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Tuesday, November 19, 2024

CRM

    It’s been years, but I still remember my landlord — a real estate agent — calling me and asking if I knew anyone who wanted to buy or sell a home. At the time, I didn’t.

    More than that, I truly wanted to help him and felt bad I couldn’t. I genuinely liked the man, and, believe me, the next day, I kept my ears open for real estate chatter.

    Step one toward getting new referrals is to be a nice person people want to help. Step two? Ask for referrals.

    Ask everyone. Your sphere of influence then connects to their sphere, and each person you contact broadens your possible referral base exponentially.

    But that just covers the basics. There is so much more that agents can do to get more referrals.

    The Bedrock: Relationship Marketing

    According to author Mari Smith, relationship marketing emphasizes customer satisfaction and retention intending to build profitable long-term relationships.

    It differs from other forms of marketing by focusing more on the client relationship. Its key principle is client retention.

    The good news for the real estate agent is that relationship marketing is less expensive in the long run than other forms of marketing.

    “Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer,” according to Taylor Landis at OutboundEngine.com.

    The Get More Referrals Series is shown to the left. To see more, Click Here.

    Who’s in your Database?

    If your database is populated with only former clients, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of business.

    You should have everyone you know in your CRM – from your hairdresser to your aunt Martha. If they’re breathing, they should be in there.

    Here’s why this is important: the relationship marketing approach also focuses on customizing your marketing efforts.

    In his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable,” marketing whiz Seth Godin agrees and insists that you should “differentiate your customers … Find the group that’s most likely to influence other customers,” suggests Godin.

    It starts with asking the right question: “Who do you know who is looking to buy or sell a home?”

    If you’re looking for a CRM that allows you to send out direct mail marketing, look no further. We have a free CRM available for you on ProspectsPlus.com.

    Keep in touch with your prospects and sphere, and creating custom lists on the fly for targeted mailings. To learn more, Click Here.

    When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

    1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazin

    Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct, response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

    2. The Free 6-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Planner

    The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 6-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

    3. The Free Online Real Estate Business Plan

    The Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for the year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closings, and so on are needed to reach your financial goals.   – Click Here

    4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

    Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

      Back in the dinosaur days of real estate, a simple Rolodex, populated with the contact information of people in an agent’s sphere, ruled the day in most real estate businesses. 

      As technology advanced from those tiny 2.25-inch x 4-inch Rolodex cards, agents demanded more bells and whistles, which resulted in today’s sophisticated Customer Relationship Management platforms. 

      With the market in flux, it’s a good time for the less-than-busy agent to get to know their CRM and reacquaint themselves with the gold mine it is.

      How about starting a drip campaign to drum up some business?

      One of the best ways to grow your business and stay top of mind with your network is by reaching out to each person consistently over time.

      Many agents swear by their drip campaigns, sending either automated emails or direct mail out to selected contacts in their CRM. However, how frequently you contact these people sits on a fine line between reaching out and spamming. 

      Some experts claim that dripping on these folks once a week is going to eventually get your marketing materials tossed in the trash or blocked from delivery to your contacts entirely – especially if they don’t plan on moving for a year or so. 

      A monthly email is more appropriate – even longer is fine. Just making consistent contact without annoying people is what’s most important.

      You have one chance to lure these recipients into reading your drip campaign, which occurs with your first attempt. 

      The Content Card Series is shown above. To see more designs, Click HERE.

      Depending on your database’s size, you may have to create several focused campaigns. Some of the categories to think about include quick (the operative word here) information for:

      • Homebuyers
      • Sellers
      • Condo buyers
      • FHA or VA buyers

      To stay top-of-mind with past clients, think about sending information on their interests:

      • Gardening
      • Interior decorating and design trends
      • Green living
      • Food
      • Birthday, anniversary, new baby, and other greetings

      The Content Card Series offers many of the topics listed above. Whatever you choose to send, make it count. Wow, them – make the recipients look forward to the next one.

      Face-to-Face

      Sometimes a face-to-face encounter is called for. Many successful agents plan client-appreciation events periodically throughout the year or one splashy annual event.

      One California agent uses her CRM to classify her clients according to how big their sphere of influence is. Those with a huge network of contacts she calls her “A” group and those are the ones she tends to go a bit above and beyond to maintain the relationships. 

      Her preferred method is to never miss their birthday by issuing a lunch invitation for birthday week. Pricey? Perhaps, but memorable and tax-deductible as well.

      Follow up with industry colleagues

      Stick all those people you do business with on a regular basis into your CRM too. Begin building relationships with them by attending networking events or even holding your own for title company representatives, escrow people, lenders, contractors, plumbers, home inspectors, and electricians.

      Client retention is business promotion at its subtlest, and your CRM is the most valuable tool you have right now. 

      While letting people know you value them, you plant a seed that will hopefully blossom into a big, fat pipeline full of referrals.

      Be sure to check out the CRM that we offer to our customers FOR FREE. It allows you to grab contacts from various customer lists, target them with specific marketing meant just for them, and keep historical notes and personal data (i.e., birthdays, family members, home anniversary dates, etc.).

      To check out our FREE Contact Manager, Click HERE.

      PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

      1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

      Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

      Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here


      2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

      The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

      3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

      The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks these boxes but is also a business-building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

      4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

      The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

      5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

      This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

      Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

        The one thing few new real estate agents are prepared for is to hit the ground running the minute they hand over their license to a broker.

        Sure, you’ll find lots of information on how to get a license, but zilch about how to productively use that time when you aren’t taking classes or studying for the exam any longer.

        That’s time wasted, and commission checks pushed further into the future.

        Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to prepare yourself to enter the world of real estate, ready to take it on.

        Research and shop for a CRM

        Customer relation management (CRM) will be an ongoing and critical aspect of your business. To make it easier and more efficient, you’ll need CRM software.

        Some of the larger brokerages offer in-house CRM software, but most don’t.

        We offer a free Contact Manager on prospectsplus.com that helps turn your mailing lists into micro-targeted marketing machines. To learn more about how to use this relationship-building customer tool, Click Here.

        Surfing the internet to find reviews of real estate CRMs, I found a couple of sites that might help you get a better picture of CRM options available (for a fee):

        Once you have chosen your CRM and learned how to use it, start loading it with the names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and any other information you know about everyone you know.

        Yup, everyone that is old enough to buy or sell a home.

        Getting this task out of the way up front will streamline your entry into the real estate business, and you’ll be forever grateful that you did it.

        The Photo Introduction Series is shown above. To learn more, Click Here.

        Your first direct mail campaign

        Take all those addresses in your CRM and send each one an announcement of your pending licensure.

        A text-only, simple postcard isn’t going to cut it now that you’re on the threshold of owning your own business. Send out a Photo Introduction postcard and properly introduce yourself to these VIPs who are going to prove invaluable to the growth of your real estate business over the coming years.

        Set up a Facebook business page

        Yes, there are other social media platforms, and some that you may prefer over Facebook. But Facebook is hands down, the best of them for marketing your real estate business.

        So, start with Facebook and work on the others later.

        This is a task you can actually begin on your personal page. Post the image included in your direct mail campaign for starters. Then, when you get your Facebook business page set up, invite your personal page friends to join you there.

        Start engaging with others by visiting their pages and responding to their posts.

        Join Facebook groups. They don’t have to be real estate-related. As long as you’re active and engaging, the groups will help build your follower list.

        You can do a lot to hit the ground running before your license arrives at your broker’s office. Get going. I wish you much success!

        PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

        1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

        Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

        Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here


        2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

        The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

        3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

        The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks all of these boxes but is also a business-building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

        4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

        The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

        5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

        This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

        Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

        6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

        Watch the ProspectsPLUS!, Take a Listing Today Podcast for actionable content to help you get more listings. – Click Here

          With our FREE Contact Manager, you can tag entire mailing lists or just one contact within a list, building one highly targeted list from many.

          Now achieve better results from your marketing and ensure you are hitting the ideal target within your various lists with the right message at the right time!

          This new tool is available to use right now on Prospectsplus.com, for free, just for being a ProspectsPLUS! member.

          To check out the Contact Manager tutorial, CLICK HERE.

          The Following are Five Ways You Can Start Using the New Contact Manager Today!
          Just Sold Follow-Up Series

          1.Compile Contacts From Your Just Listed Just Sold Lists

          Move all your Just Listed Just Sold mailing lists to the Contact Manager. As you move them, “tag” the lists with the name of the neighborhood they are from.

          Now you can send follow-up postcards or schedule a campaign to go out to specific contacts from various “tagged” neighborhoods. The Just Sold Follow-Up campaign or a postcard from this series is a great choice.

          2. Create Monthly Customer Birthday Lists

          Upload your SOI list or move your current one into the Contact Manager. Add birthdays to each contact’s personal information in the space provided.

          Now mid-way through each month, you can select and send a birthday card to all of your contacts with a “Tagged” birthday for the upcoming month. You can even schedule these Birthday postcards to go out for the whole year in one sitting.

          Happy Birthday Postcards

          3. Create Monthly Home Anniversary Lists

          Upload your SOI list or move a current one into the Contact Manager. Add the home anniversary date to the applicable contact’s personal information in the space provided.

          Now mid-way through each month, you can select and send home anniversary postcards to go out to all of your “Tagged” contacts with a home anniversary in the upcoming month. You can even schedule these cards to go out each month for the whole year in one sitting.

          4. Tag Your Past Clients for Special Mailings

          Customer Appreciation Series

          When your current client becomes your past client, be sure to “tag” them with a “past client” tag. Now they are ready for you to be able to quickly pull together a targeted list to send out special Customer Appreciation postcards, thank you’s, and referral reminders.

          5. Tag Your Buyers Across Lists For Special Mailings

          Any time you create a list of buyers, be sure to tag them with the “buyers” tag. Now you can send a targeted mailing to all of your buyers across several lists.

          To get started with the Contact Manager tool now, CLICK HERE.
          Or check out our basic Contact Manager Tutorial, CLICK HERE.

          A couple More Notes About the New Contact Manager:

          1. This is not a free trial. Our Contact Manager will be free to our ProspectsPLUS! members indefinitely.
          2. If you have a CRM you currently use, by all means, continue. However, if you are purchasing a mailing list from us at any time in the future, it’s worth your time to take a moment and tag that list in the event you may want to take advantage of that tag in the future.
          3. We don’t share or sell your data. Please visit our privacy policy in the footer of the website and if you aren’t comfortable initially take a look at our reviews and maybe just start with lists that you are purchasing from us as we already have that data and are providing it to you.
          4. We certainly hope you choose to stay with us, but you can always download any or all of your lists out of the website at any time you choose to, and we even allow you to download a string of data that shows you the tags you associated with your contacts so that it will make it easier for you to take it to your next list management CRM platform.

          Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you in your success.  

          PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

          1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

          Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

          Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here


          2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

          The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

          3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

          The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks all of these boxes but is also a business-building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

          4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

          The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

          5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

          This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

          Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

          6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

          https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPukXEEmt5v4mU3iZ_hqYZ-W2g_Z6Ufgu

          Watch the ProspectsPLUS!, Take a Listing Today Podcast for actionable content to help you get more listings. – Click Here

           

           

            There seem to be two camps when it comes to using CRM’s the “believers” and the “non-believers”. Even NAR has weighed in with their own statistics on CRM use and success.

            Now we want YOUR opinion! Please make sure you’re voice is counted in this nationwide survey by responding below!

              The Perfect Stay-at-Home Marketing Activity

              Imagine what the future would look like if you could stop cold calling, door knocking or chasing after FSBOs indefinitely – or at least cut way down on those activities?

              Ditching the more distasteful aspects of your real estate lead generation routine may be possible, if you vow, right now, to get serious about your CRM database.

              Warm calls are so much more pleasant and knocking on doors where people are happy to see you beats the alternative.

              Make building better relationships with people you already know, the center of your current stay-at-home activities.

              How’s your sphere of influence?

              Agents who have been in the business for more than a minute tell horror stories about friends and even family members who “forgot” that they were in real estate and listed their homes with another agent.

              In fact, NAR statistics says,

              “The typical real estate agent earned 13 percent of their business from repeat clients and 17 percent from referrals from past clients and customers.”

              Look at those numbers – they’re pathetic, aren’t they? Especially when NAR surveys say that nearly 90 percent of real estate consumers say they would use their agent again in the future.

              Past clients know you and, hopefully, they like and trust you. Shouldn’t agents be getting more than 17 percent of their business from referrals from them?

              We get it. Agents have a ton of irons in the fire during the typical work week and keeping in contact with their SOI typically ends up as a low priority.

              What would happen, though, if you moved it up on the list? Made those warm contacts (instead of contacting strangers) a priority? You’ll end up top-of-mind with your sphere when someone mentions buying or selling a home.

              Customize a postcard from the DIY Series with a personal message offering ways to help stay busy.

              Step 1 to get your real estate business on the referral track

              Organize your database. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, but it’s necessary to keep you on track. And there is no better time to do this than right now, while you’re at home.

              If you already have an organizational method, you’re one step ahead. If not, let’s create a simple one.

              Start by grouping your contacts. There are many ways to group them, so choose labels that make sense to you. Some suggestions include:

              • Hot leads (people you don’t know yet)
              • Cold leads (again, people you don’t know)
              • Sphere (or “family,” “friends” “ladies I play tennis with” “past clients”)
              • Vendors
              Feel free to create subgroups, if it will help you to stay organized. Some of these may include:
              • Immediate family members
              • Extended family
              • Closest friends
              • Acquaintances
              • Neighbors
              • People you met through your kids

              Share fun, family ideas with your Sphere with the Recipe Series. Don’t forget to add a custom note.

              Thanks to the folks at TopProTraining.com for some of those ideas. Check out their list for more.

              Kim Hughes at KimHughes.com suggests that the next step in setting up your database to help you succeed should be to go through all of the leads, checking the information you have on them and adding anything that comes to mind.

              At a minimum, Hughes says you should have the contact’s full name and the name of immediate family members. Naturally, you won’t have family member info for some contacts, such as leads.

              Then, take some time to pick up the phone and start calling people. Start with folks you know, like past clients, relatives, and friends.

              Let them know they’re in your thoughts and you’re checking in to see if you can help them with anything.

              While on the phone, tell them you’re updating your database and want to ensure you have their correct contact information:

              • Verify that the addresses, both snail and email, are current.
              • Best phone number to contact them.
              • Birthdate is an important one (folks LOVE getting birthday greetings). The birthdate might be a tough one to ask, but tell them you like to reach out to people on their birthdays. You don’t need a year, so that may make the question “Hey, when is your birthday?” a bit easier to ask.

              Get ideas for these conversations at TheRealEstateTrainer.com.

              Listen carefully to their end of the conversation for any tidbits you can add to their spot in your database.

              Then schedule a follow-up call, or a reminder to send a card, depending on what they’ve told you.

              This is a project that, although it needs to get done sooner, rather than later, is one that can be done in chunks. Hughes brilliantly recommends starting the organization process with your past clients.

              But do schedule those time chunks and vow to stick by the schedule. Before you know it, you’ll have an organized, clean database, making your real estate lead generation a much more enjoyable and rewarding process.

              Use the Just Listed Series to create a custom postcard for your “Open House Virtual Tour”

              Do you have current listings to promote? Create “Virtual” Open House postcards for your current listings using the Just Listed Series and promote them through social media, on your website, and through mailings.

              Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

              PLUS: When you have time…here are some Free resources we’ve made available to support your success.

              1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

              The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

               

               

              2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

              Treat your business like a business it is vital to long-term success in this industry. Some agents may put together elaborate business plans, yet there’s something powerful about keeping it simple. Check out our one page Online Real Estate Business Plan.  – Click Here

               

               

              4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

              Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

               

               

               

              5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

              Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

               

               

               

              3. The Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT” 

              The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted mailing list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

               

              You might like the following episode from our Take a Listing Today Podcast.

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