How Real Estate Agents Today Can Turn Leads Into Contacts Faster And More Often

With the arrival of home search engines, real estate leads are now worth even more. Buyers can access multiple listing service data they could not have previously accessed without a real estate agent. This means many real estate agents can be left in the dark – especially after capturing an online real estate lead who does not respond to their emails, texts or calls.

If real estate agents want to see any return on online leads, they will need to follow up with leads immediately. As the general manager, I helped launch a Lead Intelligence study at Zurple, where we explored lead response time, agent website metrics and lead conversion rates in order to provide real estate professionals the data they need to improve their business relationships with online leads. Below, discover where you fall among average response rates, as well as tips to increase speed to lead time.

1. One-third of leads respond to real estate agents in the same day. 

Thirty-three percent of buyer or seller leads studied responded the same day of capture. Considering the entire real estate industry averages a 20% email open rate, this figure is impressive. These leads are transaction-ready and should be called right away.

2. Thirty-eight percent take up to a week to respond.

Most online leads we studied followed up within one business week. While these leads are not as hot as those same-day responders, they are still actively searching for a home or agent and should be considered transaction-ready. Agents should quickly send these leads messaging that pushes them down the sales funnel.

3. Nearly 30% of leads respond within 85 days. 

Waiting almost three months to reply, these studied leads are not transaction-ready. They are still conducting the initial phases of their home search and are not ready to speak with an agent. Agents should leverage a system that continuously nurtures these leads until they are ready to speak with an agent. Some leads take months or even years to become transaction-ready.

1. Immediately follow up.

It is impossible for real estate professionals to follow up with every single online lead immediately. Time and time again, experience shows speed to lead has a huge impact on conversion rate. You must be the first agent to reach out with the simple goal of stopping their search. The average consumer will typically visit several websites before engaging with an agent, so your No. 1 goal once you generate a new lead is stopping their search and driving them to your website to gather more content.

2. Choose an intelligent CRM.

CRMs that leverage lead intelligence will incorporate lead response time into their follow-up. For those leads who respond same day, more aggressive messaging with prominent calls to action should be sent. For those who respond weeks or months later, fewer, milder informational messages should be sent. Remember, relevant content is always the best choice to help influence consumers down the timeline. Lead intelligence can provide you the right insight into what relevant content is for each consumer, so as you reach out you are also boxing out your competition.

3. Integrate your lead generation with your marketing automation.

No matter where you generate leads from or whether you spend money or time generating leads, you must integrate these tools together. Make sure all of your lead sources are pointed in the same direction and are streamlined with your marketing automation. There is little point to spending time or money on leads if you aren’t going to give them attention they need once they come in.

Focus On Stopping Their Search

Your top goal with any new lead you generate should be to stop the search of the consumer. What that means is in order to turn a lead into a contact, you have to make sure they are not going to meet other agents online. So it’s important to not only be the first to respond, but to make sure you are responding with relevant content to that consumer and driving them back to your website.

Consumers today are looking for a personalized experience online, which is why the majority of them begin their home search online. Consumers are already getting this experience from the platforms where they shop, network and stream their TV, movies and music. As a real estate agent today, your focus on all new leads coming in is to provide that consumer a personalized shopping experience with you. In order to turn more leads into contacts, make sure your correspondence with them is based on behavior triggers:

• How many homes have they viewed?

• Which homes have they viewed?

• What neighborhoods are of importance?

• How many pages have they been on?

• What is their demographic information?

• How low/high is their activity level?

• What calls to action have they provided?

• What information is relevant to them?

By focusing on these consumer behavior triggers in the first 10 days of receiving a new lead, you can set yourself apart from the competition and provide that personalized experience the consumer is looking for. At the end of the day, you will be turning more leads into actual conversations and maximizing your ROI on your lead generation.

See original article at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2018/10/08/how-real-estate-agents-today-can-turn-leads-into-contacts-faster-and-more-often/#681e799e177e