Knowledge
What's the Difference Between Lead Generation and Appointment Setting in Real Estate?
What's the Difference Between Lead Generation and Appointment Setting in Real Estate?
Very important. Many agents lump these together. This post should explain that leads are not the same thing as qualified conversations.
What’s the difference between lead generation and appointment setting in real estate? At Ignite Connections, we boil this down to one key phrase:
Expression of Intent & Motivation
With most lead generation systems, you’re going to get some fairly basic information:
Name
Phone Number (maybe)
Email (maybe).
Besides: for any real estate agent reading this, have you ever received this lead before?
JOHN FAKE NAME
911
DONTCALLME@GMAIL.COM
Money well spent.
This is where appointment setting stands apart. Lead generation is a “pay and pray” methodology; quantity over quality. And that’s not to say lead generation is bad; in fact, any real estate agent worth their salt will tell you that, with proper systems in place, lead generation can be one of the highest ROI avenues you can find. But, much like recruiting your own ISA, the systems necessary to achieve greatness in the lead generation game are robust and require a significant amount of time and effort.
Appointment setting, on the other hand, leverages other people’s time instead of your own and while the quantity of opportunities might not compare to lead generation, the quality of the opportunities you’ll receive stand in their own category.
Let’s explore the difference between the two types of opportunities.
While lead generation gives you a name, a phone number, and an email address, appointment setting is able to provide you with so much more depth by virtue of the fact a conversation was had. For example, let’s say John Smith comes in as a lead. You try a few times to get a hold of John Smith but you never connect with him. You send him a few emails, put him on your drip campaign, and hope for the best.
An appointment, however, is by definition significantly more qualified than a lead. For example, when we deliver our clients an appointment at Ignite Connections, each and every appointment has the following at a bare minimum:
Full Name (verified)
Address (verified)
Phone Number (verified)
Email (verified)
Timeline for Sale (verified)
Motivation for Sale (verified)
Expressed Intent to Sell (verified)
No Prior Agent Commitment (verified)
When it comes to online paid leads, the average agent has less than a 1% close rate. That means it takes over 100 leads generated to close a sale with online lead generation for the average real estate agent.
That said, our clients boast an average of 30% close rate on our appointments specifically because of the sheer quality of the appointments. And therein lies the biggest difference in lead generation vs. appointment setting: quality vs. quantity.
If you’re an agent who has the resources, bandwidth, time, and skillset to sit at your desk and hammer the phones, lead generation is a game we highly recommend. But if you’re like most of our clients and don’t have that kind of time, resources, or skills, having someone set appointments on your behalf. We do our job and you do yours.
