How Agents Can Turn Fresh Leads into Real Estate Clients
Many would-be buyers and sellers aren’t ready to jump into a real estate transaction right away. A drip campaign can help you nurture profitable long-term relationships that turn prospects into clients. Here are the best practices for developing and executing an effective drip campaign for your real estate business.
What Is a Drip Campaign?
There are all sorts of tips for developing personalized lead nurturing strategies, but a lot of these lean heavily on the individual agent’s unique skills and personality. Any agent can develop a drip email campaign that uses a step-by-step strategy to engage leads based on where they are in the customer cycle. To establish and execute an effective drip campaign, you will need to take some fundamental actions, including the following.
Gather and maintain good records. To accurately target your messaging to prospects, you need a robust CRM system. Look for one that can import relevant leads from outside your own website, such as Trulia or Zillow. Some CRM software can also integrate your drip campaign right into the system.
Segment all leads. By segmenting every lead, you can tailor your emails to each prospect’s goals and interests. You can differentiate your leads in a variety of different ways; including:
- Location
- Stage in sales funnel
- Buyer or seller
- Timeline (i.e. ready to buy/sell now or in a few months)
- Source of lead (i.e. website, listing portal, online ad)
- Actions taken (i.e. search listing, download e-guide)
- Type of home (i.e. luxury, first-time homebuyer)
Identify your goals. You should have varying objectives based on each lead segment you identify. For instance, for a fresh lead who just looked over the listings on your website it may make sense to set up a phone call. Further down the sales funnel, a more in-depth, in-person meeting is more appropriate. Whatever your goal, be sure to craft emails that nurture the lead in the desired direction and don’t overreach or you may turn off a potential client.
Develop templates. A segmented list will require many templates with different messaging. Whether you are looking to introduce yourself or show leads potential properties, you want to be able to quickly customize your templates with your information and give them a slight personal touch.
Automate where possible. A drip campaign needs to be able to nurture leads along the sales pipeline as efficiently as possible. Keep in mind that it may take multiple emails before a lead ultimately engages with you. Automation helps you keep working on prospects without taking up all your time. You can also maximize your communication efforts by sending automated text messages for extra touchpoints.
Know when to engage. Automated drip campaigns are a great way to eliminate the day-to-day work that goes into nurturing prospects. However, there comes a time when a direct phone call or personal email message is best. For instance, if a hot lead suddenly stops engaging, you should take a few moments to reach out and find out why.
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