Creative Ways to Get Real Estate Referrals

You've heard it before, the key to generating real estate referrals is providing excellent service and delivering follow-up. And while that is important here are four unique strategies that will help you generate more real estate referrals for 2021.

How to Get Real Estate Referrals: 4 Winning Strategies

1. Host Can't-Miss Events

It used to be that hosting the best Open House around was one of the most surefire ways to generate real estate referrals, nowadays hosting events requires getting creative. One excellent event idea, perfect for the current times, is offering to host a housewarming party for customers over Zoom. This service is perfect for clients who aren't yet that familiar with videoconferencing. Plan fun activities and games that people can partake in remotely and that will make the time fly by. This is the perfect way to be introduced to the network of your happy customers. 

Another tactic to take with events right now is to host a webinar or virtual roundtable discussion about real estate topics that your audience might be interested in. These could include, "Trends of Today's Market," "What Everyone Should Know About Selling Their Home?," "How to Buy in a Seller's Market," "How to Organize Your Home Like a Pro," and many more. This is the perfect opportunity to collaborate with other industry leaders, and an excellent tactic for drumming up leads in and of itself. 

2. Provide High-Quality Information

When you're looking to generate real estate referrals, it's important to think of it as being in exchange for something of value. There will be those referrals that come naturally from your excellent service and knowledge as a realtor, but in the essential quest to create more, it's important to consider that you should be adding value to your network, not just taking leads from it. 

There are some excellent opportunities for doing this online. One common way is to host a blog on your website. It's important to remember that the blog is not simply to promote your business or even properties. It should be providing content that is of substance and value to your potential leads. Blog post topics could be about the real estate market or about the happenings of the local community. You can feature local businesses, and even cover positive news stories from the community.

A similar tactic to offering a blog is to offer community or neighborhood guides on the pages of your website. This can be a powerful way to generate referrals as those looking to buy will usually conduct extensive online research on the area where they plan to live. It can be worthwhile not just to invest in the content, but also in making certain that keywords are used to create the best search engine optimization. 

Quora and NextDoor are other unexpected outlets where you can help prospects simply by answering their questions about your area of business. You should think of it as helping people out online, just as you would anyone who came into your office with a question, and it can lead to future sales.

3. Leverage Social Media

If you're not using social media to grow your client base, then you're missing out. But it can feel overwhelming, and it can be tricky to get right. Remember to think of lead generation as being in exchange for high-quality information and post accordingly. What will your target audience be most interested in? Create posts that will provide that, from sharing local news stories to articles about general real estate trends. Create a branded voice to write posts that will connect well with your client base. 

In terms of posting on your personal account, it's fine to do that, just don't overdo it and follow these rules of thumb. Will it be interesting to your network? If you're using your personal account to advertise every property and that's it, people will quickly tune you out as a sales channel. If you offer high-quality, engaging information, people will regard you as an industry expert.

Social media is also a great place to capture the newly important "reviews" and "testimonials." These are an important source of information for millennials, who are a fast-growing segment of buyers and sellers. By encouraging satisfied clients to leave you reviews you'll be paving the way for new leads. 

4. Reach Out to Local Businesses and Community

Realtors should think of themselves as an integral part of the local community. A great way to do this is to work to partner with local businesses. This can be a great venue for distributing branded content (remember to always follow the rule of adding value). Another great way to connect is through community service. Now is a great time to help with necessary services, it's needed more than ever. Either by hosting events, sponsoring ongoing charities, or simply regularly attending activities where you can lend a hand, you'll be getting out to the community and making connections with others who are helping out. It's a great way to become closer to your community at large. 

And remember, in all of your strategies to generate real estate referrals, it's critical to be authentic and respectful. Nobody wants to feel like they're constantly being bombarded with a sales pitch. But if you offer quality information or help that people want, future clients will come to you easily. 

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