If it seems like you’re increasingly doing more work and/or spending more money to keep your pipeline full, you need to know there’s an easier way to get more deals.
The basics of Online Real Estate Marketing haven’t changed. To land more appointments and commissions, you need a system that reliably attracts and captures leads, with regular follow-up to convert them into business.
[If you DON’T have a system, you’re probably working much harder and spending more money than you need to. Stop doing that to yourself! Check out how our system can transform your real estate business.]
But even with a system, many agents fall into grinding on lead generation. They build out more campaigns instead of focusing on the core messages that work best. They pump more money into rising advertising costs to maintain their lead flow. Marketing becomes like a treadmill, slowly increasing speed until it becomes difficult to keep up.
Caught in the lead gen grind? Here’s how to end it…
Grinding is most often a symptom of weak conversion. If you’re able to get more business from the leads you already have, you can turn down your incoming lead flow and still sustain or grow your business.
The BEST way to get more business is by creating more live conversations with your leads. That means following-up with ALL your leads, ALL the time.
Agents often squirrel away their leads, holding back for the slower times when they hope to stimulate business. They’ve forgotten that anyone who raises their hand does so because of interest. Capitalizing on that interest is the key to landing more commissions because people are much more likely to want to speak to you while they’re still interested. (Seems perfectly obvious in print, but I’m surprised by how many agents admit to warehousing leads.)
Follow up with ALL your leads
But more live conversations actually makes you a LOT more efficient. When you actually talk to a lead, one of two things happens:
- You establish a relationship, which is far more likely to develop into a deal; or
- You eliminate the lead as a potential client.
You now know with more certainty which leads are worth your time and energy. Follow-up becomes intentional instead of just because. As a result, you’ll do it more consistently, and you’ll get better results.
How to create more live conversations
Use multiple, integrated communication channels. Your messaging has to involve more than simply an auto-responder email sequence. Using more channels allows you to reach people by their preferred method of contact, including text messages and the phone (including voicemail). This is even more effective if you integrate the messaging so the different channels refer to each another. (See lower down for an example.)
Personalize. Again, don’t rely on one-size-fits-all auto-responder content. You can’t “blast” a generic message at everyone and expect response. Messaging should always be as close to one-to-one as you can make it (or at least feel that way). This is why texting is so powerful. Refer to and build on their initial reason for identifying themselves as a lead. Ask specific, open-ended questions to encourage them to respond.
Be aggressive, at least at first. Capitalize on the lead’s interest by hitting as many channels as possible, as quickly as you can, to get them to respond or take the next step. For example, you could send a ringless voicemail, followed by a text telling them to check their messages, followed by an email an hour or two later. You could then continue this process over the next couple of days, increasing your touch points, before putting them into a longer-term nurture sequence.
Get leads to contact YOU
As I said earlier, efficiency is the key here, especially if you have a lot of leads. Increasing message frequency and using more channels can make it difficult to be consistent.
You could delegate this work to an ISA, but wouldn’t it be better to have a system in place that autonomously nudges leads to contact YOU instead? You can then focus your energy on the leads that actually want to talk to you (and quickly eliminate those who don’t without having to chase them).
Fortunately, such a system exists! Our Engage Conversation Engine autonomously nudges leads across multiple channels, handing the conversation over to you when they respond, ready to talk!
I’ll be writing a lot more about EngageCE in future posts, but right now you can learn more at EngageCE.com.
