“Thanks for visiting 123 Smith Street. For more information or to make an offer, please click here!”
It’s the stock standard SMS that pings tens of thousands of mobile phones every Saturday. And it’s a huge missed opportunity for real estate agents who rely on a templated message sent from their CRM or open home attendee management software.
Here’s the reality about open home attendees:
- Not all are ready to buy
- Not all are interested in that particular property
- Some are not interested in buying at all
Sending thousands of SMSs every week with the same templated message will probably land you a few offers and clicks to the property page on your website, but it’s also kind of like pouring water in a bucket with lots of holes.
What about:
- Potential sellers?
- Potential investors?
- Potential developer contacts?
- People needing help with finance?
These people see your SMS and continue going about their day. What if instead, you offered them a reason to pay attention and a reason to stay engaged with you and your business? Or a reason to seek other services that you can offer beyond just more information about that particular property?
A simple tweak to your post-open home SMSs could be the difference between you, essentially, spamming lots of people and being relevant to more people. And even better, generating more leads for you and your team.
Instead of just offering up information about the property they’ve inspected, take them on a journey. Let them take control.
For example:
Asking this question upfront helps capture the attention of more people other than just buyers. It can provide opportunities to other departments within your business as well.
Speak to your web developer about creating some additional pages on your site (or dynamic pages based on your listing feeds from your CRM provider) to cater for each category i.e. first home buyer, next home buyer, investor, developer. Based on the category someone chooses, your website can serve as a funnel for the various departments within your business and/or your referral partners:
First Home Buyers:
Next Home Buyers:
The major property portals and a few third-party providers are already starting to play in this space and if you’re thinking of using any third-party software you should be well aware that the data you collect at open homes is very likely being used by those third parties for other purposes (read the fine print people!). By building this into your own website, you control the data and you control the relationship. Cha-ching!
In closing…
Lead leakage is a massive problem in real estate, especially when the market is running hot and agents are too busy to catch their breath let alone deal with the volume of enquiries they’re getting. We collect tonnes of contact data but few businesses are using methods like the example above to provide more relevant information to consumers while at the same time providing more business opportunities to other departments within their business.
When the market turns (and it’s inevitable that it will) and there are the same amount of agents competing for fewer leads, you will want to be sure that you’re not missing any opportunities that come your way.
Do you have a leaky bucket?
