Generating Real Estate Leads With Virtual Assistants

In today’s competitive climate, we are dependent on generating quality leads for our real estate business in order to ultimately convert them into a client. Utilizing trained Virtual Assistants for real estate leads can streamline your process and allow you to focus on the high dollar tasks that grow your business.

Below is the comprehensive list of how a trained Virtual Assistant can be a huge contribution to your lead generation strategy:  

Cold Calling

Cold calling is one of the MOST EFFECTIVE methods to generate real estate leads today but it takes a lot of time, effort, and drive to make this work! To effectively utilize this, you should be keen on your script. Look out for these components:

• Opening Spiel – Having an enthusiastic/energetic tone will increase your chances of getting the person on the other line to listen and wait what you have for them! No one wants to get a call from a grumpy person, especially when they didn’t ask to be called in the first place! So play it cool. Lastly, have a positive disposition and jump into a conversation to connect based on common areas of interest.
• Pitching – You don’t have much time. Be upfront, introduce yourself, and let them know what you are calling them about and what’s in it for them.
• The Follow-Up (Questions) – This is a crucial part of the call, this is when you identify if the prospect fits your criteria and the right person you are looking for. It is important to ask the right questions!
• Closing Spiel – Leave a lasting impression. They may not convert as early as the first time you reach them but leaving a good impression would make them consider discussing with you again about the offer. 

Automating your cold calling is a great way to maximize the number of calls being made. A Virtual Assistant can focus on this task all day hammering the phone, gauging for motivation, gathering information, and having the leads sent directly to your inbox.

There are also Done-For-You services such as Deal Dialers. With a done-for-you service, a team of trained cold callers will call your entire list and send you the leads in real time! Not too shabby!

Consistent Follow-Up Process

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “The fortune is in the follow up” a million times by now.

There’s a good reason it’s still a highly relevant statement. On average, about 7 out of 10 deals all close in the follow-up process, and most typically take between 7-12 touches to convert. 

According to Marketing Donut, only 2% of sales close at the initial meeting and 92% of people are done after the 4th “No”. 

So if you are following up consistently at a minimum of 5 times, you’re already way ahead of your competition. Take advantage of that and start capitalizing on your lead follow up.

Here’s a simple and quick cheat sheet for how frequently you should be following up with leads: 

• WARM – Call every 7 days
• LUKE-WARM – Call every 21 days
• COLD – Call every 30 days

Continue doing this until the deal is secure or you have been put you on a temporary restraining order! 

Scraping For Buyer & Seller Leads

Scraping for leads is a great task to pass off to a Virtual Assistant! It’s repetitive, simple to follow, and not worth your time to be doing. You can have a Virtual Assistant scrape leads from Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Zillow to name a few.

Start by giving your Virtual Assistant the criteria you would like them to search for.

They will pull all listings that match your criteria, gather the contact information, and compile and organize all the information into whatever system you use to track leads.

Facebook Lead Ads

If you’re not familiar with Facebook’s Lead Ads, they are a bit different than your typical ad. They are different because they don’t require the lead to go to an external landing page and manually fill out your form in order to opt-in.

With Lead Ads, Facebook has made it as simple as possible to collect contact information from a prospect. So simple that it really only takes 1-click in most cases.

This benefits both you as a marketer as well as the contact as the lead. They have less work to do to opt in, and you are able to collect more leads more efficiently.

With a Virtual Assistant, you can have them set-up your ad campaign, launch it, and monitor its performance based on relevant KPI’s.

Always have these essential components when running an ad:

• Goal
• Target Audience
• Have your VA create an eye-catching image relevant to the ad
• Use a straightforward ad copy
• Include a call to action 
• Determine the data to track

Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing has increasingly become a more used marketing strategy for generating leads. With an average open rate of around 98%, it’s hard not to be curious how you can take advantage of that.

By automating your text messaging campaign with a Virtual Assistant, you can have warm and hot leads delivered directly to your inbox without you having to do any of the heavy lifting!

To toot our own horn for a minute, REVA Global’s Virtual Assistants are already trained on Launch Control’s text messaging platform! This is a truly done-for-you lead generation machine. 

Here are some best practices that you can apply to your text messaging campaign:

• Take the time zone you’re sending to into account. Make sure to send during normal hours.
• Message clarity – Make sure you stay very clear in your intent and to not waste their time. Try to be as concise as you can.
• Provide complete contact information – Your complete name, company & address, phone number, and email address

Ringless Voicemail (RVM)

Ringless voicemail is another lead generation tactic that has increased in popularity over the past few years. Ringless voicemail is almost exactly as it sounds.

Simply put, it’s the process of leaving a pre-recorded voicemail on someone’s phone without having their phone ring. 

To start, you should pre-record your script for your Virtual Assistant to use. Your VA will set up the campaign, drip out RVM’s, take inbound calls, and add the leads to your CRM. They can monitor and report campaign performance as well.

This strategy can be effective if being used in the right way. A few best practices are listed below:

• Deliver the script as casually as possible and not as if it’s being read 
• Leave detailed information 
• Always leave a callback number twice
• Make a follow-up through an email
• Consider people who are on the DNC list

Organic Lead Generation

Generating leads organically is a strategy that should not be overlooked! Best of all this method is completely free!

Your Virtual Assistant can generate leads organically in a variety of ways such as:

• Joining relevant real estate groups in LinkedIn and Facebook
• Engage and share posts that link back to your website/page
• Connect with potential leads. (Message and check comments for leads)
• Search for real estate deals in BiggerPockets and send a direct message to the potential client
• Usage of “Keyword Alerts” in BiggerPockets like “foreclosures”, “New York”, so you will receive a notification when the keyword is included in a post, podcast, or article.
• Posting blog articles with backlinks to your website and a call to action

Direct Mail Campaign

There are rumors that direct mail is a dying strategy for real estate leads, but that is not entirely true! Direct mail can be effective but it needs to be done consistently and in volume. 

Many people make the mistake of buying a small list, sending out a couple of hundred mailers, and not getting any leads from it, and calling the strategy dead based on that one experience. 

On average, we have found that there is a 1% response rate regardless of list size and that about 1 in every 20 responses leads to a deal.

So on average, for every 2,000 mailers that are sent out, about 20 people will respond, and you will get 1 deal from your efforts. This can certainly have the potential for a good ROI, but again, you must be consistent and do it in volume!

Here are some helpful tips in executing a successful direct mail campaign:

• Lay out your products/services as clearly as possible
• Provide detailed information on how to get back with you in response to the offer
• Personalize your message
• Create a follow-up plan. You can ask the VA to do follow-ups by calling your leads

Conclusion

Generating quality real estate leads is not a simple task and can end up losing you more time if not done right. Automating your lead generation process will allow you to focus on the income-producing tasks that allow you to scale your business.

Remember, the best automation is a great Virtual Assistant!