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While the internet has opened up a gamut of marketing possibi

lities for real estate professionals, on the flip side – it has made life a whole lot busier for them.

Generate Real Estate Leads online:

Dozens of platforms to post listings on, dozens more to track for buyer posts : indeed, getting real estate leads online can be back-breaking work! And to help you with that, here’s a detailed list of all the sources you need to keep your eyes on :

Property Sites

These sites connect the buy and sell sides of the property market. As buyers can search properties for free, these sites earn revenue by selling advertising packages to builders, brokers and independent property owners.

These packages can offer any of the following : basic listing, premium listings with top slots in search results, display ads, on-site branding through featured sections for properties/builders/brokers, etc. The top property sites in India include :-

India Rank :

228

Packages :

1 free listing

Multiple packages for owners, builders, brokers and loan financiers

Starting at INR 1463 for 1 listing, valid 60 days.

Package costs vary on the basis of city and are negotiable.

For more details, please check : https://www.magicbricks.com/advertise-with-us

Contact :

Phone – +91-9717290027

Email – mbsales@magicbricks.com

India Rank :

267

Packages :

1 free listing

Multiple packages for owners, builders and brokers.

Starting at INR 974 for 1 listing, valid 90 days.

Package costs vary on the basis of city and are negotiable.

For more details, please check :

https://www.99acres.com/do/my99acres/homepage/route/bos

Contact :

Phone – 1800-419-9099

Email – services@99acres.com

3.

India Rank :

344

Packages :

Multiple subscription packages based on the number of listings offered

Other advertising opportunities in the ‘featured’ sections such as ‘featured developer’, ‘latest properties’, etc.

No banner ads

For more details, please check :

https://housing.com/rent-sell-property

Contact :

Email : support@housing.com

4.

India Rank :

420

Packages :

Advertising opportunities in the form of top slots in search results, ‘featured sections’

No banner ads

For more details, please contact them via email

Contact :

Phone – 1800 180 180 180

Email – contactus@commonfloor.com

5.

India Rank :

579

Packages :

1 free listing

Multiple packages for owners, brokers and individual sellers; they sell premium listings, advertising space, as well as ‘buyer leads’ databases

Starting at INR 999 for 1 listing, valid 30 days

Package costs vary depending upon city and are negotiable

For more details, please check :

https://www.indiaproperty.com/advertise/advertise.php (accessible on sign-up).

Contact :

Phone – 1800 3000 0000

Email – advertise@indiaproperty.com

These 5 sites usually take the top spots on Google for any property related searches that a buyer may input, which is why it is important to have a presence on them. For example, here’s what the results look like for ‘3BHK in Whitefield’ :

These property sites also post highly useful home-buying information such as news, buying guides, price trends, etc. As such, they enjoy not only a high volume of traffic, but also credibility with the buyers.

Other growing real estate portals include Makaan.com, PropertyBazaar, PropTiger and niche websites like Creindia (for commercial property listings), Nestoria (a real estate aggregator to connect agents with buyers; listing is free but they are charged on a pay-per-lead basis) and NRIHomes (only for NRIs).

Free Classified Sites

These sites allow buyers and sellers of products across multiple categories (real estate, electronics, home appliances, etc.) to post their requirements as ads for free.

Here are the top free classified sites in the country :-

1.

As the free classifieds market is relatively young in India, not all such sites have monetized their business yet. OLX, for example, simply earns money by enabling Google ads on their page :

India Rank :

45

Packages :

OLX only supports free listings and does not have packages for top slots or similar advertising.

However, it is a part of Google’s advertising network, so you can display banner ads on its website through display campaigns on Google Adwords.

Contact :

Phone – 1800-103-3333

To post a free ad, go to – https://olx.in/posting/

2.

Unlike OLX, Quikr (which has recently launched it’s full-fledged real estate portal, QuikrHomes), sells premium listings (top slots in search results) and other on-page advertising options to get you increased exposure for your ad. Here’s what on-page ads on QuikrHomes look like :

India Rank :

61

Packages :

QuikrHomes supports free listings, and also offers multiple advertising options such as :-

Listings marked as Premium

Being featured on the search homepage of the real estate category

Placing banner ads through Google Adwords

Contact :

Phone – +91 022 67290000

Email – advertise@quikr.com

To post a free ad, go to – http://www.quikr.com/homes/postad

The above are the two largest players in the free classifieds market in India, with the third (Sulekha), being far behind at rank 203. Smaller sites include Locanto, Click.in, Clickindia, Craigslist, Vivasteet, Trovit and Mitula.

As these are free sources of leads, real estate professionals must definitely post on such sites and monitor them for matching customer ads.

Local Search Engines

These sites allow you to list your business (as opposed to products) and function as online directories. While you can list your business for free, they have premium packages to help you get higher visibility. These packages vary based on the industry, competition and city.

JustDial is the largest local search engine in the country, with an India-wide website ranking of 83. It allows you to list your business for free, and also offers multiple advertising options such as :

Top slots in the search results

Top slots in the SMSs sent to people looking for businesses in your field

Details of leads who use JustDial to find businesses in your field

On-site banner ads

AskLaila, Grotal, Sulekha Yellow Pages, GetIt, StartLocal, etc. are a few of the smaller players in this segment.

Search Engine Advertising

Search engines offer multiple advertising options such as ads on their search results (above or next to the results), ads on the websites/apps in their partner network, etc. They come with tools to help you identify the keywords your prospects are searching for, and highly focused targeting options to help you maximize the impact of your ad.

Google is the most visited site in the country and across the world. It offers various advertising options for businesses :-

Display Network : These ads are displayed on relevant websites, apps, etc. in Google’s partner network. You can also choose specific websites you want to target (of course, they should be a part of Google Adsense to be able to display the ad).

Search Engine Network : These ads are displayed on top or to the side of Google’s search results for specific search queries (specified by the advertiser previously).

Search with Display Select : These ads are displayed both in the search results as well as in its display network. However, the display network chosen is more carefully targeted.

Video Ads : These are video ads that appear before or in the middle of a YouTube video and also display network videos, games and apps. If you run TV ads, you should definitely consider running these ads as they are run on a CPV model (that is, you don’t pay until the visitor views your ad). You would be charged only if the viewer views the ad for 30 seconds or the full duration of the ad, or if they engage with the ad (click on the CTA etc.).

Yahoo and Bing are other search engines that see significantly lesser traffic than Google, and are therefore cheaper to put search/display ads on.

These services operate upon a pay per click/view model (that is, you are charged only when your ad is clicked or viewed). This cost per click/view depends upon multiple factors such as industry, competition, etc.

Social Networks

1. Advertise on Social Networks

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter possess important and personalized data about their large user databases. This enables them to deliver highly-targeted and inexpensive advertising solutions to businesses.

Apart from the Big Two of the social networking world, real estate professionals dealing in high-end or luxury properties can also use LinkedIn to target people based on their job titles (for example, CXOs, directors, etc.)

2. Track Social Networks for Prospects

Home-buyers often post their requirements on Facebook groups and Twitter. Real estate professionals can smartly monitor such posts to generate relevant leads for free.

For example, a real estate broker in Bangalore can participate in the following Facebook groups :

Here, it is important to note that posting the same comment on every buyer post will invite suspicion. Instead, write natural responses tailored to the posters’ requirements. Aim to help, and avoid coming across as a spammer.

A platform largely neglected by those in the real estate business, Twitter can surprisingly throw up lots of ripe leads when you search for specific terms in its Advanced Search tab.

For example, if you’re a real estate broker in Bangalore, you can run searches such as : “looking” + “BHK” + Bangalore”, and get results such as:-

Twitter allows you to save searches, so once you set all of them up, you will only need to refresh them regularly to identify new leads.

Owned Media for Long-run Lead Generation

Building an engaging presence for your brand can pay off and generate quality leads in the long-run. This can be done through :

1. Website and Social Media

You can use forms on your website to convert visitors into leads. Make sure the forms are short and act as a gateway to something that is of high value to the visitor – such as a free property guide, a discount, a free consultation, etc.

Alternatively, you can use a live-chat pop-up wherein a person is required to enter their email before participating. Once you capture the lead details, you can reach out to them via email and take the conversation further.

Generating leads through your website organically (that is, without paying for PPC ads on search engines) is a long-term strategy, because your site will get visits only if and once you have built a brand for yourself. Likewise, your social media channels will also start bringing you organic leads once your brand name is strong enough.

2. Blog

You can blog about property-related topics that people search about. You can find what terms prospective home-buyers are searching for the most, through Google’s free Keyword Planner.

Increase in blog traffic will not only drive more visits to your website and build your authority as an industry leader, but also, you can use your blog to capture leads through pop-ups, subscribes, offer widgets on side or top bars, etc.

While this might sound like a relatively inexpensive strategy, it will get results only in the long-run as building a stable stream of readership will take you time. So, it needs significant amount of dedicated effort.

3. Email

If you have databases, you can create compelling email campaigns and use them to filter the quality leads (based on click/open rates) from the junk ones.

A few offline channels you could try for added benefit..

Offline events

There are a number of property and real estate fairs that are conducted in many major cities. These events can either be occasional or an annual occurence. By either attending or setting up booths at these fairs, you would be able to directly interact with your prospects.

(Here’s a list of all the real estate events that are coming up in 2017! Don’t forget to mark your calendars)

Traditional advertising media

Even in this digital age, TV and Radio ads can’t be ignored. Run an advert for your services as it suits your budget. This is a great way to target those segment of prospects who haven’t made the digital transition yet.

6. Referrals:

Did you know that the most trusted form of marketing is word of mouth? Get your existing clientele to recommend you to their friends and relatives. Give them reason and incentive to do so and watch the leads come pouring in!

…and that’s a wrap : we hope this post will help you crack the lead generation code in 2017!

This post has been written in collaboration with RealtyFact, India’s No. 1 real estate magazine. All rankings have been taken from SimilarWeb. If you have any queries or feedback, please leave a comment below and we’ll make sure we get back within 12 hours!