Discover how you can attract and convert more valuation leads, using Facebook, instant online valuation tools and email marketing. We share with you a proven strategy used by successful estate agents to attract valuation leads in their town.
Generating and converting valuation leads
Facing increasing levels of competition, it’s no surprise that the number one priority for many UK estate agents is instruction winning lead generation.
But, with new PropTech ideas springing up all the time it can be difficult to pin down, amongst all the noise, what really works and what does not.
There is, however, a standout solution – instant online valuation tools. Addressing both the need for lead generation and the increasingly digital consumer, these online valuation tools will help you convert your website visitors into leads, by simply exchanging their contact details for an instant valuation of their property.
The rise of instant online valuation tools
In recent years, online valuation tools have been widely adopted, with ValPal reporting over 4,000 branches using its tools.
For potential vendors and landlords already familiar with your brand and visiting your website, these valuation tools will be successfully converting them into leads.
However, visitor numbers to independent estate agent websites are relatively low in comparison to Rightmove or Zoopla for example; so how do you drive more visitors to your website to engage them with your valuation tool and convert them into tangible leads?
Using social media to drive instant online valuations
This is where harnessing the power of social media can help. If you have a large, established social media following, then you can create targeted posts to engage your followers and direct them to get an instant valuation.
For those of you with a smaller following, this activity on its own will only increase the number of instant online valuations you receive by a small amount; so, what else can you do to drive visitors to your website?
Facebook advertising
Adopting a paid strategy using Facebook ads will increase the number of top of funnel leads you can attract, more quickly and successfully than relying on organic posts. (See our article on lead funnels for estate agency marketing if you are unsure about funnel strategies).
Facebook boasts incredible stats with a claimed 1 billion DAILY active users. See this article for more impressive stats. Not only does this mean that they are likely to have a significant number of users who you would want to attract, but a large number of them are interacting with Facebook every day!
Realistically, however, your estate agency probably only wants to attract vendors and landlords in your area, and this is where using the Facebook ad manager will help.
You can set up your Facebook ads so that they will only be shown to an audience that meets your requirements. You can choose their gender, their age range, income level, even their interests.
Once you have your audience set up, then you can focus on creating an advertisement that will encourage them to visit the instant valuation tool on your website. You may need to test a few different styles of the ad, and vary your audience requirements to see what gets the best results.
One of the benefits of Facebook advertising is that once you have worked out what ad and audience combinations gets the most visitors to your website, the cost of getting each lead reduces.
Beyond basic Facebook ads – remarketing
Have you ever been browsing Facebook and an ad has appeared from a site you were browsing recently? It’s not a coincidence, it’s remarketing.
Facebook allows you to include a tracking code on your website, so it can see who is visiting your website. All you have to do is set up your Facebook ad audience, to target people who have recently visited your website, and they will receive your targeted ads automatically.
Following an instant valuation
Many agents will call their instant valuation leads, to further qualify them and convert them into real life valuations. Tools like ValPal also have a booking form at the last step to encourage conversions.
However, this approach will largely only be successful with the bottom of funnel leads, i.e. those thinking about moving. How do you go about converting all the other leads?
Use email to keep in touch
As many of the instant valuations won’t convert initially, you will need to encourage these leads to stay in touch with your estate agency. Email marketing offers a cost-effective way of keeping in touch over and above other marketing channels.
Ideally, you want your leads to join your newsletter or email series so that you can deliver and maintain regular communications with them. Explore our email marketing software for estate agents for an easy cost effective way to send email marketing.
Some estate agents set up a dedicated nurture program, which focuses on sending relevant, helpful and well thought out emails to vendors and landlords thinking of selling their properties. This allows them to demonstrate their local knowledge and expertise, as well as including the important calls to action.
Nurturing prospective clients in this way will often put you front of mind when they are ready to book a valuation or require further information. Again, if you need help with this get in touch.
Integrating your approach
Attracting and converting new valuation leads is greatly encouraged with a clear, streamlined strategy. Using Facebook, instant online valuation tools, and targeted email as an integrated approach, as opposed to standalone activities, will always deliver the best results.
Getting started will take some time and effort, but once in place, it is simply a case of managing the process, evaluating and then refining your approach based on your results.
For your agency, the outcome will be a proven, reliable, measurable and effective approach to attracting and converting new instruction leads.
Check out our next article which is a guide to implementing a Facebook instant online valuation funnel.
Get in touch to talk about our installation and managed Facebook instant online valuation services.