Doing Business Online
Get Real Estate Leads in Real-time

Part of the "Professional Real Estate Agent Handbook" Series

The advantages of doing business online—regardless of what industry you’re a part of—is the fact that you can enjoy the perks of a round-the-clock business without supervising it simultaneously. You also have the benefits of generating responses in real-time and creating an effective database from where you can store the crucial information in your business.

Real estate, like many other enterprises, relies heavily on the leads to which it can market its product. More than any other business enterprise, however, it has taken great advantage of the virtual realm of the Internet. Many arduous tasks usually performed by real estate agents have been facilitated or taken over by the Internet. This, however, has not been such a bad thing.

One of the most beneficial benefits of the Internet to the real estate industry is the fact that instead of having clients visiting open house shows or model units, they may opt to view the real estate in the comfort of their own home. This is done through virtual tours of any real estate property. Virtual tours can be advanced enough to integrate full navigation of a virtual counterpart of the unit or property you are selling.

Given that your would-be client has complete access to information you usually would provide in person, how then can you make sure that you can still get leads out of these virtual tours? Maximize the potential of the Internet and make sure that while they are clicking away in their virtual real estate tour, they provide you with further information through which you can get in touch with them or send them other information about your venture.

Another option is to tie up your content with the information you need. This means that for them to be able to view your real estate video or take a virtual tour, they will have to provide you with an email address or the like, or sign up for your newsletter. This way, you can keep track of who’s taking your virtual tours, and moreover, keep interested those who seem interested by providing supplementary materials right to their inboxes.

After the virtual tour, you may also create a page designed especially for online referrals. Don’t hesitate to ask the visitor to enter the email addresses of friends should he or she be impressed with the virtual tour. Send these referred email addresses links to your website and to the virtual tour, and you will find your leads increasing exponentially.