Property investment advisers get clients from referrals, from seminars and webinars, from their own content and search presence, from paid advertising, and from bought enquiries such as the exclusive leads GoatedLeads supplies. Most firms use more than one. The mix changes as the firm grows, and each source has a cost that is easy to miss.
Referrals are the cheapest and the slowest. They arrive when they arrive, and a firm cannot turn them up in a quiet month. Seminars build trust in a room, but the room, the evening and the no shows are a fixed cost with a variable result. Content and search take a long time to work and then work for years. Paid advertising run in house gives you control, and also the whole risk of a campaign that does not convert.
Bought enquiries sit at the other end. A supplier runs the advertising and the checks, and the firm pays for each enquiry that matches its brief. The risk of a poor campaign sits with the supplier. The trade is control for speed: you do not own the campaign, but the calendar fills sooner. A common mix is referrals for the base and one paid channel to fill the gaps.