In today’s digital age, more and more real estate businesses are taking advantage of new and innovative lead generation strategies. While some traditional outbound marketing methods like direct mail can still be effective, advanced technology used by many real estate lead generation services can help you attract more buyers and close more deals.
But when enlisting the services of a lead generation company, what should you look for?
Ultimately, it’s all about receiving quality leads with accurate contact information from highly motivated consumers. With the right information, you’ll be well on your way to deploying strategic nurture campaigns, or in some cases, moving in quickly to convert your prospects into sales. Either way, the goal should always be maintaining a consistently full sales pipeline.
The reality is, though, that many realtors, builders, developers, and communities lack either the time or the knowledge to stay on top of the ever-evolving trends that can ensure continuous and successful lead gen.
For many, it’s extremely beneficial to seek assistance from expert third-party vendors to obtain qualified leads. In this article, we’ll highlight the five most important things to look for when considering real estate lead generation services.
1. They Emphasize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Whether they optimize your site or promote your listings on optimized lead capture landing pages, the best real estate lead gen services are all about search engine optimization (SEO). According to recent Private Communities Registry (PCR) research, a whopping 92% said “searching the internet” when asked what methods they use to research real estate options.
Your prospects are constantly searching for real estate by name, by location, homes, amenities, or are looking for answers to specific questions. So it’s imperative that your real estate website ranks high on Google and other major search engines.
And while paid advertising can be good for clicks that sometimes lead to conversions, organic search will always be the holy grail for real estate lead generation. What’s most important about organic traffic is that it has no direct media cost yet can provide a substantial ROI—higher than any other channel. Search engines reward content that is relevant to readers and written for your target audience. But getting prospective homebuyers to your website is only half the battle, and many real estate sites send prospects to pages that aren’t optimized to capture leads.
Custom real estate landing pages can go a long way in improving SEO and converting qualified traffic by including things like:
- Clear calls-to-action
- Request information forms
- Enticing images
- Community/neighborhood highlights
- Prominent contact information

While SEO isn’t always the easiest real estate lead generation strategy, the mid- and long-term payoff can consistently bring you new, highly targeted leads without ongoing time and effort. Be sure you choose the right lead gen partner that can help you with that.
2. They Focus on Finding the Right Homebuyers
One of the most important things in real estate lead generation is capturing not just any leads—but the right leads for your real estate business. By going a step further and focusing on age- and lifestyle-targeted buyers, sites like PCR help you do more than just sell homes, they sell the lifestyle benefits of an entire community.
Most prospective homebuyers are intent on doing their own research, especially when it comes to living in a master-planned community.
Is there a golf course onsite? Marina for my boat? Mountains for hiking, clubhouse and social events, fitness center, swimming pool, and so on…?

If a lead gen service is doing its job, it focuses on the intent of the searcher by targeting and attracting only those who are truly interested in your homes. It’s these “educated buyers” who come to you with a tremendous amount of knowledge and familiarity of what you offer from the outset.
These extremely educated and qualified buyers are already much further down the funnel, completely changing the traditional sales cycle and helping real estate companies drive more consistent business.
3. They Provide Next-Level Lead Intelligence
The best leads are genuinely motivated leads. However, discovering their motivations can often be a challenge. That’s where the top real estate lead generation services can be a tremendous help. They know that the more you understand about potential prospects, the more successful you’ll be.
Insightful reports and advanced analytics with real data like detailed demographics, web and social traffic, and more, are all essential to helping you close more deals each month. When it comes to real estate lead generation, the best third-party partners provide highly predictive indicators and valuable lead intelligence for their clients.
PCR, for example, provides real estate clients with actionable reports and invaluable data that dives deep into prospect analysis making it much easier for real estate companies to convert buyers.


4. They Engage Prospects with Email Marketing
When looking at how to generate real estate leads, there are many valuable methods. We’ve touched on a few to this point, and while there are plenty more effective tactics, email marketing needs a spot in the top 5.
Because let’s face it, the world—and real estate industry in particular—has gone virtual. As a result, the more diversified your digital marketing efforts, the better.
Especially when enlisting the support of a real estate lead generation company, it’s a big bonus if they offer email services to drum up quality leads. Those that do often have large, curated lists and databases of potential home buyers and sellers to engage with relevant messaging.
When done correctly, email marketing drives targeted traffic to your website and captures more leads. Regular sends are a powerful way to build your brand and consistently nurture your prospects—which is especially important for lifestyle community buyers who tend to have longer buying cycles (can be 18-24 months before they decide) than other homebuyers.
To supercharge real estate lead generation for clients, companies like PCR send bi-weekly newsletters and direct sponsored email sends on behalf of realtors, builders, developers, and communities to its highly engaged opt-in list of subscribers.

5. They Offer a CRM Lead Feed
When working with a real estate lead generation service, it’s one thing to get leads, and it’s another to have those leads delivered to you in real-time—directly to your customer relationship management (CRM) lead feed.
“The detailed reporting on the leads is invaluable and helps make my job a lot easier. The way the leads feed right into our CRM allows me more time to follow up with the clients instead of worrying about entering their data. We spend advertising money with several different online companies, but I truly believe we get the most out of our dollar with PCR.”
Lisa Matlack, Realtor & Marketing Director
Today, a majority of real estate businesses invest in a CRM to help manage their leads and their sales process. Good real estate lead gen services should specialize in digital lead generation and lead tracking, and that means having a firm understanding of different CRMs, and how to customize their services for your platform.
PCR feeds leads directly to clients’ sales pipelines by working with a wide variety of CRMs, including:
- Brightdoor
- Focus3
- Smarttouch Interactive
- Clubessential
- Lasso CRM
- TopBuilder Solutions
- Sales Simplicity
- BuilderCMS
- Propertybase by Salesforce
- Follow Up Boss
- HubSpot
- Real Geeks
- Top Producer
- In-House Proprietary CRMs
Ramp Up Your Real Estate Lead Generation with PCR
For nearly 30 years, PCR has helped builders, developers, communities, and realtors drive sales through page one Google search rankings, qualified lead generation, and actionable analytics reporting. With 1.3 million+ visitors each year and tens of thousands of real estate leads generated, PCR goes beyond just property listings to showcase entire master-planned communities. Because of this, the real estate prospects delivered to clients are far more educated, informed, and qualified than any other lead you’ll get.
Interested in learning more? Book a free demo today to get started!
