What’s the best way to get real estate customers?

Real estate is a competitive field, and you want to make sure you’re doing everything you can to stand out from the crowd and draw customers to you. And what’s the best way to make sure customers choose you? Provide social proof.

The idea behind social proof when boiled down to its simplest version is that people see other people doing something and assume it’s the best thing to do in that situation. If you see one restaurant that’s completely empty and another restaurant next to it that has a line going out the door, your assumption is likely to be that Restaurant A is the pits, and Restaurant B is where you should go. In your real estate business, there are four ways you can easily show social proof in a way that makes your customers more likely to choose you over someone else:

Testimonials

If you don’t already have testimonials prominently displayed on your website, you’ll want to add them ASAP. You should also make sure they’re up-to-date — showcase as many recent testimonials as possible, with the more recent ones showcased first.

Another way you can show off your testimonials is via social media posts. For example, images of the happy customers and/or quotes from them, either posted as text or with the text put into images.

Potential customers will look at these testimonials and see that not only do you have several previous clients (a good sign!), but also that those previous clients were so happy with your services that they were willing to go on the record about it (an even better sign!).

Awards and licenses

Awards and licenses are a sign that someone else has acknowledged your skills and expertise, so they’re also a valuable piece of social proof. You’ll want to have all awards (local, national, etc.), along with all of your license information front and center on your site — probably somewhere on the homepage, as well as on your about page.

You can also add an “as seen on” section that has the logos of sites/magazines/other places where you’ve been featured or quoted. This is another way of showcasing that experts in the field have acknowledged you as an expert, and combined with listing your awards and licenses, reassure potential customers that they’re about to make the right choice.

Referrals and conversations

Word of mouth is great for social proof (and it’s driving more sales than ever, with word of mouth being the most important factor in big-ticket purchases for both millennials and baby boomers). Because of this, you want to make it easy not just for previous clients to refer you to new clients, but also make it easy for potential clients to reach out to past clients (with their permission, of course). You can also encourage previous clients to leave reviews on places like your Facebook page, so that potential clients can see it and comment on their reviews to ask further questions or get more details.

To streamline this process, you need to stay in touch with previous clients. Email marketing tools like MailChimp or follow-up tools like Contactually are great for this. You might also want to consider hosting networking events or some kind of other fun, private event for previous clients. The idea is that you continue to build goodwill and provide value to clients long after the final sale paperwork is signed, so that they’re happy to do small favors for you (like talking to potential clients!).

Experience

Customers are always going to want to know how long you’ve been in business, so that information should be easily accessible. It’s easy to add into a professional bio on your homepage or about page (“Rebecca got her real estate license in 2012 and has been practicing for five years now…”).

Once you’ve been in business for at least five years, you’ll probably want to bring more attention to the time you’ve been in business by mentioning it on your homepage more prominently, or having someone design a badge that you can put in your site sidebar. This goes double if you’ve been in business for ten years or more — that’s a lot of experience that you should be showcasing to potential clients!

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