First and foremost, thank you to all of the agents who have been taking the time to respond to our posts. Your feedback is incredibly valuable. As most of the AR community knows, we're introducing RealtyNow to the market; for a nominal membership fee, you'll get access to unlimited leads. Instead of paying for each lead, you'll pay an advertising fee for qualified transactions.
Program Highlights are as follows:
- $99.95 monthly membership fee gets you access to the program
- You build the coverage area you want to target by cities, counties, zips, or a combination of all three
- We send you unlimited leads in real time, which means you'll receive the lead less than 10 minutes after the consumer submits their request
- If you close a transaction through RealtyNow with a property price of $150K or more, you'll pay a flat $1000 advertising fee.
- If you close a transaction that is less than $150K, you won't pay anything other than the monthly membership fee
- Extremely low-risk, cancel at anytime
(To learn more about RealtyNow or to sign up, please visit www.realtynow.com or call 925-983-3400 x 1011.)
The key to making any lead program work is the follow-up process you apply to each lead. Whether you're buying Internet leads direct from a lead generation company or you're running print ads in a local publication, the goal is to generate leads. But what should you do once you get the lead?
In today's post, we'd like to open up a discussion about the initial follow-up that agents find to be successful; not just with our programs, but with any lead program they've used. Consider your initial follow-up as your "virtual first impression." There are elements to a successful first contact: what you say, and how quickly you say it. As soon as you receive a lead in your Inbox, two things need to happen: 1.) You respond via email, and 2.) You follow up with a phone call. In this post, we'll discuss email.
What you say
Make no mistake; most agents would agree that the selling is done over the phone. While some agents claim to set up all their appointments via email before ever meeting the client, most would agree that there needs to be a level of human interaction (voice to voice) in order to earn the prospect's trust and ultimately influence their willingness to work with you. However, we're still dealing with an Internet lead. With Internet leads, we need to be more subtle in the way we engage a prospect compared to a phone lead or a traditional referral. Sending an email to the consumer lets them know you received their inquiry and sets the stage for what will transpire moving forward.
A good email will:
- Respect the consumer's privacy
- Identify the service by which the lead was received (e.g. RealtyNow, HomeGain, LeadToRealty, etc).
- Use a template for ease of sending, including a photo of yourself
- Confirm that the process is underway (setting the stage and tone for future correspondence)
- Target the prospect's motivations
- Establish urgency
- Warm the prospect up for a phone call
Here is an example of what a first email response might look like:
Hello _____,
My name is __________. I am a real estate professional at XYZ Realty Company. I just received your real estate information request from (lead source here) and found it intriguing, because I specialize in working with clients in the (neighborhood or city here) area. In fact, I recently helped a family in (same neighborhood/city, or even add the actual address of a recent transaction) (buy or sell) a beautiful (2bd/1ba) home and they were surprised at (how easy it was, or something unique about the transaction).
Before I go any further, I want you to know that I will always respect your privacy. If you would just like information at this stage or prefer to communicate via email, that‘s fine. Please let me know how you would like to communicate at this stage and I will completely respect that.
If I don't hear back from you by email, I will follow up with a quick phone call to make sure you've received this email, and answer any questions you have. With today's spam filters, I always like to make sure people are able to receive my emails.
Sincerely,
______________
XYZ Realty Company
925-983-3400
PS - if this is an urgent matter, please reach me on my cell phone at ______.
[PICTURE/LOGO GO HERE]
How quickly you say it
Once you've created an email template that works for you, make sure you use it. Most email programs allow you to set up an auto-response message, but I always recommend sending it yourself. These days, people are used to auto-responses; they expect them. An actual, real-time response from you will surprise them. Even if your message is the same to each lead, they'll be impressed that you took the time to send it versus having a computer send it for you. We recommend you send your email within 30 minutes.
In one of the next posts, we'll discuss the second step - the welcome phone call. In the meantime, I'd like to hear what other AR bloggers are using as their first contact via email. Are you sending one? What message are you communicating? Do you use a picture or not? Why? Have you ever set up a first appointment through email?
I look forward to your feedback.
Feel free to reach out to me directly at rudd.lippincott@reply.com or 925-983-3427.
Rudd Lippincott
Director, Retail Operations
Reply! Inc.
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