Yes, you can generate real estate leads during the coronavirus. The right content will not only help you keep your business running through this crisis, but also help inform the people who are visiting your website.
Have you decided how you’ll generate real estate leads during the coronavirus pandemic? Sure, you can cold call, but door knocking is most likely out of the question.
Agents we’ve spoken with tell us that they’ll rely more heavily on direct mail and digital marketing in the months ahead.
Good idea. Plenty of folks are at home and, from what we’ve heard, boredom-busting is their primary goal. And, they’re busting it with movies, games and by spending lots of time on social media.
Verizon, for instance, claims that “total web traffic was up by 22%” between March 12 and March 19, according to Marguerite Reardon at CNET.com.
Real estate agents are open for business, despite the crisis we currently find ourselves in. Cementing your brand, nurturing those in your pipeline, continuing to reach out to past clients and, yes, generating real estate leads are still critical right now.
What has changed, is the vehicle. How you reach out, how you engage, which topics you decide to address matter more now than ever.
It’s time to get more sociable
If you use your Facebook business page as a showcase for open houses and listings, it’s time to rethink that strategy. Even under “normal” circumstances, that type of social media post is a snooze. When it’s one after the other, you probably don’t have many followers.
Consider a campaign geared toward creating relationships with other agents across the country. Nurture these relationships and, over time, you’ll have a nice little referral network to rely on.
LinkedIn is the ideal vehicle for this type of campaign. More of a networking platform than Twitter or Facebook, using LinkedIn strategically can add a lot of value to your business.
And, since you probably have some spare time on your hands, get to know the inner workings of the platform and how to best position yourself within it.
Need to generate real estate leads during the coronavirus? Blog, blog and then blog some more
There has been a 60 percent surge in traffic to publisher’s websites (NY Times, Washington Post, etc.), according to Sara Guaglione at MediaPost.com.
She goes on to say that “up to 15% of daily web traffic is to content explicitly mentioning coronavirus.”
Surprisingly, coronavirus articles represent a puny 1 percent of content right now, she concludes.
Which gives you an amazing opportunity to not only generate real estate leads during the coronavirus but to provide valuable information to your visitors and social media followers.
And the ideal vehicle for this is content – blogging, specifically.
Consider the various topics about coronavirus that people are searching for.
“Coronavirus tips,” for instance, is in “breakout” status on Google Trends
This means that the search term “grew by more than 5000%,” according to the pros at Support.Google.com.
CDC.gov, EPA.gov and various .edu websites offer numerous tips on how to stay safe, how to care for a coronavirus patient in the home, how to disinfect the home and more.
A post about what to do if homeowners can’t make their mortgage payment or rent is quite welcome right now. What mortgage forbearance options are available to borrowers with VA-backed loans? How to sell your home during the outbreak and how to buy one.
Local coronavirus tip posts can include:
- Which types of businesses are open, which are closed?
- Where to shop during a shutdown
- Who is selling masks, hand sanitizer, diapers, etc.
- Which businesses are hiring?
- How is the virus is impacting your housing market – are people still buying and selling homes?
If it feels a bit mercenary to generate real estate leads during the coronavirus, remember that the information you are providing is information many are seeking and it’s quite valuable. For the time being, at least, you are no longer a “salesperson,” but a community resource.
Stay healthy!
