The math is just unassailable. Over the last several years, we've seen an influx of Agents kind of coming into our business. more and more agents. And what's more, if you look at the projected number of sales next year, we're being forecasted A reduced number of sales next year. So here's the math: more agents, fewer sales I'm not calling for a collapse or a crash or anything dramatic like that I Am simply calling for a squeeze. There's going to be a squeeze in the marketplace and you have a choice in terms of how you respond to that. Now my belief is that change creates chances and so you use the change in the marketplace today, where you seize the opportunities that exist within that change for yourself for your business. My aspiration for you in terms of your business is when it comes to leads in the pipeline and opportunities. I Want you to be in conversation and proximity with as many possible buyers and sellers as you can in your local. Marketplace I Want barns overflowing that's brimming over with leads and opportunities. And so today we're going to talk about seven different sources of what I've dubbed easy Leads. Welcome to this week in marketing! My name is Jason Pantana I'm your host and I'm so glad you're here watching this video. Now if you're new to our Channel it would mean a ton to us if you could click that big red subscribe button and right next to it there's a little bell icon that if you click that it will enable notifications so that whenever we publish new videos just like this one, you're the first to know about it. And therefore, you get to be the early adopter on any ideas and any strategies contained here. And so without further. Ado Let's dive into our topic today: I Want to explore seven different sources of easy Leads Easy Lead: Source Number One is one. hopefully you're already doing and that's Google Local Services Ads sometimes called Google screened or Google guaranteed. It's all basically the same thing now. Disclaimer: these are not available in all parts of the world. For example, there's a lot of Canada where you cannot run local Services ads. Fret not, we have six more lead sources, but today is about the easy lead sources. What's the low hanging fruit in terms of lead source is to make sure that you're filling the funnel with leads and opportunities in your pipeline so that you go into 2023 strong. because again, there's going to be a squeeze I want you to fill your funnel with more and more leads and opportunities. And that means kind of going through the low hanging fruit like your local Services ads. So what are local Services ads? Well, they're a type of Google ad, but they're different than other types of Google ads. They're made for local businesses. Basically, if I do a Google search for best Realtor near me or a phrase like that, it's going to trigger local Services ads. It's going to be a three pack across the very top of three profiles. that Google will rotate different people in and out based upon their budgets and the number of reviews and all that kind of stuff. This video is not so much a training on how to run them so much as you should should run them because these are easy leads. All you have to do to run Google Local Services Ads is do a Google search for Google local Services ads and then click the first link and follow the prompts. The hardest part about Google Local Services Ads is they're going to typically screen you. There's a background check where you have to say here's proof of my insurance as a business owner. Here's my license number and stuff like that. But one of the things I love about Local Services Ads is there's a lot of things. But one of the things is you're actually only paying for legitimate leads. You see a lot of online leads you're paying for Impressions or things like that or even a referral fee on the back end of the actual transaction. But with Local Services ads, you're actually paying for the lead. And so if you get a lead that is illegitimate, it's not really a lead. or maybe you specified you don't want first-time home buyers just for instance and you got one. Well, that's disputable and you only pay Google for legitimate leads. Which means you can basically turn the dial on your budget and you may not use your whole budget, but whatever is basically the the ceiling In terms of the most leads you can generate, that's sort of the way local Services ads work work. So one of the things I love is you're only paying for legitimate leads now. Another thing I love about these is what triggers them: I Said this before, but you're basically only seeing these ads when somebody does a search for the actual agent the best realtor near me. In those types of searches, you see most leads in real estate. They're really centered around people who are searching or inquiring about a property. What's my home worth? Homes for sale in blank area. Those types of phrases are typically what the consumer is after they're looking for the property. not the professional, but in the case of local Services ads, they're actually looking for you. And so my advice if you want to have a source of easy leads in your business is don't neglect. Don't overlook Google Local Services Ads Easy Lead Source Number Two and this one is easy and obvious is to make sure you have an active profile on all the top referral sites in your local. Marketplace They're sometimes called Agent directories I'm thinking of platforms like Homelite Up Nest Dwell Agent Pronto Fast Expert those types of pages that are based basically a third party endorsement for agents. So the way it typically works is a consumer might do a Google search looking for who's the best agent in their local Marketplace And there's all these referral site platforms where they list all these agents and you can have a profile and you can add additional details, but they can also pull information based on your transaction history and your local. Marketplace That's designed to help the consumer make an informed choice in terms of who is the agent with whom they are best aligned and who they want to work with. Now, some of these websites say that you're going to work for less than you'll actually work in terms of your commission. I'm not getting into all that mess, but most of these websites what they do is they charge you a back-end referral fee. So if you get a lead from their platform and you close that transaction, you owe them a referral fee. I Don't love that. but you know what? I Do love I Love the lifetime value of one customer I Had one of my clients we were talking about this and he added up what is the lifetime value of his average customer and the answer is a hundred Fifty thousand dollars per customer. So you know what? you might be okay if you pay that referral fee on your first transaction for a customer whose lifetime value is far in excess of just that one deal. And so in terms of easy leads all I'm simply saying is do a Google search in your local Marketplace as if you're a consumer. Best Realtor in my my area, top Realtor nearby. Those types of phrases that a consumer who's looking for an agent might be running in your Marketplace and see who's running ads on those keywords, it's going to be websites like Homelite Up Nest wealthful. Whatever. it's going to be different from Market to Market whoever is advertising in your local Marketplace if you see on your local TV stations. If you see TV ads, whoever is advertising in your local Marketplace I would set my sites there first to make sure that your profiles on those respective platforms are dialed in. Now again, I'm not getting into if some of those platforms like to act like you're going to work for a discounted fee I'm not covering that per se, so make sure you do watch out. But some of them do like to act like you're going to work for a discounted fee even though they can't make you do that. But what I do want you to capitalize on is getting those opportunities. Those lead needs are going to go to somebody in your local. Marketplace The question is, is it you and if you take the time to really optimize your profiles on the sites that matter the most those referral sites, it's yet one more source of easy leads. Easy Lead: Source Number three is open houses I Love open houses because they're a crazy good source of leads. They're one of the most proven, tried and true field tested lead sources there is. Just for example, think about a car lot if somebody goes onto a car lot to look at cars. Is that a pretty good indicator? They're at least thinking about buying a car. The answer is yeah. And in the same way, if somebody goes to an open house, they're thinking about real estate buying, selling, or possibly both. They're exploring options to make a decision if they should or should not continue moving forward. So to me, open houses are a absolute necessity type of lead source. and I love them for lots of different reasons. One I Like that you can promote open houses because it's a source for videos on social media and content on social. You can run ads online, you can put up directional signs that are branded to to you, and make all the neighbors and everybody think about your brand locally. You can meet people, meet neighbors, door knock neighbors, send out postcards. There is so much marketing around open houses that you can do from a branding standpoint, and then when folks come through and they sign in or register, it's a lead. Source We have teams in our ecosystem where they work as a team and they do like an open house Blitz every weekend and they're literally I'm not kidding. they're generating hundreds of leads together as a team of all the buyers and sellers and people who go through their open houses. and then they do the follow-up game. You see a lot of people used to say that the purpose of an open house is one qualified lead, and I'm like that's short-sighted. To me, an open house is about as many leads to fill the funnel as possible. Buyers and sellers do all the marketing, do all the branding, do all the things, and leverage open houses for what they are, which is a lead magnet. Now you might say Jason I Don't have a listing? Okay, well, if you don't have a listing, ask around your office, ask around your team. In fact, you can even go talk to for sale by owner listings and see if you can't conjure up an opportunity for an open house. Or you could also reach out to agents who are out of the area and they've got vacant listings and they can't host them open. their sellers might appreciate it. My point is, if you want to open houses, get resourceful because they are a tremendous source of easy leads. Easy lead. Source Number four is not really a lead. Source But I'm going to do it anyways because it's massively important. and that is online reviews. Online reviews are like currency. They're dollar bills. They are fundamental in terms of having enough clout online that a buyer or seller is like reading your reviews and saying oh, I want to work with an agent like that or even if you meet somebody like let's say, at an open house and they want to determine okay, I really like this agent, Let me Google them. They're still going to read your reviews now. I'm talking about online reviews generically so that means Google and Yelp and it means Zillow and Realtor.com and all the above. I'm going to give you just kind of some guidance in terms of where I would prioritize reviews. Fundamentally, I'm all about Google reviews. Why? Because of the SEO search engine optimization attached to those reviews, Google is literally reading your clients reviews and they're finding keywords that contextually relate to what you do so that when other people search those types of keywords, Google prioritizes your Google business profile with those searches. best Realtor near me and phrases like that I want you to win on those kinds of searches. Now my advice is, if you are, let's for instance, say, buying leads off of Realtor.com or Zillow or something like that, you might say I still need to get reviews there. How do I do all that Well I would prioritize my seller reviews fundamentally on my Google business profile and you could potentially put buyer reviews on a different platform. So maybe like Zillow or Realtor.com this is just. you could do it on all the above. There's nothing wrong with that either, but I'm getting you just kind of some guidance because reality is, buyers tend to search for houses. If you're a buyer online and you're Googling stuff you're probably looking for properties. However, if you're a seller, we like to think that sellers are just running searches for what's my home worth. not necessarily. They're actually more likely. when they're further along in the process, they're more likely to search for you. the Professor National Best Realtor in my area, best or top listing agent nearby. Those types of phrases and so your reviews on Google are going to be Paramount to winning on those kinds of searches to ranking on those kinds of searches. But here's the moral of the story: Easy Lead Source Number four is online reviews. Make sure that in your transaction to close process, you've dialed in your process for generating reviews online. Easy Lead Source Number five. As we work our way through the list is listing inquiries. What do I mean I mean promote your listing like crazy so as to get hand raisers, buyers and maybe sellers, neighbors for instance, who are thinking about selling to inquire about your listing. Now, we do this for a couple of reasons. One because it's the job of the listing agent to promote The Living Daylights out of their listings obviously, but the other reason is because it's a great source of finding new inquiries. I.E New Leads If buyers reach out about your listing because maybe they scanned a QR code on a yard sign or they found your listing on a Facebook ad or something like that. those inquire: they may buy the listing. they may not buy the listing, but they are a lead because they're inquiring about a specific property. So my advice to you is make sure that you're listing launch is loaded up. You want to absolutely promote your listing like crazy so as to generate hand raisers and queries. For example, I've seen a lot of Agents where they've kind of slacked off and they haven't done things like buy sell trade forms like Craigslist and Facebook and in fact I would be looking at a tool like call Action where you can automate the process of uh, basically getting inquiries on these buy sell trade pages. and it also Works hand in glove with QR signs and sign writers and all that stuff. I Guess my point to you right now not I Guess I know is take a look at your listing launch sequence and identify as many opportunities as possible to lead, generate hand raisers, inquiries on your listings, use your listings as lead magnets. Easy lead Source Number Six is what I've dubbed email asks as in calls to action as in asking for someone to raise their hand and say I'm thinking about this or I'm interested in that offer inside of your emails now I've done this show before and I've said many times that I don't think you're sending enough email. Email Marketing is hands down the number one return on investment marketing channel in the history of marketing. It's like the best now. I Think video is the best marketing format, but I think email is the best marketing channel. And so I've said many times again, you should be leveraging email like crazy. So I'm imagining kind of piggybacking off of Prior videos I've released on this show I'm already imagining that you're at least at minimum sending out a once a week content recap. We call it a Roundup whereby all the content you're creating across social media is recapped in a value-add email now within that email. And here's my point in this particular segment: within that email, don't overlook the opportunities to embed calls to action. Ctas. Technically speaking, as an agent, you do four things: Buy Sell, Invest Refer. Those are the four calls to action to which a buyer or a seller or maybe a past client or another agent even could respond to. To generate business for you, buy, some, tell them best refer. So my question is, when was the last time you looked over your email template your one-to-many mass email for instance and said hey, have I adequately dropped in calls to action that are designed to get people to take offers? Download this, PDF or click here if you want to schedule a consultation. Things related to Buy, Sell, Invest, or Refer leverage your email with Ctas throughout to generate leads. Case in point, if you look at one of our rock star coaching ecosystem members Matt Curtis who runs the number one team in the state of Alabama down in: Huntsville Alabama We've done an entire show dedicated to the email strategy that works so well for him, which is three emails a week. He sends emails to his entire database of over 50 000 leads and past clients and sphere contacts all kind of put in there together. Every Monday Wednesday and Friday Now Wednesday and Friday are value add. For the most part, he's repurposing content. he's been publishing throughout the week across Social, and he's tucked in and embedded some calls to action here and there just to see if he does get folks who respond to enough. but it's really about giving value. But every Monday it's a straight up call to action now. I Want to remind you that this database of over 50 000 people to whom he is sending have already opted in. They know Matt they're already leads or contacts who are already exposed to his business and he is nurturing them over time. Here's the thing, we know that most leads when you generate them regardless of the industry, are not going to buy or sell or do whatever they're supposed to do. As soon as you get them, there's going to be a period of them maturing and deciding should we take this next step. and the next step and the next step. And so by Matt sending out three emails a week, he is moving through that process with those leads with those contacts so that if and when the opportunity arises to buy, sell, investor refer, he's already got calls to action waiting for them to respond to now. I said every Monday Wednesday Friday he's sending an email and I said that Wednesday and Friday are value add emails, but every Monday it's a straight up call to action. Why? Well, because generally speaking, most people when they think about making decisions regarding real estate, it happens over the weekend because Monday through Friday they're working their jobs, they're busy, they're tired, they're running kids to practice and all that kind of stuff. But then Saturday rolls around and they actually have time to hear themselves, think, and talk about decisions they might make or might not make. And so the interest is there, most noticeably over the weekend. So Matt every Monday first thing fires off a Call to Action email. And it's not like overly pushy. it's an invitation to act. It's an invitation to book a listing consultation, or a buyer consultation or something along those lines. My advice to you right now in terms of easy leads is if you already have a database of contacts and leads, you know there's going to be a maturing period in terms of when they actually act. Whether buying or selling real estate or investing or referring, an email with calls to action baked in throughout is to me, an absolute no-brainer Source of easy Leads: Easy Lead: Source Number Seven Our final one. This one's an oldie, but a goodie is home Value Education leads. Now let's go back several years ago where agents had landing pages. There were all kinds of providers for this, and the landing pages would basically be input your address if you're a homeowner, and it would crank out an automatic valuation of what it thought your home was worth in the marketplace based upon macro comps in the area. And honestly, the estimates were wildly inaccurate and all that kind of fun stuff. But agents had these landing pages and then they ran ads from Facebook or Google or wherever that would drive traffic to those landing pages to generate leads. We called them like home valuation leads. It's basically the agent's version of a zestimate and it's a lead Gen technique. However, I Think we all know that those leads were kind of like tire kicker leads. They weren't really very serious, they didn't have a ton of intent, and they by no means were bottom of funnel. Listing Leads: Nowhere compared to like I Don't know. a seller who googles best realtor near me, read your reviews and then calls you direct. That's a good lead. That's like a come List Me Colleen again I Remind you we know these types of leads characteristically are going to be like super high intent bottom of funnel leads. They're going to require some effort on your part. However, because of what the market is doing, there is a moment in time right now of curiosity whereby you can put yourself in proximity to homeowners who are at least curious about that. What if it has gone down, What if it has stayed the same? Does that change their game plan? So if you're committed to the follow-up and the nurturing it would take to actually work these types of leads, I would say hey, you know what, Consider turning on that landing page again. Go put some ad spend on Facebook on Instagram on Google on tick tock on whatever platforms that drives traffic to your landing page to generate those leads and then follow up like a boss. at the end of the day. it's about being in proximity to people who are in the market to potentially buy or sell real estate. and so if home valuation leads or any other type of lead Source gets you closer to that, then go for it. A lot of agents are looking for the ready now type of buyer or seller and that's great I Love that. But my my exhortation to you is fill the funnel Barn's overflowing that's brimming over with an abundance of opportunities of leads of hand raisers, of being in proximity to people who are thinking about buying and selling and then positioning yourself as the agent with whom they would make that decision should they proceed forward. The math is simple: more agents, fewer sales, there's going to be a squeeze. But change creates chances and the chances will either bode well for you or not based upon your actions. Now what you do now and the balance of 2022 is going to set you up for Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 of 2023. And so my advice again as I repeat myself over and over is fill the Funnel. Thank you so much for watching this week in Marketing. My name is Jason Pantana your host And until next week. This is this week in Marketing Foreign.