Every agent needs leads.
But focusing primarily on lead portals can be a costly mistake—especially during times when transactions are dwindling.
With fewer quality leads to go around, real estate agents need to be able to stand out to the consumer (especially since there are probably another 8-10 agents with the same database of leads as you).
And the best way to do that is by building a foundation so strong, it can withstand any market.
Build a Foundation for Lead Generation
If you are working on your own or growing a small team, you don’t have to support hundreds of leads a month.
Instead of investing heavily in lead sources, focus on building a foundation for your leads—one that will help you gain trust as an expert in your local market.
In a recent BAMx Q&A mastermind, Byron Lazine shared how large real estate teams across the country, including his own, have invested so much in their Zillow and Realtor.com relationships over the past couple of years, that they actually have too many leads coming in. And at the same time, they are working to strengthen their foundation by committing to building real brand equity.
We have over 800 leads coming in a month. And I’m starting now to reduce that lead flow, because what’s the point if eight other people have them? We need to build a more authentic and engaging brand with those consumers that are living in the database.
For any agent or team ready to invest, here’s how you can build a strong foundation for your brand.
The Ken Pozek Playbook
Rather than spend all your money on leads, consider using the Ken Pozek playbook. In other words, invest in a real strategy for YouTube and social media. This strategy should include content for the consumers in your market—sharing top attractions, restaurants, and things to do, as well as local news, housing market stats, and other things locals want to know.
I’d rather you invest in that—having an in-house YouTube person who can produce, edit, run the channel, and run this system than buying more leads.
Ken’s playbook is straightforward and consistent, starting with two pillar videos every week.
Pillar #1: Local News
Pick one day of the week to release an 8-10 minute video on a piece of local news. Every week, use Google to search and select a piece of news that is trending. From there, bring the news down to homeowners: What does it mean for them? Or, if needed, debunk the headlines with stats and data to back up your claim.
Pillar #2: Go Live
On another day each week, go live on your channel. Ken Pozek and Jeremy Knight both do this on a weekly basis on their channels. These live shows allow you to interact with consumers through the live chat. Each week, have a few topics in mind, whether it’s questions to ask a guest or local news stories, and then spend some time doing Q&A.
Produce Shorts
Once both of your pillar videos for the week are edited and uploaded, you can repurpose those longer videos by creating clips. Upload a YouTube Short from those two pieces of pillar content to fill up the rest of your week.
With this playbook, you are only filming two videos a week, but producing enough content to deliver something to your audience every day. By keeping the focus of these video on what the consumer wants to learn about, you
Next Steps: Build Out More Pillars
Once you have a strong foundation with your YouTube channel, start building out additional pillars for your community content:
- Turn your content into a website for your local market. This doesn’t even have to be attached to your team. For example, Ken Pozek runs the Ken Pozek Team, but he publishes his community and market content on The Orlando Real.
- Expand to other social channels. Deliver community content on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter to ensure you are adding value everywhere.
- Build a newsletter with the content you are producing to collect emails.
When you start focusing on creating content that appeals to consumers in your local market, adds value, and allows you to collect email addresses, you are able to build a database that naturally grows to know, like, and trust you.
And that creates a stronger foundation than any online lead portal can give you.
