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March Dates to Remember |
Six best practices for online leads
Internet marketing
Six best practices for online leads
By Michael Russer
If you're like many of today's real estate practitioners, the majority your
new leads come from the Web. An online consumer will shoot you an e-mail
(often anonymously), fill out a form on your Web site, or maybe just send
you a text message.
Given today's challenging market conditions, you want to treat these inquiries
like gold. You must respond professionally — honoring prospects' desire for
privacy while also providing valuable information that will eventually turn
them into clients. Here are six general rules that will help you accomplish
that goal.
Best practice #1:
Respond in kind
If a prospect e-mails you, respond via e-mail. If a prospect text messages
you, respond via text. (By the way, you’ll see more initial online inquiries
via text messages as the “Thumb Generation” reaches the age where they’re
considering purchasing their first home.) The general rule is to respond
in kind, unless the inquiry explicitly asks you to do otherwise.
Best practice #2:
Don’t call them
If you've somehow acquired a prospect's phone number and you're tempted to
pick up the phone, stop yourself. It’s generally a bad idea. Why? You risk
driving that potential client away because in all probability, he or she
just wanted information, not a salesperson trying to set up an appointment.
Most human beings feel vulnerable and defensive when they’re on the phone
with a salesperson with whom they don’t have a relationship. That’s one reason
why the Internet is such a popular place for prospects to gather information
before speaking to a real estate professional.
So, is it ever appropriate to call an online prospect in response to an online
inquiry? Yes, this is when:
- If the prospect explicitly asks you to call and gives you his or her
phone number;
- If it’s clear that the lead has come directly from your highly targeted
Web site, and the prospects offered their phone number voluntarily (in
other words, they were not forced to reveal it in order to access information
on your site or order a report). It’s so important the lead comes from
your Web site because then it’s more likely they’ve already learned about
your business and have started trusting you. That’s a contrast from most
inquiries from third-party lead generation services or “one size fits all” sites,
which are actually quite cold.
Best practice #3:
Always include your e-mail signature
An e-mail signature is an information block, usually at the end of your
message, that includes your complete contact information. In addition to
being professional, it’s a required disclosure by some real estate regulatory
jurisdictions. Once you have established a solid and ongoing client relationship
with the prospect, including your signature in each e-mail message is no
longer absolutely necessary. However, you still may decide it's a good
idea, as it provides a convenient way for clients to find your contact
information.
Best practice #4:
There’s no such thing as too fast
Online consumers are a very impatient bunch (remember, the Internet connects
people around the world in just milliseconds). They expect a very fast response
to their inquiries. Ideally, you will respond to an e-mail within a few minutes.
However, this presents a logistics problem if you’re showing property, at
a listing appointment, or in the middle of a heated negotiation — or on vacation,
at your child’s dance recital, playing golf, etc.
So, how can you be responsive without having to sit in front of your computer
all day? The most practical answer, in my opinion, is to use a virtual assistant
who specializes in online lead management. VAs do sit in front of
their computer all day and therefore are in a position to respond immediately
on your behalf. The best place to find a VA with specific real estate sales
support skills like these is REVA Network at www.revanetwork.com (in the interest of full disclosure,
I’m one of the founders of this network).
In addition to acting as your online proxy by providing immediate response
to online inquiries, they can also help you stay in touch with those online
leads who are not quite ready to move just yet. Should an inquiry arrive
via text message, you at least will be in a better position to respond to
it in a timely fashion since it arrives on your cell phone. Once again however,
you could re-direct these messages to your VA to handle them as well.
Best practice #5:
Keep in touch or else
Or else you risk losing the prospects forever. I’d estimate that 19 of 20
valid online real estate related inquiries are prospects in the information
gathering stage and can be three to 18 or more months away from taking action.
So if you want any chance of doing business with this massive 95-precent
segment of online leads, you need a way to stay in touch that doesn’t drive
them away.
Drip marketing is a great solution for turning latent leads into closed transactions.
Follow these guidelines:
- Give them value. Every message of your drip campaign needs to
be perceived as highly valuable by the recipient. If the prospect is part
of your specific target market (luxury buyers, first-time buyers, etc.),
put them into a campaign that addresses their specific needs. If all you
know is their interest in a particular property (typical for most third-party
lead generation services), then provide them with ongoing, up-to-date information
about properties and neighborhoods in the general area of their interest.
- Don’t overwhelm
or underwhelm. You
want prospects to remember you for the right reasons. Avoid contacting
them more than once a week or you’ll likely push them away. On the other
hand, make sure your campaign keeps in touch with them no less than once
a month.
- Make it easy for
them to say “no thanks.” At the bottom
of each message (assuming you’re doing a drip e-mail campaign), include
easy “one-click” opt-out instructions in case the prospect no longer wants
to receive your messages. Online consumers don’t like to feel like they’re
trapped into receiving something they don’t want. Also, since most e-mail
drip campaign systems track opt-out requests, you can see whether your
campaign is doing its job or not.
Best practice #6:
Treat online leads like human beings
Yes, there is a person on the other end of that e-mail you just received.
Remember that online consumers are human beings just like you and me. The
key is understanding human behavior in the online context, and then leveraging
that understanding into practical communication strategies that result in
the highest likelihood of converting casual inquiries into closed transactions.
(Reprinted
from REALTOR® magazine online [http://www.realtor.org/realtormag] June 2008 with permission
of the National Association of REALTORS®. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.)
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