Who Else Wants More Real Estate Leads?

The real estate industry is in the worst shape that it's ever been - at least in my lifetime. More than a million homes are in foreclosure and things look like they'll get worse before they get better.

An upside to this is that leads are plentiful; people need to sell while others want to buy. In this context real estate leads abound.

Are you positioned to get some? Do you have a system for capturing leads and converting them to warm, responsive prospects who eventually buy or sell?

If not there are a few simple things you can do to generate more leads, whether you're a real estate agent, buyer, seller or investor. And if you really want to change your fortunes simply apply whatever strategies you develop consistently.

For example, you probably don't benefit as much as you think by making 50 cold calls on Monday and none the rest of the week. A better approach would be to do a minimum of 10 calls a day over five days, or up the ante and make 50 phone calls a day five days in a row. The question becomes "how many leads do you want and how hard do you want to work get them?"

I hate to admit it, but I'm a lazy marketer. What I mean is I believe in working smarter - not harder - and use the following tools and strategies to fuel my lead generation campaigns.

Signup forms. I use sign up forms to capture the names of folk who visit my website. If they're interested enough they'll sign up for my free newsletter and I incentivize them to do so by offering free, useful real estate marketing tips, tools and resources. The more I give the more subscribers I get.

Auto responder. I use an auto responders to automate the process of signing prospects up for my newsletter. I use it to process their requests for information and to automatically deliver the newsletters via email. I even attach and deliver free gifts from time to time. An auto responder can quickly set you apart from other folk working the same leads you are.

Study and apply lead generation ideas. Finally, I'm almost fanatical about learning to earn. I can' tell you how many leads I generate by reading and applying both old and new lead generation strategies. While things like gathering leads via open houses and through ads and flyer distribution isn't new many agents are still wrongly stuck on the idea that they have to have listings in order to do effectively these things and make it worth their while.

Who else wants more leads? Well, me for one; I can always use more, no matter how many I have. What about you?