Judge your Campaign Results after 100 Leads.
If you are a newer agent, or just new to internet seller lead generation, you must learn one simple rule if you are going to have long term success: You cannot live and die with every lead you receive.
When you are starting a new marketing campaign for your business, you are excited by the new possibilities this new campaign may bring and are ready to get started immediately. I understand, and share your enthusiasm, completely.
However, we must keep in mind that we are not going to be able to determine the quality of the overall leads, and the success you may have, within the first 20-30 leads over the first couple of weeks.
First off, we must think in blocks, or groups, of 100 leads. Any smaller number of leads than 100, and we simply do not have a large enough sample size to make any sort of accurate determination.
The Top Agents in your Market Convert at 5%.
For every 100 seller leads that you receive from Google Ads, you should be able to turn 2 or 3 of them into a listing. A 2-3% conversion rate from leads to listings is very realistic. Typically, the top agents in your market will convert leads into listings at 5% or higher. Think about that for a second, the top agents in your area, who consistently close the most deals, only convert internet leads into listings 5% of the time. That means that 95 out of every 100 leads they receive; those top agents strike out and do not end up working with the lead. Do not feel sorry for them though, by converting 5 out of 100 seller leads into listings, they are incredibly profitable.
For Seller Leads, a 2-4 Month Time Frame is Realistic.
Additionally, the time frame for most seller leads will fall between 2-4 months on average. There is no one on Earth that wishes that time frame were more greatly accelerated than me, however that is not realistic for seller leads. Sure, occasionally, we will get a lead for a divorce, or a death in the family, where they just want to list quickly with the first agent that they speak with. That will happen. However, that is a more random event that we cannot depend upon long term. What we can depend upon is that 2–4-month time frame on average.
On the flip side, there will be plenty of leads which have 6-, 8-, or 12-month time-frames. While not ideal because of their longer time frame, these are powerful pipeline building leads, and are essential to your long-term success. You will blink, and life will have happened, and 6 months will go by. That is not a long period of time. It sure is nice to have several pipeline leads waiting for you at the 6-, 8- and 10-month mark. After all, you still want to take new listings 6 months from now right? That is how you build long term success as a listing agent.
More Leads equal More Opportunities.
My point is, that this is a numbers game. The more high-quality visitors that we can attract, the greater chance we will have to turn those visitors into high-quality leads. The more leads that we generate, the more opportunities you will have to talk to these people and find out their time frame and intentions. This will not only take a good number of leads, but it will also take time.
When any company is running a marketing campaign with Google or Facebook Ads, they are not checking ID’s when the visitors to your landing pages submit their lead information. There will be fake names, fake email addresses, and fake phone numbers provided. Fake leads are an unfortunate reality with real estate lead generation. We control the number of fake leads that we receive by our traffic source, how our campaigns are structured, along with the keywords and ads that we are using.
