Buy A Foreclosure Home

In the past, I’ve written articles about consistently generating a good quantity of new leads each month. For my business, this quantity was 400 leads every month. This article will shift the focus from the quantity to the quality of these leads.

In this day and age, agents seem to be putting all their eggs in the basket of inexpensive leads. I have found, however, that inexpensive leads tend to be of lower quality.

This is what I have found in my business:

Leads of lower-quality seem attractive because they are generated without spending a lot on the “front end” to generate them. However, what seems to be happening is agents are spending more on the “back end,” which is the process of attempting to convert leads to sales after the leads are captured. This “back end” marketing includes sales letters, special offers, drip e-mail campaigns, postcards and more.

In my own business, the quality of leads is ranked as follows: (Ranked from high to low)

1. Referral

2. Endorsement from a joint venture partner

3. Leads who register to attend a class

4. Leads who respond to an advertorial ad

5. Leads responding to a “solo” email or “pay-per-click”

6. Leads responding to a home buyer magazine advertisement or classified ad

7. Leads responding to a free internet ad (Craigslist or similar)

It’s a problem that so many agents seem to focus on Craigslist or classified ads that attract the lowest-quality leads. What ensues is a struggle to convert these inexpensive leads into appointments and sales.

To be successful, an agent’s marketing campaign must include leads from each of the sources listed above. I would evn suggest that more resources be invested in the top four or five categories, in order to capture higher-quality leads. The amount invested will be higher, but the higher-quality leads will mean less invested per lead to convert them into clients/buyers.

If you want to see less competition in your area, heed this advice. The majority of your competitors will continue to put the emphasis on the inexpensive ads that bring in the lower-quality leads. Let them work with those leads. How many agents in your market are putting together joint venture marketing campaigns? How many are running advertorial advertisements? I would guess there probably aren’t too many.

Why?

It’s a downward spiral for these other agents. Focusing on lower-quality leads means not selling very many homes. And with limited home sales, funds will get tighter and they won’t be able to afford marketing that does attract higher-quality leads. You can gain a long-term economic advantage just by turning your focus to high-quality leads now.

The bottom line is that a lead is not a lead. There are different qualities in the leads you generate. You should create a comprehensive marketing campaign that focuses on generating higher quality leads and let your competitors fight over the lower quality leads.