Leads are easy; conversion is hard. In real estate, for instance, the distance between generating a lead (a buyer, seller, or both) and ultimately converting that lead into a qualified client is a pretty wide gap.

In fact, all said and done, it’s about a two-year process from the time a person first begins to think about the idea of buying or selling a home to when they ultimately carry out the task.

So based on that, the notion of generating leads, following-up like a crazy person for a solid week or two, and then abruptly abandoning the effort seems, to me, short-sighted. But unfortunately, that’s precisely what far too many agents end up doing. For example, have you ever heard of “10 days of pain” types of follow-up campaigns? They follow up excessively and then they just give up. The leads get archived in the CRM or maybe parked inside some type of generic drip sequence — out-of-sight, out-of-mind. We can do better.

What makes a lead, a lead?

Consider that most leads are generated in response to a real estate offer: e.g. “search for a home,” “what’s your home worth,” and so forth. In other words, the offer that’s used to capture a name, number, and email address typically centers around the purchase or sale of a home (not the selection of an agent).

What that means is, for however long it takes to convert a lead, your nurture plan should be all about winning/earning their (future) business.

And to do that, you’ve gotta stay in touch. But not in an annoying, pestering sort of way; in a value-add sort of way -- a lead-nurturing way. And to do that, YOU NEED CONTENT: blogs, videos, and more.

Question is: how do you get your content in front of the leads? The easy options include text-messaging and/or email. With texting, though, be careful not to overdo it—a little goes a long way. Email is a fantastic option, only, it isn’t enough on its own.

Effective Lead Nurturing is Multichannel

Effective lead nurturing goes multichannel. (**If you’d like to read more about multichannel marketing, click HERE.**) In other words, I want your content to show up via email AND elsewhere—ideally across social: Facebook, Instagram, etc.

But if I earned a penny for every time a lead ignored an agent’s (premature) Facebook friend request, I’d be rich. Candidly, to them, you’re kind of a stranger—and so the odds of connecting on social are kind of remote. What’s more, if they don’t accept your friend request, you’re unable to invite them to Like your page (at least not in the app). Sure, you can email them about it, but good luck with that.

My point here is that I want them to Like your Facebook Business Page so that they’re eligible to see your content in the Newsfeed organically. It’s that simple. Otherwise, you can go on producing amazing content—but if your leads aren’t seeing it—then, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t exist!

RETARGETING Your Leads with Facebook Ads

So today I’m training on how to retarget your leads who HAVEN’T yet Liked your Facebook Page.

Sidebar: Bear in mind that the same process can also be used to directly retarget your leads with specific pieces of content you’d like them to see: videos, image posts, links, and more. In fact, the truth is, even if every last one of your leads ended up Liking your Page, you’d still be wise (on occasion) to directly retarget them with key pieces of content simply because the organic performance of Business Page posts is, frankly, less than impressive.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Exporting your leads. First off, you need to organize your leads into a spreadsheet. Chances your CRM of choice has an easy option to export your leads into a .CSV file, which is the file-type Facebook requires us to use.
   
   Your spreadsheet should include as much of your leads’ contact info as possible: name, number, email address, etc. In an upcoming step, you’ll upload that file into Facebook for it to match up your contacts against its own database of accounts. So basically we’ll be targeting (or retargeting, technically) the leads on your spreadsheet, so long as Facebook is able to conclude a match.

2. Facebook Business Manager. This training assumes you are running ads via the Facebook Business Manager (or a Facebook Business Suite). Access yours at Business.Facebook.com. The feature we’ll be utilizing isn’t always available to what Facebook refers to as Personal Ads Accounts, which is the ad account you were automatically assigned when you created your Facebook Business Page, found at Facebook.com/AdsManager. So if you’ve not setup a Business Manager (or migrated your Personal Ad Account over to a Business Manager), you’ll need to. Here are some helpful links to get you started with that.

   • Setting up a Facebook Business Manager

   • Migrating a personal ads account to a Facebook Business Manager
     

3. Building a “Customer List” Custom Audience. Once in the Business Manager, click the menu button and navigate to the Audiences tool. Once there, tap the first blue button to “Create a Custom Audience.”
   
   Custom Audiences are Facebook-speak for retargeting. They’re divided into two groupings: A. Your Sources, and B. Facebook’s Sources. Choose the “Customer List” option. Reference the video training above to navigate through the setup wizard, at the end of which, you’ll be able to import your .CSV file.

4. Creating a Facebook Ad to Get Page-Likes. Once you’ve created your Customer List Custom Audience, click that menu button again and select the Ads Manager. Follow each of the steps outlined and demonstrated in the video tutorial. And make sure you don’t forget the following important details (which are, of course, also mentioned in the video):

   • At the Campaign level, be sure to check the box for the “Housing” Special Ad Category. Also, don’t forget to click the button for Page Likes, not Post Engagement. That’s key!

   • At the Ad Set level, as you’re selecting your Custom Audience, don’t forget to EXCLUDE existing Page Likes. This campaign is designed to retarget only leads who HAVEN’T Liked your Business Page.

   • If the size of your audience seems restricted consider incorporating a second Custom Audience, such as recent website traffic via your Facebook Pixel.

   • Make sure to adjust your location filtering so as not to inadvertently exclude leads in your Customer List. For example, if you generated a lead who lives in Milwaukee and is thinking about relocating to Atlanta (where, let’s pretend, you sell real estate), then make sure that wherever your leads may be physically located, your location settings aren’t overlooking them.

   • Always keep an eye out for those “Show additional options” links. They tend to hide good stuff, such as modifying the billing from impressions to Page Likes. Put your money where your mouth is, Facebook!

Like I said: Leads are easy; conversion is hard. It’s a long game. It’s like how you’re born, you die, and in between, you “live your dash.” Not to be morbid, but with leads, the “in-between” is your lead nurturing -- it’s how you position yourself as the agent-of-choice from the moment you get a lead until they ultimately choose to buy or sell.

To do that, you’ve got to add massive value: blogs, videos, content that helps guide them through the process. And to do that, you need access to their attention (like Facebook). Use the training, start adding value, and step-up your conversion!