Real estate webinars. Why does the market consider them ineffective and where does the funnel actually break

Article by Yanis Khenilane — CMO at RED, RED Experts, SOUL AI.

Any real estate agency or developer with basic marketing experience understands: client acquisition channels need to be diversified. Some split them into partnership, organic, and paid marketing channels. Others look through the lens of cost per lead, deal closing speed, and ROI. But the logic is the same — you can't rely on just one source.

Today we'll break down one of the most popular yet most underestimated tools in real estate — the webinar funnel. To be more precise, we're talking not just about the format, but about the entire logic of an online event: from the topic and landing page to warm-up, delivery, and follow-up after the broadcast.

Almost every client who comes to us for a consultation on launching webinars already has a preformed opinion: webinars don't work, there are few clients from them, almost no sales, and the effort is disproportionate to the result.

Answering the main question right away. You can sell from webinars and it will pay off. As one of the client acquisition sources once a quarter — it's an absolutely viable tool. But only if you work with it correctly. The problem is that about 90% of the market breaks not on the webinar itself, but on the preparation, delivery mechanics, and audience management before and after the event.

Everything written below is not theory, but practical experience from the real estate agency RED Experts and the marketing company RED. We regularly host online events, webinars, workshops, Q&A sessions, and closed meetings for clients.

Problem 1. Wrong topic selection

The most common mistake occurs at the very beginning, when the company first gets the idea to run a webinar.

Usually the team asks: what topic can we prepare for quickly? Or takes what clients ask about most often. At first glance this seems reasonable. In practice — this is exactly where the first serious problem is born.

Such topics are simply uninteresting to the audience. The client doesn't need to hear yet again about legalization paths through property purchase or about the investment attractiveness of the market. They're not ready to dedicate an hour of their time to a topic they could get answered in a five-minute personal conversation with a manager.

The market makes a dangerous mistake thinking that even with a weak topic, the user will still come — after all, they surely have their own questions. No. A client comes to a webinar only if the topic itself hooks them enough that they're willing to give it their time.

The topic should be chosen not from inside the company, but from the audience's pain points and interests. The logic here is very similar to launching lead generation ads: the topic should be simultaneously aggressive, intriguing, and press on the client's current pain points.

A good example — one of our recent webinars, which we ran in partnership with the EVA Real Estate team for the Dubai market. We didn't come out with yet another general topic about investments. We took a comparison of Milan and Dubai with a trigger topic:

Headline: "60% Returns: Investment Strategies in Dubai"

Subheadline: "A video conference that will explain why you should pay attention to the United Arab Emirates, while more cautious investors choose Milan, where property prices are similar but returns are half as much and tax reaches 26%!"

Now that's a topic worth showing up for, and the result of this webinar was 3 sales within 5 days after the event.

Problem 2. Wrong approach to the audience after registration

Many agencies and developers think like this: if a person registered for a webinar — they're already ready for a dialogue, you can call, message, and warm them up for a sale right away.

This is not the case.

If a person submitted a request to participate in an online event — it doesn't mean they're ready for contact with a manager. They registered to listen to you first. They don't know you well enough yet, don't understand whether they'll get answers to their questions, and are not ready for pushy contact.

When a company starts calling right after registration without warning, it critically hurts conversion into attendance and views.

If you want to call the client — warn them about it in advance and do it properly. The best approach is to build a funnel of event reminders and embed one of the touchpoints related to the call within it. The person should either understand in advance that they may be contacted, or request the contact themselves.

Problem 3. Lack of a proper touchpoint sequence

The next mistake follows from the previous one.

When the market believes it's enough to simply collect registrations and then manually call participants, a very harmful illusion is born. It seems that everyone who answered the call is a good registration, and those who didn't answer are dead, spam, or useless. This is not the case.

People registered for the event to simply watch and listen, they're not in the process of buying at the moment of registration, they're not waiting for your call, and they're not obligated to answer you right away. And if you build the entire process only on manual contact — you lose a huge segment of the audience.

In practice it looks like this: of those who got in touch with you, only 20–30% actually make it to the event. The rest gradually drop off. And those who didn't answer, at best receive one or two messages — and are forgotten.

The right approach is not to replace the touchpoint funnel with a call, but to embed the call within an already existing sequence.

One of the most effective models — after registration on the landing page, redirect the user to a Telegram bot and through it build a series of touchpoints before and during the event.

Within this sequence you:

• introduce the user to the company
• provide useful materials
• warn about a possible call
• send reminders about the broadcast start on the day of the event, one hour before, and 15 minutes before

And that's not all.

Those who didn't attend the webinar should not drop out of the process either. During the event itself, when switching between content blocks, you can send these users a message about a new topic — not everyone is willing to sit through an hour, and not all blocks are equally interesting to everyone.

If not Telegram, then what?

If you don't like a Telegram bot — the same logic can be built through WABA broadcasts with cascading mechanics and interaction via buttons.

But there's an important principle to consider here: the user must either agree to interact with the bot themselves or be notified about the broadcast in advance. Without this, you're not building a funnel — you're breaking trust.

Problem 4. Too narrow a set of registration sources

Most agencies and developers use one or two channels to collect registrations:

• standard performance marketing through Meta, Google, Yandex, and other advertising platforms
• outreach to active or potential clients who are already in dialogue with the company

Meanwhile, the second source is often not used systematically by many — a huge volume of the database simply isn't activated before the webinar.

What needs to be done correctly

First, activate outreach to rejected leads. But not chaotically — through clear segmentation by rejection reasons.

Second, if you plan to use WABA, it's better to prepare the audience in advance, especially if you haven't previously communicated with them through this channel.

Optimal logic:

• First touchpoint — introductory: explain why you're reaching out at all.
• Second touchpoint — useful. For example: market information or current changes.
• Third touchpoint — another piece of value: a digest, lead magnet, practical material.
• And only after that — warming up for the event.

Then the audience that doesn't want to receive communication will quietly drop off without negativity. And those who are ready to engage will have time to warm up and will convert significantly better into registration and viewing.

Third, don't forget about partnership sources. An agency often has partners — in land sales, legal consultants, adjacent market players. Through them you can attract additional audience to the event. This channel is very often underestimated.

Problem 5. The event itself is too boring or too salesy

When an agency or developer gets to actually running the webinar, one of two extremes usually emerges.

The first — making the event too passive and dull. Only useful material, dry information, and a small sales block at the end.

The second — making the webinar excessively salesy. In every block pushing the audience toward a request, consultation, contact with a manager, without having provided real value yet.

Both strategies work poorly.

The best approach is to build the webinar around value for the client. But at the same time, subtly weave the thought throughout the entire event about why your company is stronger than others.

You need to not just present facts, but place strategic hooks:

• why your offers are more profitable
• why your brokers are more qualified
• why it's safer with you
• your company's case studies

This should not feel like direct pressure. The client should not feel they're being pushed into a sale every 5 minutes. They should want to continue the conversation with you on their own.

That's why all calls to action within the webinar should lead not to an immediate purchase, but to an open dialogue — to questions, feedback, a desire to continue the conversation. And only at the end — transition the audience to the next phase: let them know that a broker will reach out to share useful materials, provide a special offer, close them on a consultation, or offer a FOMO deal.

What to do with the audience after the webinar

After the event, the audience must be segmented into three groups:

• First — those who showed interest and submitted a request after the webinar. They can already be processed directly with the main offer.
• Second — those who attended the webinar but didn't submit a request. It makes sense to send them useful materials and carefully start a dialogue. It's important to remember that this is still a cold audience — they're not ready for hard selling, you can't push too hard. It's better to approach through a trust-based conversation: why they're interested in real estate, how they came to this topic, why they registered for the event, what caught their attention.
• Third — those who didn't attend the webinar. They can be worked with through two scenarios: either through auto-webinar logic, where the event repeats automatically, or by sending the recording. Through a Telegram bot or WABA, a separate cascading sequence is built for this audience — with access to materials, the recording, and gradual inclusion into dialogue with a manager.

Key takeaway

The webinar funnel only looks easy in theory. The infobusiness and EdTech market has long imposed the idea on businesses that a webinar is a simple and fast sales converter. But in real estate, this logic doesn't work head-on.

We're not selling a $100 course. We're selling properties starting from $40,000 and going up to a million and beyond. You can't treat a webinar as a lightweight mechanic here — you need to systematically work through every touchpoint, every funnel stage, and every message.

Even at the naming level there's an important nuance: the word "webinar" itself already carries a negative pattern. It's better to use phrases like "online conference," "online meeting," or other neutral combinations that don't give the audience the feeling of yet another infobusiness showcase.

If done correctly, webinars in real estate can be not just profitable, but a very strong additional sales channel.