It’s a Saturday afternoon. You’re driving down a local street, which brings back memories of properties sold over the years. You suddenly screech to a halt: a competitor’s seriously large ‘For Sale’ sign has appeared outside a property you only appraised six months ago. You are mortified. How did this happen?
Every agent has experienced one of those gut-wrenching moments. And whilst it stings to lose a listing, the agent whose board now graces the front of the property had a far more efficient marketing machine than you. They grew a relationship with the vendor in a way which you didn’t.
Several Australian markets are light with listings, meaning every appraisal matters more than ever.
Your success as an agent is based on your ability to nurture and build relationships with as many people as possible as efficiently as possible.
The right CRM is key to you achieving success as opportunities to list become fewer; it’s your marketing machine.
So what does this CRM-fuelled real estate marketing machine look like? Just like your car, it reflects your commitment to professionalism. You’d be unlikely to turn up to a listing presentation in a rusting Toyota Corolla, just as you would be unlikely to prospect from a clunky, outdated CRM which limits your opportunities to influence clients. Many agents take pride in their cars – this same pride applied to their CRM marketing machine makes all the difference as shown in the table below.
What does your marketing machine look like? Is it a finely tuned machine, or is it ready for a service or upgrade? No matter your CRM, creating a revenue-producing marketing machine depends on how you build it, use it and fuel it.
5 WAYS TO CREATE YOUR OWN MARKETING MACHINE
1. Clean up your data (For extra help, download Agentbox’s Data Detox checklist, visit agentbox.com.au/detox)
• Contact data: Check emails, phone numbers and appropriate categories for buyers, prospective vendors and past clients. Merge any duplicates and purge incomplete or old records
• Appraisal data: Archive old or lost appraisals
• CRM education: Ensure your team understand contact categories, contact ownership and email communication.
2. Master your lists
• Buyer pipeline for each listing – hot, warm, cold
• Prospective vendor pipeline – hot, warm, cold
• Anniversaries for past clients.
3. Targeted prospecting strategy
• List the top 20 streets you want to ‘own’ in your area
• Track your progress capturing contact and property data for this zone
• Send regular helpful and informative letters and emails.
4. Email marketing strategy
• Segment your database into your key categories
• Detail each category’s problems and your solutions
• Create an email marketing sequence for each category, including a message and appropriate timeframe.
5. SMS strategy
• Keep buyers updated
• Pre-marketing campaigns
• Auction campaigns.
Once you have your very own marketing machine humming, you should enjoy multiple benefits, from increased competition for your listings to a reputation as the most progressive and helpful agent in your market. By providing a higher level of service to more clients, prospective vendors will come to you when they’re ready to sell. You’ll be winning more of the listings you want at a commission that reflects your expertise – which means driving, ashen-faced, past lost listings will be a thing of the past.
