For all of us that invest heavily in lead generation, online or otherwise, we want to make sure that we get as much bang for our buck as possible. After all, not only does lead gen’s return on investment (ROI) affect profitability, it dictates how much reinvestment is possible to fuel growth. Much of the industry has focused on improving the lead gen process itself, whether it be lead quality or quantity, but this is not the full story when it comes to optimizing ROI.
When your marketing ROI formula is viewed holistically, lead generation represents the ‘I for investment’, while ‘R for return’ is dictated by commissions generated from those leads. Both sides of this formula are equally important, but it’s largely lead-gen that has attracted both mind-share and technological innovation in the past decade or so.
This trend, however, may be starting to reverse. A new concept – offer generation – is starting to change the way agents and brokers think about their business ROI, and how to improve the effectiveness of their lead generation.
At its core, offer gen is about bringing the same sophisticated techniques and best-practices that are used in generating leads to the arena of converting leads into offer-writing clients. A great many low-hanging opportunities exist to improve the home buying experience for prospects and clients, which ultimately increases the likelihood an offer is written and accepted.
Why focus on offers, and not on, say, close of escrow? “It turns out, whether or not an offer is accepted, the odds of your client eventually closing on a house gets dramatically higher after their first offer,” says Imran Poladi, Vice President at NextHome.
The perks of generating more offers comes not only from the direct effect it has on closing transactions, but also from the uplift it provides to lead generation. The best agents and brokers know their exact lead conversion rates by source, and spend preferentially on the sources with higher conversion. If improvements in offer gen can provide an increase in overall lead conversion regardless of source, it opens up the opportunity to increase lead gen budgets in general.
“For both serious online lead generators and referral/repeat-business-focused real estate professionals, offer generation extends the effectiveness of your investment,” says Duke Fan, VP of Product at RealScout, a pioneering offer gen platform. “By efficiently capturing lead gen prospects, adding expert value to the home search process and actively keeping track of decisions clients make about properties, agents can expect a huge boost in the offers they generate.”
So the next time you’re wondering how to get the most from your lead gen, take pause and consider your offer gen strategy. By fixing a few simple things around your client engagement tactics, you can elevate both your lead gen ROI and your client’s satisfaction – not a bad path to growing your business!
To learn more about offer generation, read the entire Offer Generation Playbook at www.OfferGenPlaybook.com.
