Need Lead Buying advice

**GoldenKeyRealty** · 12-07-2008, 11:07 PM

Hi,
As the market has shifted, I am finding myself more and more going outside my comfort zone.

Recently, I have been looking at purchasing leads, both buyer and seller. These leads are primarily generated from the Internet. I have looked at many different companies.

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck (good or bad) with purchased leads. Historically, I have been able to generate my own, but ......

Also, there was one site, that offered a flat rate "membership" fee, to get leads. They are non-exclusive. They are real time however.

Any thoughts for a struggling Los Angeles based realtor would be appreciated.

Brian

**Greg** · 12-08-2008, 08:13 AM

All of these companies will require you to sign up and pay upfront without knowing if they can produce what they promised. To find out if they will produce results look at their marketing.

Does their website show up in the top of the search engines? Probably not. Most of the lead generation websites have lost their rankings in the search engines.

More than likely what they will do is start a pay per click campaign and sell the leads to you. It is cheaper to create your own page for getting leads and do your own pay per click. You can do it for a fraction of what you will pay them plus the leads won't be sold to any other agents.

The only time I have ever seen any of these companies advertise on TV is when they are calling agents up to recruit. After their recruitment campaign ends so does the TV advertising.

If they are not advertising in your market then they can not get leads targeted to your market.

**ntkennedy** · 12-26-2008, 05:51 AM

I would recommend staying away from spending money on leads from companies like this. There are way more cost effective ways to generate leads.

My recommendation would be to generate retail buyers that may need some credit repair. These buyers can still get financing and it is a great way to build a pipeline of deals instead of working month-to-month.

Another great resource is to build a list of investors buyers using a squeeze page.

Nate Kennedy
VirtualREIMentor.com

**Commercial Agent** · 12-27-2008, 03:53 PM

Also consider visiting agents and brokers to solicit referrals.

No up front cash is required.

A luxury home specialist might be turning away buyers with a middle class budget.

Get to know good agents just beyond your market area ... and remember it can be a two way street.

**GoldenKeyRealty** · 01-03-2009, 07:23 PM

NTKennedy, thanks!

What are some of your favorite ways to find those types of buyers.

I just recently found a new loan product, that can offer 100% financing, even for people with less than perfect credit.

Brian

**DanielMarshel** · 01-13-2009, 05:03 AM

This is a hard time in market and traditional methods do not work. One need to be innovative and look at market trend closely to come with solutions.Wait for sometime and think of long term investments.

**Codythebest** · 01-13-2009, 05:11 AM

There is no good leads company out there. Keep you money.
Not only the lead is acquired by misleading ways and therefore are very cold leads but they are distributed to so many agents that it's not worth it at all...

**ntkennedy** · 01-13-2009, 04:56 PM

There are plenty of ways to do this...I generate most of my leads in 3 ways

1. Direct Mail to a very targeted list
2. Online Classified Postings
3. Article Marketing

The key is the landing page and then the automatic followup.

Thanks,

Nate Kennedy
VirtualREIMentor.com

**RussReynolds** · 01-15-2009, 01:36 PM

I think it was Dan Kennedy who said that most marketers are trying to find one way to bring in 100 customers when they should be finding 100 ways to bring into one customers.

I would drive both offline and online traffic in many ways to your segmented database. You could have a list of buyer prospects that saw your local paper advertising, another list that came from Craigslist, another list of mortgage brokers that you deal with etc.

The beauty of this system is that you can test and track where your best leads are coming from and ramp those sources up.

Also, you can communicate in a very personal way with each list forever and ever....amen

**RE_Investor** · 01-15-2009, 08:34 PM

I have paid for leads in the past, and have closed sales from them. You just have to use the marketing 101 that you learned at Realtor bootcamp.

But I do agree that taking that money to create your own leads is a better way to ensure many more leads for the future. The Internet is becoming the easiest way to bring in leads, so jump on board.

I have had huge success with free Internet advertising, although I do spend time, or pay an assistant to do it, so its technically not free, but very inexpensive.

I have found that creating a blog with local city and suburbs as keywords can bring in many leads. I can't get into a detailed discussion here, but search the Internet for information on creating blogs. Or, have a local freelancer do this for you with some of the money you would have spent on leads.

One last suggestion. Ask around local real estate offices for leads. I personally have more leads than I can even deal with, due to the fact that I have so many websites. I have spent years on that, and would rather create leads than run around showing or listing houses. I now only persue leads that could help me buy more investment properties. So I give my leads to other Realtors, and ask for a 30% referral fee. This costs them nothing up front, so the "bad" leads don't waste their money. Of course, I am more likely to give leads to the agents that sell the most houses!

Sorry to ramble on. If you have specific questions about anything to do with creating leads from the Internet, just PM me.