What percentage of your commission income last year came from pure website leads?
- 80% to 100% - You're a lead generation & follow-up rock star!
- 50% to 80% - You're doing better than around 90% of your competitors. Keep it up!
- 30% to 50% - You're doing OK, and doing a lot of traditional marketing as well.
- 10% to 30% - I hope you're out knocking on doors, and handing out cards.
- 0% to 10% - A website is something you look at on a computer. A computer is...
PMCS Consulting released survey results, and this is a quote from their release:
Nearly 75% of online generated real estate leads are lost
The simple fact is that we're asleep on the Web, and we're simply not following up properly on the leads that come in. So, let's take a look at The 7 Deadly Sins in follow-up:
- You just plain DON'T! - 48% of agents do not respond to Internet leads. 48% of Web requests went unanswered.
- You're slower than a turtle with a limp. - Today's searcher for any information on the Web expects a fast response, not in days, not even in hours, but in minutes. They may settle for hours, but you better show up with the goods when you do respond.
- "I'll get back to you when I'm ready". - The old "Your email is important to me..." response is useless and not appreciated. They don't believe it, and your auto-responder actually verifies that you are simply trying to get them to wait until you want to respond. They're as tech savvy as most of us, and this just says to them "I know how to build an auto-responder."
- You ASK instead of ANSWER. - If you receive a request for information, give them the information they want FIRST, then you can try to get more information from them. Don't pepper them with
questions first that send them packing.
- Humans buy houses, so prove you're one. - Spam filters that require proving you're human make it easy for you, but are losing you deals ... believe it! It's far better for you to spend a couple of minutes a day looking at your spam box to check for good emails than to make every new prospect jump through hoops and fill out a form or take another action just to get their email delivered.
- Buy now or I'm going to the beach. - The average real estate buyer or seller now begins their research months earlier than they did before the Web. They may like your initial response, but forget about you when they're ready to act, simply because you failed to continue to follow up.
- "I'm going to be an email nightmare." - If you immediately start up an email drip campaign that is the same old stuff they see everywhere, and you send them an email every day for a month, THEY'RE GONE. Drip email follow-up is good, but make sure that what you're sending them is useful information about your local real estate market, and not just "I am the greatest!" stuff. And, space it out a little.
The punishment for committing email deadly sins is banishment to NO LEAD PURGATORY, where you'll suffer alone, devoid of Web human contact, and worse yet, you won't be cashing many commission checks.
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About Jim Kimmons: Jim Kimmons, with more than 16 years experience as a licensed real estate agent and broker in 3 states, is a consultant to Realtors in how to use technology to market and manage their businesses. He has also written books and eBooks on Internet marketing and real estate. Jim is RealtySoft's chief evangelist and is a compensated regular contributor to the RealtySoft.com blog. |
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Timley post. I've been guilty of letting leads lie around too long before responding in the past, and I have always regretted not taking action. Good goal to set is to respond to every lead the same day it's received.
Hi, Jim -- great post that I have bookmarked for future review. I want to make sure I am not guilty of any of these marketing 'sins'. have a great weekend!
Great Post, Jim. This is a terrific eye opener. I too have been guilty. Almost like a start & stop action. Most of time I'm 'on it', but some do get by me. Thank you!
Great post Jim. Lead follow-up is critical to success no matter what lead generation source you are using.
In fact, I know of agents who will buy "dead" leads from other agents and simply follow-up on the leads and turn them into closed transactions.
I'd like to hear more about your 7. What kind of local information doesn't get stale in a drip campaign?
Great article, Kudos, I did not realize one so it was well the read. I am guilty of asking and not giving information.
Actually, I just said for the consumer to call me. Was that wrong? They didn't.
Peter,
A few years ago I decided to limit my original drip campaign that's automatic on first form contact to four emails. Each highlights a portion of my site that is visited a lot. In other words, one sends them to the map of our 40+ MLS areas, as we cover an entire county+. It helps people to identify where listings are in the area. I send them just four over two weeks, each pointing them to information others find useful.
I tell them in the first email, which is also the thank you for filling out form or other action taken, that I am only going to send four. This cut my opt-outs significantly. I tell them in the last one that they're going onto a special list for market statistics reports each quarter, so four emails each year. Then I send out a link each quarter to my report of sold properties out of the MLS. That's the extent of my contacts with them unless something important related to the marketplace requires a blast email to the entire list.
Thank you for this. I do follow up and follow through however struggle with keeping it fresh sometimes.
I have used a phone capture system which is really good to teach you how to respond to the calls. It has a really good coaching system.
The hard part about the emails is not having a phone number. Most of our emails go unanswered so the phone call works best.
Do you suggest a short response to an email or a more detailed email? Also if the house is under contract or actually sold do you explain that in your email?
I am pretty good with follow up. I try to follow up within the same day, but I know minutes is best. Great post!
Thanks Jim, interesting information and so timely in our internet world
Faye,
My experience with web users is that they don't want a phone call. If they come in with an email or on a form, they expect an email reply, and prefer it to a live person on the phone, who they fear will try to "sell" them something. I don't even ask for phone numbers on my forms.
Jim
Great article Jim, clients appreciate very soundly response. I am trying my best to do that but sometimes, i am a late responder but i make it a point to respond with 24 to 48 hours time period and i have my team to help me with these.
I'm working on a new application called "Team Callback" that should address some of these issues, but not all of them, and a big part of it is just ingraining that idea of followup into the agents mind. We'll be launching in about a week with it, and I'm hoping it helps with the followup piece of things.
For me, personally, I use email to build interest & gather information, but the phone for closing the sale. That's what seems to work the best. If nothing else, it's because most people can't write well enough to close a sale via email, but even if they could think about the amount of time it would take to write each message!
Thank you so much for your post. It has been an eye opener for me.
I once attended a closing with the sellers agent who got a text from her franchise while we were waiting, Her comment. Oh it's just a lead and promptly deleted it.
This is great - thanks for the post. I am going to share it with my buyer agents who are just starting to recognize the importance of website lead follow up!
I know that I definitely need to work on my response time and make connecting with the lead a priority.