Learn to build a real estate sales funnel that converts in five minutes. Use our expert seven steps to build a funnel that attracts, converts, and retains customers.
Websites are essential, not just extras, for attracting traffic and leads.
However traditional sites often struggle to convert visitors effectively. That’s where a sales funnel shines through. It’s a clear path that guides visitors toward taking desired actions. Imagine it as a roadmap leading prospects to your real estate offer.
In this guide, we reveal how to create a high-converting real estate sales funnel.
Want to Grow Your Real Estate Business? Download the Complete Grant & Funding eBook for instant access to grants, guides, and more. 80+ Grant and Scholarship Opportunities (FG, State-by-State, General & Underrepresented Groups Scholarships, Plus Grant Writing Checklist). 900+ Copies Sold Already. Get Your Copy Now
We dissect the psychology of sellers and buyers at each funnel stage and provide tips for aligning your message with their needs.
With step-by-step instructions and tips, this article hands you a complete blueprint for a sales funnel that works wonders for your real estate business.
Table of Contents
The 4 Stages of the Sales Funnel: How a House Seller or Buyer Decides
Before we dive into the details of how to build a sales funnel, let’s first understand how a house seller or buyer decides to take action.
The decision-making process can be divided into four stages:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision, and
- Action.
We’ve explained each below:
Awareness
The awareness stage is when your prospects first become aware of their problem or opportunity.
For example, they may realize that they need to sell their house fast because they’re relocating, or that they want to buy a house in a better neighborhood. At this stage, your prospects are looking for information and education.
They’re not ready to buy or sell yet, but they’re curious and open-minded.
Interest
The interest stage is when your prospects become more interested in your offer and start considering it as a possible solution.
For example, they may sign up for your email list, download your lead magnet, or follow you on social media, etc. At this stage, your prospects are looking for more information and validation. They’re not ready to commit yet, but they’re willing to learn more.
Decision
The decision stage is when your prospects are ready to make a decision and choose between you and your competitors.
At this stage, they may request a consultation call with you, ask for a quote or an offer, compare different options, etc. This is the stage where they are looking for reassurance and motivation. They’re ready to take action but they need a final push.
Your goal at this stage is to persuade your prospects and close the deal. You can do this by using urgency and scarcity tactics, social proof, guarantees, bonuses, etc.
Action
The action stage is when your prospects take the final action and become your customers.
The desired action is your call to action on your sales page. Use this stage to deliver on your promise and exceed their expectations. You can do this by providing excellent service and support, following up with them, asking for feedback, thanking them, etc.
Doing these will make it much easier to upsell, or ask for referrals.
Need to outrank competitors? Get hundreds of quality backlinks to boost domain authority, generate referral traffic, and get ahead of the competition.
How to Build a Real Estate Sales Funnel In 7 Steps
Now that you understand the stages of the sales funnel, and how your prospects think and act at each stage, let’s see how you can build a sales funnel that converts.
Let’s begin.
1. Draft Your Sales Funnel Journey
The first step to building a sales funnel is to draft your sales funnel journey.
But before you can craft a reasonable sales funnel roadmap, you need to ask yourself (and satisfactorily answer) a few questions:
- Where do you get your prospects from? (Social media, SEO, PPC, or referrals.)
- What kind of content do you provide to attract and engage your prospects? (Blog posts, videos, podcasts, ebooks, webinars, etc.)
- What action do you want your prospects to take at each stage? (Signing up, downloading a lead magnet, requesting a consultation call, accepting an offer, etc.)
- What percentage of your prospects move from one stage to the next? (e.g., ten percent of visitors sign up for email lists, 20 percent of subscribers download lead magnets, etc.)
Your sales funnel journey should be aligned with your audience’s needs and wants at each stage. You should also set realistic and measurable goals for each stage and track your progress.
2. Understand Your Audience and Define Your Value Proposition
The next step is to understand your audience and define your value proposition.
It’s the unique benefit or solution that you offer to your audience.
First, you need to understand your audience by creating an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is a detailed description of your ideal customer, including their demographics, psychographics, behavior, goals, challenges, pain points, etc.
You can use surveys, interviews, or chatbots like Collect.Chat to collect data and insights about your audience.
Then only can you begin to define your value proposition — which should be clear, concise, and compelling. It should communicate how you can help your audience achieve their desired outcome and distinguish you from other agents/investors.
3. Craft a Compelling Landing Page
A landing page helps you win your prospects’ attention and encourage them to take the next step in the funnel. It often has one call to action to drive this single purpose.
Several of them use social proof to boost conversion rates.
When designed properly, they can inject urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out) into your offers.
But how do you create one?
Here’s the blueprint:
- Catchy headline: Summarize your value proposition and seize attention.
- Subheadline: Expand on the headline. Spark curiosity.
- Bullet Points and Short Paragraphs: Highlight the advantages and features of your offer.
- Images or Videos: Showcase your offer visually or provide proof of its value.
- Testimonials or Reviews: Demonstrate how you’ve assisted other clients.
- Clear Call to Action (CTA) Button: Guide visitors with a noticeable CTA.
- Urgency or Scarcity Tactics: Infuse a FOMO-inducing sense of urgency.
- Simple and Clean Design: Eliminate distractions, keeping the focus solely on your offer.
You can use tools like Unbounce, Leadpages, Instapage, etc., to create and optimize landing pages easily.
Recommended For You: Gain powerful, actionable on-page optimization insights with Surfer SEO to outrank your competitors and dominate the organic competition.
4. Provide a Valuable Incentive
An incentive is something of value you offer to your prospects in exchange for their contact.
Marketers call them lead magnets because they attract leads like a magnet. They are effective for growing your email and SMS marketing lists.
Some practical lead magnets for realtors are market trends or ebooks that teach your prospects how to sell their house fast or find the best deals in their area. Property inspection or buying checklists also work great.
5. Nurture Prospects by Addressing Vital Needs
The next step to building a sales funnel is to nurture prospects by addressing their vital needs.
This means providing more value and information to your prospects and moving them closer to the decision stage of the sales funnel.
You can choose to go with email marketing, social media, content marketing, or a combination of all these. The goal is to communicate with your prospects and build a relationship with them.
For this stage, we recommend using a suite of tools to power your campaign:
- Omnisend for email and omnipresence campaigns
- Sendible to schedule and monitor social media engagement
- Surfer SEO for creating high-ranking, optimized content.
- Loyal Zoo for running customer loyalty programs
6. Seal the Deal
This is the most important part of any sales funnel.
It is the stage where you give your prospects the final push in taking to become your customers. They need to be sure that they’re making the right decision, so you need to be forthcoming, transparent, and firm in your approach.
Lay everything out on the table – be it terms, costs, or timelines. Transparent dealings build trust and dispel any reservations they might have.
When prospects see these qualities, they will be more than happy to take your offer.
7. Track Conversion Rates
The last step to building a sales funnel is to track conversion rates: traffic, leads, customers, revenue, etc. Tracking conversion rates is a vital step in the process of building a sales funnel because it helps you optimize your sales funnel and increase your return on investment (ROI).
Here are the best practices to use when tracking conversion rates:
- Define your key performance indicators (KPIs) for each stage of the sales funnel and set realistic and measurable goals for them.
- Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, etc., to collect and analyze data about your traffic sources, landing pages, email campaigns, sales pages, etc.
- Conduct A/B testing or split testing on different elements of your sales funnel (e.g., headlines, images, calls to action, etc.) and find out what works best for your audience.
Need More Sales Leads? Discover how to convert your website traffic into qualified leads and paying customers in minutes with Collect Chat.
4 Ways to Optimize Your Real Estate Sales Funnel
Building a sales funnel is not a one-time activity. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant testing and optimization. Here are some tips on how to optimize your real estate sales funnel:
1. Evaluate the Top of the Funnel
The top of the funnel is where you generate awareness and interest among your prospects.
It’s also where you lose most of them.
According to HubSpot, the average conversion rate from visitor to lead is only 2.35 percent. That’s two to three conversions for every 100 visitors you get to your landing page. So, you’d need to optimize the top of the funnel to increase your conversion rate and generate more leads.
To get the most out of the top of the funnel, refer to step One of the previous heading (Building a Real Estate Sales Funnel That Converts). Once you answer the questions posed there, you will have a clear idea of what the top of your funnel should focus on.
2. Evaluate Your Landing Page
Your landing page is where you capture the interest and contact information of your prospects.
To optimize your landing page, you need to test and improve different elements and see what works best for your audience.
Use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or Hotjar to track and analyze your landing page performance, and leads. Also, try Google Optimize or VWO to A/B test the different landing page elements.
3. Test Every Offer in the Action Stage of Your Sales Funnel
The action stage is where you persuade your prospects to take the final action and become your customers.
It’s also where you make the most money. According to HubSpot, the average conversion rate from customer to repeat customer is nine percent. That means for every 100 customers you get from your sales page, nine or ten of them will buy from you again.
For this stage, you don’t need to do too much; simply repeat the A/B tests and fine-tune your landing page to optimize it.
Recommended For You? Learn how we use Omnisend for small business WhatsApp marketing. Uncover proven strategies to improve customer experience, strengthen brand awareness and increase sales.
4. Track Your Customer Retention Rates
Now that your sales funnel is all set up, you need to know how well it’s doing by tracking customer retention rates. This means measuring how well you keep your customers satisfied and loyal after they buy from you.
Customer retention is important because it costs less to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. According to HubSpot, increasing customer retention by five percent can increase profit by 25 to 95 percent.
You can use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, etc., to track and analyze your customer retention rates, repeat purchases, lifetime value, etc.
Real Estate Sales Funnel Guide: What Next?
Congrats!
You’ve just learned how to build a real estate sales funnel that converts. You’ve also learned how to optimize your sales funnel and increase your ROI.
But don’t stop here.
Building a sales funnel is an ongoing process that requires constant testing and optimization. You should always be looking for new ways to improve your sales funnel and provide more value to your audience.
Keep learning, read blogs and books; keep testing, experiment with different elements of your sales funnel; keep growing, expand your reach, and grow your audience by using different channels and platforms.
And lastly, keep providing value by creating more content and offers that provide value and solve problems for your audience.
Hand-Picked For You:
- FAQs: How to Start a Business In 2023
- FAQs: How to Grow Your Business In 2023
- FAQs: How to Fund Your Business In 2023
- Top Small Business Challenges and How to Navigate Them
- How to Rank On the Google First Page
- Backlink SEO Strategy: How to Build Quality External Links
- How to Grow Your Business In 2023
- How We Made Six Figures In 21 Days Just Sending Emails
FAQs
How Is a Sales Funnel Different from a Marketing Funnel?
A sales funnel is a marketing strategy designed to turn cold prospects into long-term customers.
It is a visual representation of the buyer’s journey, from the moment they first become aware of your product or service to the moment they make a purchase.
A marketing funnel, on the other hand, is a broader term that refers to all of the marketing activities that you use to attract and convert prospects.
What Is the Top of the Funnel in Real Estate?
The top of the funnel in real estate is the stage where you are trying to attract as many potential buyers as possible.
This is typically done through online and offline marketing channels, such as social media, print advertising, and open houses. The goal is to get people interested in learning more about your listings.
What Is a Sales Funnel Manager?
A sales funnel manager is responsible for overseeing the entire sales funnel process, from lead generation to customer acquisition.
They work with marketing and sales teams to ensure that all of the marketing and sales activities are aligned and that the funnel is optimized for conversions.
What Makes a Successful Sales Funnel?
There are a few key factors that contribute to a successful sales funnel:
- A clear understanding of the buyer’s journey
- The right marketing and sales activities which include creating high-quality content, running targeted ads, and providing excellent customer service.
- A well-designed funnel
- Continuous optimization
Why Do Sales Funnels Fail?
There are several reasons why sales funnels can fail. Some of the most common reasons include:
- Poorly defined buyer’s journey
- Ineffective marketing and sales activities
- A poorly designed funnel
- Lack of optimization