Hi Everyone!
I was having a conversation with an Agent from another Brokerage who had given up on her Internet Marketing. She called me for one last bit of help before finally packing it in. After realizing she was doing an ok job of capturing leads, after 3 months of spending money, she was wondering why she wasn't successful.
There are so many factors in converting an Internet lead to a customer and then a customer for life. We have worked hard perfecting this process. I feel like it's up to me to help others understand, prior to being taken advantage of, others who are only after the Realtors money.
One of the most misunderstood factors in conversion is the concept of follow up. Many believe that every lead should contact them if they want to use that Agent as their Realtor. I know, I could hardly believe my ears when I heard this, but it's true, and then I realized I have talked with many Agents like her in the past. Hence the road to failure for so many Agents trying to break into the Internet Marketing world.
Follow up, or as I call it, touch, is the most crucial ingredient to helping people who find you on the Internet to use you as their Realtor. If you don't currently use a product for follow up, you need to start. Of course I always recommend my 100MPH Marketing system and software, but it doesn't matter if you use my program or someone elses program as long as you have a program! With that said, it's important that even leads without phone numbers must go into an email follow up program. Phone numberless leads are 25% of our transactions.
Currently we use the following follow up timeline for new leads coming into our system:
If they are buying a year or more out, then we call them once every 2 months.
If they are buying within one year, we call them once every 4-6 weeks.
If they are buying within 6 months we call them every 3-4 weeks.
If they are buying within 3 months, we contact them every 2 weeks.
If they are buying within 30 days, we contact them once a week and send them updatedlistings several times per week.
As we move into a new timeline, we adjust to the new schedule of calls.
This system has worked well for us as our Agents have plenty of time to build a great relationship and loyalty.
Try this follow up system with your new buyers and you will see the results. If you don't work hard in this market, you really will have trouble earning a living. If you take care of your customers and give them "over the top" customer service, you will build Internet leads that turn into customers for life. If you have any questions or need help, feel free to contact me at mitch@mitchrealty.com
Hi Mitch, good post! It is very important to follow up with buyers and sellers in order to get the business
Mitch - the amount of follow up here makes a lot of sense. Just from a feedback perspective - does sending listings multiple times in a week ever cause someone to "unsubscribe" from your program? Just wondering, like I said your approach sounds great.
Mitch - I agree with you 100% - good follow up is the name of the game. What good is generating the leads if you can't follow up with them.
Mitch: What you are talking about here is implementing a system. Most agents are more used to getting a lead from sources they have used in the past, and then converting it right away. If you are going to work internet leads, you much adapt to the internet buyer... and implement a long term lead follow-up system like you describe. Great post.
Good post Mitch. Gina Gulliford, Long & Foster, Columbia, MD
That's a good plan. It's important to get right back to Internet leads. The first one to follow up often earns the business just for being there first.
Hey Joe, you are right, the first person usually does earn their loyalty, unless of course their buying time frame is more than a few months away. Here is the scenario which has happened to us many times before implenting our follow up system. You get your lead today and call him within a couple of hours...never longer than 24 hours. You have a great conversation with (we will call him Bill) Bill and you send him an additional list of properties. You let him know that you will be sending him listing updates and lets you know that he is probably not buying for a year. You hang up the phone and figure that by sending him listings, you are creating loyalty. It's not so. Read on.....
Ok, so do you think that once you start sending him listings updates he is done searching the Internet for more Real Estate listings. He then goes on another site, and then another, and registering on all. Nine months later Bill is receiving listings from you and about 4 other Agents. However, the only person who has continued to contact him is another Agent other than you. This Agent has called Bill back every few weeks and has helped narrow his search and sending him more listings.
So who is Bill going to use. You, who he talked to more than 9 months ago, or the Realtor who he talked to last week. If you had continued to call Bill on a regular basis you would have built a solid relationship with him. You would have beeen able to learn more about what Bill needs and Bill would have learned more about you and how you work as a Realtor. You had the opportunity to build a great relationship that would have resulted in a customer for life. Instead, the other Agent, even though she didn't make the first contact, has a new customer.
This scenario happens all the time. Unfortunately we have had it happen more times than I would like to count. I still have trouble getting this through to even a couple of my Agents, but the ones who listen do great! I have one Agent that has written 7 contracts this month so far and has two or three other offers in process. I hope that helps everyone understand what happens with the average internet customer.
Hi Penny!
Actually you would be surprised how few people we get that unsubscribe. In reality, we implement "Over the Top" customer service. Our goal is to be in front of the customer as much as possible to let them know we are working hard for them. One problem I have noticed with automated listing notification systems is that they usually come from the source of the update system versus the individual agent. My 100MPH Markeing system has all our follow up campaigns coming directly from the Agents email address. In my opinion it doesn't appear to be automated as much as it looks like the Agent is working hard for the customer.
I hope that makes sense! Sometimes I tend to ramble!! :)