up and nurturing over a long time).
High-quality leads are typically more engaged and more likely to be genuinely interested in your real estate services.
Now contrast this with low or poor-quality leads.
You may generate a lot of them at pretty low costs. However, they are likely less or utterly uninterested in your offer.
This, in turn, leads to them being less likely to convert into clients and real estate transactions, and this results in them often wasting your time and money.
You can still brag that you generate thousands of real estate leads, though.
To Get More Quality Real Estate Leads, You Need to Understand What Causes Bad Ones
From the above, logic dictates that the contrary characteristics are true for bad-quality leads.
But what are the causes of bad-quality real estate leads?
Let’s look into statistics from a little study I did.
Based on 26 sources, most of which are digital marketing agencies working with hundreds of clients, I found a pattern representing the major reasons for no or poor-quality leads.
I analyzed primary problem areas separately, and many of the subsequent 45 problems derive from these main problem areas.
Issues in separate areas often tie into each other.
Then I calculated in percentages how often the 45 problems, as well as the problem areas, were mentioned so you can get a better understanding of the different weights.
The problem areas I found are generic and occur across different industries; hence, it also applies to real estate.
When you learn about the reasons for no or poor-quality leads, you may assess your real estate business using the below table and see where there is still room for improvement.
| Problem Areas Summarized | How Often Mentioned ? | Share of Problem Category |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of audience | 29 | 20.71% |
| Marketing strategy | 19 | 13.57% |
| Follow-up system | 14 | 10.00% |
| Content marketing | 12 | 8.57% |
| Call to actions | 12 | 8.57% |
| Optins | 11 | 7.86% |
| Advertising channel | 10 | 7.14% |
| Leadmagnets | 10 | 7.14% |
| Landing pages | 9 | 6.43% |
| Website | 8 | 5.71% |
| Lead quality measures | 3 | 2.14% |
| Analytics | 3 | 2.14% |
So when we interpret the above table, we can summarize the problem areas causing poor or bad quality leads as follows (ordered from most frequent to least frequent):
- Knowledge of audience
- Marketing strategy
- Follow-up system (lead nurturing)
- Content marketing
- Calls to action
- Optins
- Advertising channel
- Lead magnets
- Landing pages
- Website
- Lead quality measures
- Analytics
Sources of My Study and Analysis
https://www.clickx.io/reasons-lead-generation-is-failing/
https://www.wearecatalyst.co.uk/blog/the-top-reasons-youre-not-generating-leads
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/5-reasons-lead-generation-strategy-not-working/
https://marketing.wtwhmedia.com/5-reasons-youre-failing-miserably-at-generating-qualified-leads/
https://www.webfx.com/lead-generation/learn/reasons-your-website-isnt-generating-leads/
https://www.xcellimark.com/blog/25-reasons-your-b2b-lead-generation-is-failing-and-how-to-fix-it
https://www.curvearro.com/blog/10-reasons-your-lead-generation-strategy-is-failing/
https://www.callboxinc.com/lead-generation/reasons-not-generating-leads/
https://www.rickwhittington.com/blog/reasons-website-struggles-to-generate-leads/
https://cixxfive.com/7-reasons-why-youre-failing-to-generate-b2b-leads/
https://theumg.io/5-reasons-your-lead-generation-campaign-is-not-working/
https://www.annuitas.com/blog/2020/11/05/5-reasons-why-youre-getting-bad-leads/
https://zapier.com/blog/lead-generation-mistakes/
https://www.rainsalestraining.com/blog/do-you-make-these-10-lead-generation-mistakes
https://www.dataaxlegenie.com/blog/5-of-the-worst-prospecting-methods-that-produce-bad-leads/
https://snov.io/glossary/bad-leads/
https://www.copyengineer.com/post_deadly_lead_generation_mistakes/
https://blog.wishpond.com/post/106151347605/top-25-most-common-b2b-lead-generation-mistakes-to
The Strategy To Get Quality Real Estate Leads (Conclusion)
Let’s look at the two areas I analyzed: the problem areas causing bad quality leads and the characteristics of quality real estate leads.
You can find a core principle where problem areas and quality characteristics overlap.
Regarding quality real estate leads, we again have these characteristics:
- Relevance to your real estate services
- Intent: they actively seek real estate services or properties and show genuine interest
- They are receptive to communication and willing to engage with you
- They qualify as serious buyers or sellers
And the two most often mentioned problem areas for poor quality leads, according to my little study, are these:
- Knowledge of audience
- Marketing strategy
Quality leads should fit your target audience to be relevant to your real estate services.
The main problem area of bad quality leads is poor knowledge of your target audience.
So the priority before getting into any tactical stuff and testing different marketing channels for lead generation like crazy should be identifying and analyzing your target audience (my article) and, thus, your ideal clients.
This ties into the second problem of not having any proper marketing strategy.
Since gathering knowledge about your target audience is part of a marketing strategy, both could be merged.
I covered the topic of marketing plans and strategies in this, this, and this article already.
One essential part of it is getting to know your target audience.
This is also an essential preparation for creating decent real estate sales copy.
Most of the remaining characteristics of quality real estate leads, like actively seeking your services, receptiveness to communication, and qualifying as serious buyers or sellers, you can put into the category of product and service awareness levels I discussed in my article about the five real estate lead types.
Attracting prospects with these characteristics can be done by targeting people higher on the product on service awareness levels, which means they are mostly warm leads with an increased need and urgency to satisfy their needs or solve their problems.
Of course, you still need to mix the targeting with the right lead qualification methods.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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