The new normal: generating and managing leads for estate agents in a post-COVID world

With insights drawn from full-length webinars first broadcast on Facebook Live, a panel of ICG-approved suppliers and leading estate agents discuss lead generation strategies for estate agents in a post-COVID world. 

Right now, it’s hard to imagine a time beyond the current COVID-19 crisis, but the thought-leaders at ICG have been getting together to discuss how the property industry can thrive once the pandemic is over. In response to estate agents’ questions, they have also been weighing up the pros and cons of leaving Rightmove.  

“Just talk to people”

As far as Mark Ross of Redbrik is concerned, lead generation for estate agents is all about the long game. He feels that agents tend to look for “instant wins” instead of working towards longer-term goals through thoughtful community engagement. Many ICG panel members agree that ‘the long game’ means taking the time to build relationships with individual customers. Richard Powell of Ryder Dutton adds: “I always say to my negotiators, ‘just talk to people’: it doesn’t really matter what it’s about.”

Maria Brett of telecommunications supplier Global 4 Communications states that 40% of agents are still using older telephone systems. She says new leads can be won or lost depending on an agency’s ability to answer telephone calls promptly. Maria recommends using good value professional message systems such as Marketing on Hold, that encourage clients to stay on the call until it can be picked up by a member of staff.

Gordon McRury of CCT Technology, specialists in AI driven digital marketing campaigns, is also concerned with the risk of losing potential leads. He claims valuation ads featuring a single property image are unlikely to engage a vendor. “If you’ve got a carousel ad of four great properties that you’ve sold, you can say ‘we’ve sold these four properties within two weeks of going to market’.  That’s something that will get people interested.”  He adds that with CCT’s help, agents can geo target campaigns down to individual postcodes, a technique that can prove even more effective for generating leads.

Estate agent prospecting without portals

In response to a question about whether estate agents should leave Rightmove, Iain White of Agency Mentors suggests that each business should make a decision based on its level of dependency on Rightmove.  While a “strong, local brand” could manage without it, another might not survive.

“Before you cancel you should have put some time into testing out all the different digital marketing channels,” advises Ben Sellers of digital marketing company Starberry. He warns that without a good digital marketing strategy “you’re going to drop off a cliff.”  Ben’s advice is to put some thought into brand communications, embracing social media, so agents can be “confidently generating leads” before making a final decision to leave.

Heather Staff from Spectre, a market leader in instruction generation tools, agrees with Ben.  As Spectre can see the market share of all its clients, it has gained a unique perspective on the fate of estate agents who choose to leave Rightmove.  While Heather says the market share of “the vast majority” of leavers has dropped, some have maintained and even grown their market share.

Heather explains that agents who leave Rightmove successfully do well because “they’ve got a plan.”  According to Heather, these are the agents who have thought about how they will pitch the idea of not using Rightmove to future clients.  They will have also considered how to deal with difficult calls to existing clients and worked out how to deal differently with the valuation process.

Charlie Perdios of Anthony Pepe admits: “We’ve come off Rightmove this month.”  Charlie believes that despite all the innovations available to estate agents, agents remain “quite poor” at dealing with leads.  Charlie considers his agency already has enough leads from Zoopla and other portals and wants his staff to concentrate their efforts on converting those leads.

Charlotte Jeffrey-Campbell from The Able Agent believes that “being structured” is the key to estate agent lead generation outside the major portals.  She says agents have got to plan, get their data right, train their teams, focus on social media and start working in the community to be successful.

Open the door to industry insights

As the UK’s leading PropTech and PropService suppliers, our members are ideally placed to offer unique ideas, tips and guidance to estate agents. Contact ICG for help and advice or register with us to receive all the latest news, plus invitations to future webinars, all completely free of charge.

To find out more on Lead generation without portals, check out the below video

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