The real estate business is interwoven with details that are sometimes easy to overlook. While agents often remember to invest time and effort in targeting new clients, the benefits of keeping-in-touch with current and previous clients often gets lost in the daily grind of real estate sales. The value of retaining current and former clients, however, can’t be overstated. The average homebuyer will net over $6,000 in commissions, and that’s just one side of the transaction!
Are you doing everything within your power to retain past clients? Do you pride yourself on thinking outside the box? How involved are you in the communities you represent? Real estate, after all, is a people business.
Below are five simple and unique ways to keep-in-touch with old clients.
Team Up With Local Businesses
Successful business models are built on cooperation. A simple way to retain clients, while acquiring new ones, is to team up with local businesses. Try reaching out to a local business to offer a great deal that your local community would appreciate. It could be a boutique coffee shop, a restaurant, or a recreational service such as a golf course, family fun center or movie theater. When you highlight these businesses to your personal contacts they’ll often offer you a deeply discounted deal to promote, or will even help cover the cost of the postcard campaign.
Promote Community Events
As a real estate agent you’re more than just a salesperson, you’re an ambassador of the your local community. One great way to do this is to keep clients up to date on notable local events. Is there a championship little league game coming up? How about a cook-off? Promoting community events can be as simple as mailing clients a personalized calendar each month. Not only will you be keeping-in-touch with past and current clients, but you will be showing them how knowledgeable you are about the community you share.
Share Garden Recipes
Nothing says “home sweet home” like a fresh garden. Who doesn’t love fruits and vegetables? One unique way to keep-in-touch with past clients is to mail gardening tips and recipes to help compliment their new home. Best of all you can do it any time of the year. Is summer right around the corner? Take a moment to share tips on planting cucumber or squash. How about fall? Share tips on how to grow the perfect pumpkin just in time for Halloween. Your clients will love the advice and reward your effort when the time comes to find a new home again.
Seasonal Homekeeping Tips
Real estate agents know all about cleaning up homes. But that doesn’t mean the upkeep stops once the home is sold. One simple way to keep-in-touch with old clients is to mail seasonal home-keeping advice postcards. Is spring right around the corner? Try sharing a few spring cleaning secrets or yard keeping tips. Better yet, refer your client to a great local garden center or nursery. For many homeowners, maintaining a home is a full-time job. But it doesn’t have to be. Help save clients valuable time on homekeeping so they can just enjoy their spring or summer with their families, and they won’t forget you.
Mail “Happy Anniversary” Postcards
Everyone has anniversaries, but few remember anniversaries. So few gestures will remind a client you care more about them than a surprise anniversary postcard in the mail. Remember, without your clients, you would have no successful real estate business. Treat them as you would family. A personalized touch will go a long way in sustaining a relationship. Uncertain what angle to take? How about the date you sold them the home of their dreams? Better yet, combine an anniversary date with another idea above and send them an entire package. At the end of the day, there are no hard and fast rules to keeping-in-touch. The only limit is your imagination. However, the more imaginative you are, the more likely you are to stand out.
Community First
Real estate sales is about more than homes. It’s about people. It’s about community. And some of the most successful agents in real estate take the time to emotionally invest in their clients and communities. Worried about the cost? Try to remember the cost of one postcard is merely a fraction of the commission you will make from one home sale. However, always invest for the right reasons. Put community first. Success will follow.
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