What Is the Best Real Estate Lead Generation Software for Agents and Teams?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re just starting out in real estate or run an established team, the ability to consistently generate leads is an essential component of success. And although many aspects of real estate still need to be done manually, these days an efficient and effective lead gen strategy means leveraging lead generation software. There’s just no better way to locate high-quality leads, increase conversions, and improve lead nurturing and management, all while reducing your workload.

But it can be intimidating trying to choose between the many different lead gen options out there. In this guide, we’ll explain what to look for in real estate lead generation software, then take a closer look at what some of the best choices can and cannot do.

What Is Lead Generation Software?

Lead generation software is a type of tool you can use to help quickly and easily find, nurture, and manage leads. One of the primary ways it does this is through automation. For instance, lead gen software is typically designed to automatically capture leads from multiple sources, organize them into categories, and track their progress across the pipeline. They can often also send out targeted communications based on lead type or status.

Although this type of software exists across many industries, real estate lead generation tools are specifically designed with the needs of Realtors and real estate teams in mind. For example, they will be able to produce leads from relevant sources such as brokerage websites, listing sites, and multiple listing service (MLS), as well as differentiate between buyer and seller leads, among other features. All this can help Realtors streamline their lead gen strategy by improving their efficiency and conversion rates.

What Are the Benefits of Real Estate Lead Generation Software?

Here are some of the more specific benefits quality real estate lead generation software can offer you:

• Efficient lead capture: By automatically capturing and collecting leads from a variety of sources – such as websites, MLS, social media, and more – lead gen software gives you a much faster way to build up a list of potential clients.

• Streamlined lead management: After capturing leads, a good real estate lead gen tool can also organize them automatically. This may include categorizing and prioritizing them, keeping track of their status, and assigning them follow-up tasks.

• Nurturing and engagement: By helping you keep track of lead data (such as birthdays) and lead activity (such as website visits), lead gen software can also ensure you never miss out on an opportunity to nurture and engage with them.

• Data-driven decision making: Since lead generation software can often track key metrics of your lead gen efforts – like conversion rates, engagement levels, and campaign performance – you can quickly see what is and isn’t working. This will help you hone your lead gen strategies and make better informed decisions.

• Increased productivity: Just automating your lead generation efforts will save you a significant amount of time. But lead gen software can also make you more productive by using data to help focus your efforts on only the most promising and high-value leads.

How to Choose Real Estate Lead Generation Software

While there’s no such thing as the perfect lead generation software, you can make choosing one easier by first narrowing down the specific features and services that you need most. Here are a few ways you can start doing this.

1. Identify Your Lead Generation Needs

Knowing your specific lead generation requirements up front is one of the most helpful ways of determining the lead gen software that will work best for you. For instance, how does the size of your team affect your lead gen needs? Will you require robust lead categorization and organization services, or is it enough to simply pull in leads from different sources? 

And how many different types of lead sources do you prefer? Will these primarily come from PPC ads, your sphere of influence, or someplace else entirely – or maybe even a mix of all the above? And don’t forget the level of customization you’ll want. While some lead gen tools are flexible enough to adapt to your specific preferences, others may only have more specific and concrete services.

2. Assess Features and Functionality

Be sure to consider how the specific features and functions within each potential lead generation tool measure up against your needs. If you are in charge of lead generation for an entire team, then you might want to look out for lead gen software that offers a robust set of functionality, such as lead capture forms for your websites, integration with a CRM tool, plenty of options for capturing and nurturing leads, and of course the ability to automate these tasks as much as possible. 

However, if you run a smaller operation – or are just working on your own – then it may be worth using a more focused lead gen tool. In this case, the minimum requirement might be the ability to generate leads from a variety of sources, although which features you’ll want will ultimately depend on your specific circumstances. In any case, make sure you are getting the functionality you need to capture and convert new leads.

3. Consider User-Friendliness

All the features and functionality in the world won’t matter much if they’re too difficult to use. This is why it’s also crucial to consider the ease of use of your lead gen software. When testing different tools out, pay attention to how intuitive the interface is. Can you find the features you need, or does it take a fair amount of digging? Is the navigation simple and unintimidating, or do you think it will put off members of your team?

What about the features themselves? Ideally, they should be user-friendly enough for anyone to figure out, even someone who has never used lead gen software before. If they are too complex or the learning curve is too long, or if they don’t at least offer good technical documentation and customer support, then you may risk paying for a product that never gets properly utilized.

4. Evaluate Integration Possibilities:

Lead generation on its own is great, but it’s what you can do after you’ve captured and collected those leads that really matters. This makes it important to think about how you can integrate different lead gen tools into the systems and services you already use. One of the most important, for example, is a CRM tool. If you can generate leads and then seamlessly incorporate them into existing workflows or action plans, then you’ll already be set up for success.

Other important integrations include email marketing software, social media platforms, analytics tools – basically anything that will make it easier to avoid manual data entry, ensure a smooth flow of data, and leverage your existing tools.

Sierra Interactive: Amplifying Your Real Estate Lead Management Experience

There are many different tools out there for real estate lead generation – but none of them offer the breadth and depth of features and capabilities that Sierra Interactive can. Integrating our CRM into your workflows gives you:

• Powerful automation tools for simplifying and streamlining your everyday business processes.
• Comprehensive lead generation and management capabilities for unearthing new customers and keeping them as lifetime clients.
• Unparalleled marketing capabilities, from email and SMS to dynamic IDX websites, that put your salespeople and properties in the best light.
• Access to an expert team of developers and real estate professionals who can help your agency continue to grow.

And that’s just the beginning. Schedule your free demo to see what we can do for you today.