In the past decade, my career has been focused on building meaningful relationships with my prospects and clients. In my opinion, nothing beats a traditional handshake. But what happens when your sphere of influence is too large to personally connect with? What do you do when you have hundreds of leads— old and new — that need to be touched and reminded that you’re here to serve their needs? The answer? Automation.
Marketing automation isn’t a new concept. Smart real estate marketers have been successfully leveraging automation for years. Automation allows you to stay top of mind with your prospects, past clients, and sphere of influence.
As an agent who leverages marketing automation myself, I’ve compiled my top 5 strategies for prospecting on autopilot.
Humanization
Don’t sound like a robot. It’s important to create content that sounds like you. Develop a human connection with the voice and tone of your brand when you automate your touch points. Just because you’re leveraging technology to amplify your prospecting efforts doesn’t mean you should use generic copywriting. Keep it personal, real and authentic!
Engagement
When creating your drip campaigns, always pose a question in the body of your message. You want to get your prospects on the phone as quickly as possible and the best way to do that is by asking them good questions. The sooner you get them on the phone the sooner they will schedule that appointment with you and the closer you are to helping them with their transaction.
Longevity
The point of automation is that you “set it and forget it.” But don’t actually forget it. A strong automation campaign should last 6 to12 months. This means you can create new content to nurture your prospects, worry-free! And, it allows you to spend more time responding to the prospects who are engaging you back.
Frequency
When leveraging marketing automation, you need to be careful not to bombard your prospects with too many emails and text messages. You need to find the proper balance between staying top of mind in a friendly way and being annoying. We’ve found that for long-term lead nurturing, a 21-day gap in communication is the ideal length of time. For short-term, high-intent prospects, however, communication should be daily or every other day. Consider the type of prospect they are and respect their time before automating.
Visibility and Reporting
Like all high-performing realtors, knowing your numbers is critical when making informed decisions about your automated marketing campaigns. Be aware of open rates, click-through rates and bounce rates. Use these numbers to inform the intent level of your prospects.
Aside from these strategies and tactics, I want to be very clear that you will never achieve full success in your real estate business without picking up your phone. The automation I use to run my business is just one spoke in the wheel of outreach. Ultimately, you must pick up your phone and call your prospects that show high intent.
Be authentic in your communication with clients. Serve and support them at the highest level possible, and you will grow your business faster than you could have ever imagined.
