Real estate agent marketing is more than just placing an ad or sending postcards in the mail. There are countless things you need to know about and improve on, but one of the most important is tracking the marketing campaigns you’ve started. If you want to be a high-producing real estate agent, you need to track the statistics of your marketing campaigns. Don’t worry, it’s second grade math!
Let’s start with postcard mailings as an example, as this is common marketing for real estate agents. Most real estate agents will pick a neighborhood, mail their postcards for 3 months, and count the number of active clients or closings they receive from your mail. It’s enough? Not even close.
The first thing you need to do is prepare to send your postcards for much longer than 3 months. Most prospects need to see your message at least 7 times before they are familiar enough with you to respond. Sure, some prospects will respond in the first 1-2 months, but most will respond later. Plan your marketing budget accordingly.
Next is to make sure you have a “lead funnel” in place; a process for these prospects to respond to your marketing. For example, most real estate agent marketing means having a prospect call your cell phone and trying to sell them right then and there. But that’s like trying to convince the girl you just met at the gym to “marry” you at 7pm tomorrow.
I would suggest taking things a little slower and having a “prospect funnel” to develop these relationships. You’ll capture more prospects and convert more of them into active customers and closed deals.
Let me explain this type of marketing for real estate agents like this…
One way to set up your “prospect funnel” is to have a website or blog ready for prospects so they can sign up for some sort of “Free Report” or “Free Video Tutorial on How to Save $7,000 When Selling.” Get creative with something valuable you can offer them in exchange for their name and email. In this way, you can now begin to develop the relationship that will lead to an active client and then to a closed deal.
So, after a lead goes through the first part of the funnel, responding to your postcard and signing up for your website, you now need to set up an “auto-responder” to send these leads information and regular updates.
An “autoresponder” is a software system (my 4 year old can use it!) that allows you to send emails to these prospects automatically. You can write a sequence of emails and send them to your prospects on the days and times you choose.
In these emails, you can continue to provide them with valuable information, advice, and tips, but also direct them to the next step in the funnel; speak or meet with you. For buyers, you could mention that they can email or call you for a free tour of the home. For sellers, you can let them know by email or call for a free market analysis.
Now here’s the problem with this type of real estate agent marketing that you need to understand…
Offering a free home tour or market analysis is nothing special. All real estate agents in the world offer this. But the reason you’ll get a higher response rate is because you’re offering these services after you’ve started building a relationship with them. Other real estate agents eagerly offer it before meeting the prospect; like trying to convince someone to marry you before you meet them.
You have the advantage of building the relationship through this “prospect funnel.” Capturing a client has to do with the relationship. Without him, you’re just another real estate agent, in his eyes. Be patient; he lets them get to know you and you will see much better results.
Ok, after a prospect has called or emailed you about, say, a free home tour, then you begin the next step of “selling” them to commit to working with you. This is your experience as a real estate agent, right?
When you get in front of someone, you know how to show them why you’re the best. You know how to let your personality shine. And it will be much easier to get this commitment from a prospect because you have already been building the relationship! You are not starting from scratch like any other real estate agent.
The last step with this type of marketing for Realtors, after you have an engagement from a potential client, is to close a deal. Whether it’s helping them buy a home or sell a home, that’s the end goal and where your cash is generated.
Where tracking your marketing campaigns comes into all of this is the conversion rates of each step in the “lead funnel”. You need to know the number of leads that move from one step in the funnel to the next.
– You need to know how many postcards you mailed and how many prospects responded by visiting your website.
– You need to know how many of your website visitors signed up for your free offer.
– You need to track how many of the prospects who signed up requested a home tour or market analysis.
– You need to count how many of the prospects who requested a home tour or marketing analysis turned into closed deals.
The funnel I just described is just one type of “lead funnel” you can use. You can configure and design your funnel however you like. The key is to make each step a small step and not a leap for the prospect. Make the steps too big and scary and you’ll see your numbers drop. Make each step small and comfortable and your numbers will skyrocket.
Marketing to real estate agents usually comes down to knowing how many deals you closed from a particular campaign, and sometimes you don’t even know which marketing campaign they came from. If you track your marketing this way, you’re missing out on a ton of information that could possibly triple your closings.
If you know the conversion rates from one step of your “lead funnel” to the next, you can see which steps need to be adjusted to reach your end goal; more deals closed and more cash in your pocket.
As an example, if you have more website visitors signing up for your free offer, that means more home tours and closed deals, right? Each step in the funnel affects the next steps.
Do you see how this style of marketing works for Realtors? Do you see how important it is to track your marketing campaigns like this? It’s the difference between running your real estate business blind and running it like a big producer.
As for the math involved, it’s all simple division. For each step in the “lead funnel,” simply divide the number of leads from the previous step by the number of leads who moved on to the next step.
For example, if you had 100 visitors who visited your website and you had 5 visitors who took the next step to sign up for your free offer, that’s a 5% “conversion rate”. That’s the hardest math you’ll ever have to do! Not bad, right?
Once you’ve tracked your marketing for a while, you’ll want to start a little competition with yourself and always try to beat your current numbers. If you get a 5% conversion rate in one step, work to improve it to 7%. You can change some of the sales copy you’re using or maybe use a different image. If you can keep increasing your conversion rates, you will keep increasing your income. It’s that easy.
Play and try, try, try! Tracking your marketing campaigns is not an option if you want to be one of the best real estate agents in the business!