What Are the Best Tips for Successfully Nurturing Real Estate Leads?
Whether from your website, social media, or even yard signs, not all the leads you get will be ready to move forward right away. In addition to the time you need to prepare their listing, sellers may need to make needed repairs and renovations and properly stage their home. Buyers might still need to get preapproval, identify their ideal neighborhood or, in times like these, adjust their expectations and budgets to find the right home for them. None of this can happen overnight. In fact, it can take a long time. According to some industry experts, real estate leads can incubate from anywhere to six to 24 months. It's important to think of leads like seeds: if you plant them regularly and nurture them with care, you'll have a steady stream of sales down the road. But what are the best ways to nurture real estate leads? Regular, reliable, relevant touchpoints A touchpoint is any interaction you have with your leads. Once they reach out to you by phone, email, or through your website (the first touchpoint), follow-up touchpoints are important to keep leads warm. Three factors are key: Regularity We are, by nature, a little forgetful. To be memorable, you actually need to remind your leads you're there. By following up regularly—but unobtrusively, such as by email—your name and brand will stay top of mind, so your leads won't end up working with someone else after you've put in all the work to cultivate them. Reliability Homebuyers and sellers usually have a lot of questions about the process. After all, it's one of the biggest steps and transactions most people undertake in their lives. They must trust you as a professional, and that you're providing reliable information. Brand your communications consistently, use proper spelling and grammar, and share useful facts and data. Relevance We're bombarded with information all day long. If your touchpoints don't speak to your leads' unique concerns and interests or aren't relevant to where they are in the sales cycle, they'll quickly tune out. To avoid this, provide the information your leads can really use: For Sellers: Staging tips, neighborhood reports, recent sales comps, and more. For Buyers: Preapproval and lending information, recommended properties, tips for picking a good inspector, or checklists to bring to showings. Tailored nurture campaigns Speaking of relevance, your leads should be plugged into tailored campaigns that account for much more than just whether they're a buyer or seller. Are they a first-time buyer, and therefore need more support? Are they a seasoned property investor or home flipper that needs a little less handholding? These two different profiles should not be receiving the same information, and your lead nurture strategy and tools need to provide the flexibility to speak to both. Customizable content Out-of-the-box content sometimes just won't cut it. A library of lead nurture content is important and can save you lots of time, but it won't reach its full potential if you can't customize it. No one wants to receive canned, impersonal emails, so make sure your communications have the human touch. At a minimum, you need to be able to address your leads by name and send content that is specific to their area and budget. The more customization, the better. Personalization tokens are an easy way to do this, and you need the ability to write and add your own messages to your campaigns. Smart automation You're busy! Manually tracking and completing these tasks could be a full-time job, but we understand that busy brokers and agents have a lot of other things to worry about. This is where smart automation comes in. Smart automation allows you to put lead nurturing on autopilot, so you intervene only when you can add value, like answering a specific question, hopping on the phone, or scheduling a meeting. Less tedium, more transactions! Tracking Finally, you need to be able to track your leads effectively. How many have you received? How many have been actioned? How many are in a specific campaign? How many have gone cold? With the right tracking tools, you can sort leads by where they are (or aren't) in your lead nurture workflow and act accordingly. Constellation1 CRM provides robust and granular lead nurture capabilities. Learn more here. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

Vylla Home: The Power of Technology Partnership
Leads are the lifeblood of every brokerage. So, what happens when lead management is underperforming? Learn how Vylla Home tapped into a partnership with Constellation1 to bring their vision for tailored tech solutions to life. A new way to route real estate leads Vylla Home is a tech-forward homeownership company headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California that provides mortgage, title, and homes all under one roof. It has 1,100+ agents at 40+ offices in 35+ states, with ambitious growth goals over the next five years. Vylla was having lead issues. It already generated tons of leads internally, but it needed a CRM to route them effectively. Manually assigning hundreds of leads per week simply wasn't an option. It needed a seamless way to manage and route leads from multiple sources, including its website and its Microsoft Dynamics ERP software. It also wanted to generate more leads from its customer-facing brokerage, office, and agent websites. By opting for Constellation1's industry-leading real estate technology solutions, Vylla Home got even more than it asked for. Today, Vylla's tech isn't just some necessary expense, it's a real revenue-generator. "It took the right partner with the right skills to do what we needed. Constellation1 has bright people with the tech chops to do exactly what we were looking for. No one else came close. Now, we have zero hesitations about actioning our growth goals thanks to our relationship with a reliable partner like Constellation1," says Chad Ruggles, Senior Vice-President Vylla Home. Finding a tech partner who can meet your needs Vylla had a very specific wish list when it came to upgrading its tech: It also had three non-negotiable criteria: Vylla's success hinged on finding the right partner. From day one, Constellation1 truly stood out. "Constellation1 makes us feel like they're part of our internal tech team. We never had that level of service with our previous vendor," says Ruggles. Empowering brokerages with tech that gets results Constellation1 worked closely with Vylla to assess its needs and goals and create a tailored suite of front office solutions so it could reach them. Scaled lead routing Vylla chose Constellation1 CRM and a white-label version of the integrated mobile app, which it dubbed Vyllocity. Constellation1 CRM integrates completely with Dynamics and Skyslope to capture and route leads automatically. When other tech providers said no, Constellation1 took a different approach, asking Vylla: "What do you want to be able to do?" Constellation1's expertise and versatility allow it to collaborate in ways other providers can't to help brokerages make their visions a reality. Better website Vylla decided to completely revamp vyllahome.com with Constellation1 Websites. Vylla agents now have highly customizable branded websites and can access and manage all key tools from a single customized dashboard, saving the Vylla team hundreds of hours per year. The Vylla dashboard is the perfect example of a solution that was born by melding minds and imagining what the tech could do to serve Vylla's goals. Powerful data Vylla opted to purchase additional Constellation1 Data Services to gather strategic insights for predictive analytics, intelligence, and targeted marketing. These insights are becoming yet another source of highly profitable leads. A partnership that pays for itself "Before Constellation1, our tech was just an expense with no revenue generation. Now, we've got real ROI," says Ruggles. The right technology—and the right partner—make all the difference. With even more ambitious targets now than ever before, Vylla is ready to meet its challenges head on and overcome them with Constellation1 in its corner. You can read the full Vylla Home customer story here. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

New Lead Routing Strategies Point to Increased Conversion Rates
Lead routing has always been difficult to manage for real estate brokers. They have tried and failed at many strategies, including call centers. Beckoned by the industry's call for innovation, today artificial intelligence and machine learning is introducing external data coupling and improving lead conversion rates. On firm listings, almost every broker sends leads on company listings to the listing agent unless that agent opts-out. The rest of leads on other firm listings are distributed using automated lead routing rules.

Engaging Buyers through Email Campaigns with Ardian Zagari
In this video, RPR chats with Ardian Zagari, co-Founder of Brevitas. We all understand that in today's world, we might feel a bit awkward promoting properties unsolicited. However, we also know that we have to keep deals flowing. In our conversation, Ardian provides pointers on crafting your email campaigns so they'll be welcomed by recipients and drive engagement. By using Brevitas as a proxy, we discuss various ways to track a campaign's impact. Here are some key takeaways:

What to Consider When Sharing Real Estate Leads with Team Members
All brokers or team leaders who are sharing real estate leads have some things that need to be thought out and addressed before providing those leads to agents. Of course, you'll want to put some rules and training in place regarding how each lead should be followed up with. But it is also very important to think about how leads will be handled and tracked when agents leave your office.

Your Website Is No Longer Your Single Biggest Tech Asset
Over the last decade, real estate technology has come a long way. We have seen a surge of products, tools, and platforms claiming to be the "silver bullet" piece of technology that will instantly resolve all of your lead, adoption, and recruiting woes. This pattern of an overwhelmingly large surge of technology offerings becoming available in the space is just as strong as ever. The foundational core of many technology platforms and ancillary tech is a broker's/team's/agent's website. There seems to be an unspoken agreement that the single most important piece of technology a real estate professional can have is their website. Looking further into this belief, many think that the website alone will produce an infinite amount of leads and business as long as it is a unique, one-of-a-kind custom site that has video and parallax elements throughout. While a website is an extremely critical component to your overall technology structure, it is by no means the undisputed single piece that can alleviate the challenges your business has. Having consulted with the top brokerages across the country for over six years, I have seen many trends come and go. From dedicated mobile apps to QR codes, there seems to always be another shiny penny to be chased. One school of thought that is proving itself over and over to be false is the belief that a brokerage should be dedicating most (if not all) of its technology resources into a custom website. Going into 2019, there are many top designed websites that can be obtained in a semi-customized template format or fully customized WordPress format that provides just as great of a UI and UX as customized HTML websites that are five times the cost while, in many cases, delivering more leads than those that cost so much more. So if a single tech asset, namely your website, is not your best tech asset, what is? The best tech asset is actually a strong tech foundation containing multiple components running on a single platform. This allows leads that come in through your website to accurately be captured and nurtured through the same connected platform. It also allows for guaranteed nurturing via native marketing campaigns in the system as well as messages to ensure you stay top of mind to the potential buyer/seller lead you have captured. Components of your foundational technology platform should include the following: A visually pleasing and functional website that provides a great search experience and information A CRM that can capture, qualify and nurture leads and your sphere of influence with relevant and timely data. Preferably via phone, text, and email. Native marketing components and capabilities (landing page builder, squeeze page builder, mass text/email, mobile dialer) Transactional capabilities Ability to connect and deploy other technology platforms from within the system to ensure a true integration To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog.

Your Brokerage Needs to Improve Your Consumer Responsiveness
Sometimes Zillow Group does something that aggravates the industry, like displaying agent reviews. Other times Zillow does things that not only aggravate the real estate industry, but they point to profound best practices that are a roadmap to success. When brokers pay attention, they can learn a lot.

Doubling Sales Volume Six Years in a Row -- By Following Up
From agent follow-up to leveraging the right tools, broker JP Piccinini, Founder and CEO of JP and Associates REALTORS, shares the secrets that have helped his firm double in size every year for six years. Check out the the interview below to learn more:

6 Lead Management Tips for Real Estate Teams
Generating and converting leads into relationships is a key part of our business, and for many of us, we aren't in this alone – we are working with a team. As the great Babe Ruth said, "The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. This is true in sports, as well as in real estate. Creating lead systems that work takes practice. As you know, leads come from everywhere, and they all bring their own unique needs and circumstances. It's all about having scalable systems that the entire team can use. Let's look at some simple systems your team can benefit from.

Desperate for More Inventory for Your Agents? We have the answer!
In these times where inventory is so low, there is nothing more important than figuring out new ways to secure listing appointments and convincing consumers that it's the right time to sell! Finding the best ways to engage with potential sellers is the KEY to business success. You've probably heard the old adage, You have to list to last! How can you train and motivate your agents to aggressively pursue seller leads and schedule more listing presentations? What you do in the minutes after you receive a lead makes a huge difference. And when you wait to contact that lead, chances are another real estate agent is going to get to them first. So what can you train your agents to do? Your agents need an iron-clad lead follow-up strategy that instantly responds to leads for them, so even when they are busy... they can still keep potential clients focused on them and not another agent. On Wed., Sept. 27 at 9am PT/12pm ET, W+R Studios' National Trainer, Ricardo Bueno, Marilyn Wilson from RE Technology and Realtor Ray Fernandez are holding a free, panel-style webinar called, "Lead Follow Up Secrets for Busy Agents." This webinar will cover simple and proven lead follow up strategies that will help even the busiest agent convert more leads into clients. You don't want to miss this! REGISTER NOW!      

How to Connect with a Millennial Home Buyer
Saying the words 'Millennials' and 'homeownership' in the same sentence usually has mixed results – especially with experts lamenting them for not jumping into the real estate market in droves. Millennials have been the primary marketing focus of almost every business model in virtually every industry, mainly because they are the largest generation in history and they stand to inherit an estimated $30 trillion in assets in the greatest wealth transfer in history – so it's understandable that they have everyone ready to pounce on their purchasing power. This is a generation unlike any other in the sense that brands still haven't completely figured out what makes them tick and how to market to them – and it's no different for the real estate arena. The challenges Millennials face in real estate

Three Hard Truths About Building Your Brokerage
Real estate is hyper competitive; everyone knows that. According to the 2012 Economic Census, there are 86,004 real estate brokerage firms operating in the United States. This means you have competitors around every corner vying to overtake your market and your business. However, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is focusing on your competition. Successful brokers focus on determining their own strengths and figuring out how to build a solid foundation for their agents and clients. Forward-thinking brokerages are moving in the right direction because they're aware of these key facts:

Harry Potter walked into a real estate office...
When Adwerx CEO Jed Carlson sat down with Century21 Redwood Realty Director of Leads Management Billy Ekofo, the word "leads" was said pretty often. After all, real estate agents think about leads pretty often, so that stands to reason. But it was Billy's role that inspired Jed to think about Harry Potter. Billy's role at Century21 Redwoods is to field new leads for his office. And the moment he speaks with a person, he stops thinking about her as a lead altogether. Instead, he starts thinking about her as a person who is worth helping. And part of helping them is to match them to the right agent within his office. He's a matchmaker more than a leads manager.

Building a Seller Lead Funnel
In a conversation yesterday with a large brokerage firm, we discussed a $250,000 online ad campaign that was directed at generating buyer leads. If the vendor had not quoted a $100k price increase over the previous year, the client would have simply stroked the check for $150k without a meeting, as they had done over the past 13 years. The massive price increase caused them to rethink. What came out of the conversation was a brainstorm for innovation around developing seller leads. The brokerage supports and coaches agents around the common stuff – door knocking, farming, telemarketing, etc. What can they do differently? It's a Seller's Market The United States is in a seller's market. Inventory per population is at an all-time low. Interest rates are extremely low. If it were not for rapid price inflation, days on market would also be at an all-time low. Agents do not really need to do all of the marketing they are doing today to find buyers. Simply put them in the MLS – the very best place to market a property to homebuyers. Developing Your Seller Lead Strategy CRM The cornerstone of developing a seller lead strategy is broker CRM. When more than 80 percent of an agent's business comes from repeat and referral business, staying in touch with the people you know and past clients is vital. Buying a CRM is the easy part, but it is an empty vessel. Agents need to enter their contacts. If a broker expects agents to hand enter contacts, I have bad news for you. It will not happen. The number one requirement of any CRM is connectivity to the broker's email and address book solution. Agents have their contacts in the address book of either Gmail or Outlook. A CRM that connects to those systems will use APIs to pull over the contacts automatically.

Changing Buyer Behavior to Convert More Web Leads: A Q&A with San Diego broker Jesse Zagorsky
A dynamic leader who started his career in 2003, San Diego real estate broker Jesse Zagorsky is a self-proclaimed, unabashed geek when it comes to digital marketing and lead generation. In this brief interview, he shared how he has churned through various lead sources to find the one that works best for him, and how his team works to change web lead behavior starting on the very first call. If you were to go back and look at customers you have met online – when did it first come onto your radar? Were you an early adopter of online marketing? I was an early adopter – I was focusing on online marketing since I got into my real estate career in 2003. That was pretty much the beginning of online marketing. I have worked with every provider in the real estate space. Some were referral models and others were pay for lead programs. At this point, I must have tried every provider of online leads. You were an early adopter, but I imagine you have a lot of competition now! According to NAR's 2016 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 51 percent of last year's home buyers found their future property online and brought it to the attention of a real estate professional. Does this seem possible to you? Absolutely. I actually think 51 percent may be low. Even though we have instant access to properties as agents, so do our clients, and the reality is that buyers are looking at houses often before a REALTOR® has had a chance to look that day. I actually think this is a good thing. The value proposition has changed; our role as an agent is not just to find the house, as it is in executing all of the other elements of the process.

Capture Forms that Capture Leads
Are your capture forms working for you? Try to recall a recent encounter you had with online capture forms. Was the overall experience positive or negative? Far too often, sites phone it in with very poor UX on pages where they know you must complete a form to get what you need. Would you be willing to abandon an item in your cart because the checkout process was a pain? I actually did just a few moments ago. I ended up purchasing a similar item, which I liked less, from a competing site solely because I preferred their online experience. For real estate websites, forms are arguably the most important feature within the website or app. Without lead registrations, unknown visitors could browse hundreds of properties on your site, only to ultimately call someone else about a listing they originally found on your site. Are you doing everything you can to maximize your traffic and convert it into registrations? A step in the right direction is to have great capture forms that are prompted at exactly the right times so that visitors are happy to give you their info. What makes a great form? Provide Value First Sometimes we forget that this online relationship is an exchange. Visitors become willing to provide you with their contact information because your site has (hopefully) provided them a service first. Before you begin down the path of better capture forms, make sure your site offers plenty of solid content. Even if you've got a great blog and static content pages, listings are the real conversion engine for a real estate website. If you use forced registration, only prompt the form after a handful of properties have been viewed first.

Kunversion and Inside Real Estate Combine to Become Leader in Broker and Team Software Solutions
Inside Real Estate and Kunversion announced today that they completed a transaction to combine their businesses. They will operate under the Inside Real Estate name with Kunversion becoming the brand for their marketing and sales software platform. The combined business becomes a leader in marketing and sales software for residential real estate agent teams and brokers. Kunversion brings its leading software platform and marketing solutions delivered to agent teams and brokers while Inside Real Estate adds unique capabilities for larger brokers, including seamless integration with transaction systems, full marketing and sales lifecycle tracking and analytics, and other emerging enterprise features. The acquisition comes after a flurry of recent product releases from both companies, including a new CRM mobile app, Facebook lead generation tools, advanced lead routing and agent management capabilities, and integration with other industry solutions including Dotloop, SkySlope and BrokerMint transaction management systems. Because both companies operate with common technologies, integration of their software solutions will be a seamless transition. In fact, substantial integration steps have already been completed, allowing customers to begin taking advantage of the broader functionality of the combined platform. The integrated Kunversion platform will be capable of serving the unique needs of small agent teams all the way up to large, multi-region, multi-office brokers.

Get More Clients With This Million-Dollar Lead Conversion Plan (9/28)
Wednesday, September 28, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join us for this live webinar event to learn about the effective lead conversion plan of industry veterans Dan and Tempe Perreira. This husband and wife team use their plan to consistently produce four to five million dollars in sales annually from just 40 leads a month. From the initial response to new leads to getting them to respond and become your clients, you'll learn about the strategies and systems involved in the Perreiras' million-dollar lead conversion plan. Register now!

Recruiting and Retaining Younger Agents: 6 Tips for Success
Agents are on the hunt for greener pastures, according to the NAR. A full third of Realtors started at a new brokerage in 2015--up a whopping 67 percent from the previous year. So why are agents moving? It may have something to do with changing Realtor demographics. Just a few years ago, much talk revolved around the dangers of agents "aging out" of the industry with few younger agents available to replace them. In fact, recruiting younger agents was brokers' top concern in 2013, according to that year's Thought Leader Survey from Imprev. However, the average age of Realtors has decreased every year since 2013 as younger agents enter the industry. The amount of Millennials getting their real estate licenses has likewise increased. But this is a generation notoriously known for "job hopping." So what can brokers do to recruit and retain this group of agents? Here are a few tips that can help: 1. Use effective lead management systems - 'Closing more deals' or 'getting better leads' often tops the list of reasons that agents switch brokerages. When recruiting agents, talk about the lead generation systems you use and how you help agents nurture and convert those leads. What methods do you use--social media advertising, retargeting, search portal marketing, etc.--and how easy are they for agents to leverage? Be ready to offer hard numbers on how many leads can agents expect per month from your systems. 2. Talk lead quality - Quality of leads is arguably more important than quantity. No agent wants to waste time on leads that are unlikely to convert. So in addition to talking about what systems you use, talk about why. If you, say, advertise on realtor.com® instead zillow.com, tell potential recruits it's because realtor.com® leads are significantly more likely to convert than leads from other portals, according to PAA Research.

What DocuSign's New 'Lead to Close Strategy' Means for Brokers
DocuSign revealed a new 'lead to close' strategy for real estate at last month's Inman Connect conference in San Francisco. But what does that actually mean? Here's a breakdown. What is a 'lead to close' strategy? "Lead to close" is a succinct summation of DocuSign's new mission: to make real estate transactions 100 percent digital, from lead generation through recording of the deed. The heart of this strategy is integration with other major tools that brokers use. For example, one of DocuSign's newest partnerships is with Realtors Property Resource (RPR). Thanks to the integration, DocuSign users no longer need to enter property data into the program. That information is automatically pre-populated into DocuSign Transaction Rooms from RPR's database. Another new integration is with Lantrax's back office and accounting solution, Profit Power. All data about a property sale is pushed from DocuSign into Profit Power. By connecting transaction data to financial performance, this integration gives brokers greater insight into their business performance. DocuSign launched a similar integration with brokerWOLF, Lone Wolf's back office solution, last November.

A Better Way to Capture Seller Leads (8/23)
Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:00 AM PDT Wouldn't it be nice if you could wave a magic wand and know who was considering selling their home? Get ready. We're about to spread a little magic. Join real estate technology leaders CINC and Onboard Informatics as they clearly explain how you can build or buy a tool that effectively identifies and captures home sellers. We're talking professional display of compelling, dynamic property content for your websites, applications or emails. Content home-buyers care about, without the hassle and cost usually associated with this level of detail. Topics Covered: Key components of home-seller tools Best practices How to build your own custom solution (the DIY approach) How to utilize a template to get up and running What you can expect from this type of tool Register now!

Are you tired of losing clients to the competition? (8/2 and 8/4)
August 2 and 4, 2016 at 2:30 PM PDT Today's consumers are flocking to third party sites for visually appealing listing alerts. But what they don't know is that the data is bad and they're being sold to the highest bidder as a lead. With Cloud Streams, you can compete with those sites and keep your clients from straying! Cloud Streams is quickly becoming the leading alert and collaboration tool nationwide. Keep your clients close with Cloud Streams. The topics we'll cover include: Cloud Streams setup Overview of the Cloud Streams user interface and agent dashboard How to create a stream for your client How to have your client create their own stream How to comment and discus properties within a stream Register now!

Are you tired of losing clients to the competition? (7/12 and 7/14)
July 12 and 14, 2016 at 2:30 PM PDT Today's consumers are flocking to third party sites for visually appealing listing alerts. But what they don't know is that the data is bad and they're being sold to the highest bidder as a lead. With Cloud Streams, you can compete with those sites and keep your clients from straying! Cloud Streams is quickly becoming the leading alert and collaboration tool nationwide. Keep your clients close with Cloud Streams. The topics we'll cover include: Cloud Streams setup Overview of the Cloud Streams user interface and agent dashboard How to create a stream for your client How to have your client create their own stream How to comment and discus properties within a stream Register now!

Accelerate Your Income with Simple Conversion Strategies (7/14)
Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Conversion is the biggest battleground in real estate, and agents are spending big money for coaches who promise to take them to the next level. In this webinar, Virtual Results president Jim Marks will give you those tips for FREE. The key to better conversion? Don't overthink it. Systemize your follow-up so you don't second guess yourself or waste time on unproven tactics. In just one hour, you'll: Get tips on small changes you can (and should) make to your website Learn how to convert from traffic to lead, and lead to client See how to identify the value of a lead now and over the long-term, and follow up accordingly Learn about automated tools you can use to nurture leads naturally Register now!

5 Tips to Convert Internet Sales Leads Into Clients
Helping potential clients make the journey from the virtual world to reality can be tricky. Missing out on essential real estate tips could cost you business. Take control of your online marketing efforts. Unlock the secrets to converting online leads: 1. Be speedy. Providing an immediate response is the single most important factor in converting internet leads. 35-50% of online leads deal with the first agent they speak with. How fast do you need to be? 56% expect a call back within 30 minutes. 2. Connect. The next most important factor, after being first to respond, is making a personal connection. In fact, hyper-personalize. Get an email address and gain insight from the client's Google, FaceBook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts. Tight on time? Try the Charlie app, which provides a one-page synopsis on individuals based on these sources. This will help you hone in on the lead's needs prior to contacting, then talk it up. It'll make you by far, more memorable. What if you must choose between delaying a return call or missing out on the investigatory process? Hands down: Return the call.

6 Steps to Driving Real Estate Success with Tools and Systems
Paul Argueta, Broker/Owner of Real Estate Haven in Pasadena, California started out as a single agent working in his family business. He went on to become a broker and built a team of more than 150 agents, which gained him recognition as one of the fastest growing, privately held companies in America according to Inc. Magazine. How did he achieve this success? Like many agents and brokers, it was born from the adoption of tools and systems that streamlined his business, made his agents more effective and allowed for higher conversion. Let's explore the steps you can take to achieve real estate success with the backing of tools and systems: Step #1: Acknowledge the Need At the company's five-year mark, Argueta's team was closing between 400 and 500 units per year, yet referral and repeat business was lacking. He acknowledged the need for technologies that would help them capitalize on this missed opportunity. He also knew implementing these new technologies would help drive his recruitment and retention efforts. Step #2: Set Your Goals Argueta set out to find technologies that he could implement to help his team reach their goal of recapturing past clients and their sphere of influence, with the overarching goal of building a suite of products that could be marketed to his agents as a one-stop-shop for their lead generation, nurture and follow-up.

Are you tired of losing clients to the competition? (6/10 and 6/12)
June 10 and 12, 2016 at 2:30 PM PDT Today's consumers are flocking to third party sites for visually appealing listing alerts. But what they don't know is that the data is bad and they're being sold to the highest bidder as a lead. With Cloud Streams, you can compete with those sites and keep your clients from straying! Cloud Streams is quickly becoming the leading alert and collaboration tool nationwide. Keep your clients close with Cloud Streams. The topics we'll cover include: Cloud Streams setup Overview of the Cloud Streams user interface and agent dashboard How to create a stream for your client How to have your client create their own stream How to comment and discus properties within a stream Register now!

3 Ways to Capture More Seller Leads
This week, we hosted a webinar detailing three ways to generate seller leads. If you missed it or want to watch it again, it can be viewed here. Here are the three methods we discussed in the webinar: 1. Nurture Use a drip marketing email campaign to provide valuable dynamic information about the reader's property. The example here shows the estimated value of their house, the month-over-month change, and the recent home sales price trends with recent sales easily displayed. Super easy to read and digest, points to agent If you are thinking of implementing this tool, keep in mind: Keep it simple. Limit the data you display to keep it clean and easy to read. Keep it consistent. Send it at the same time every month so it becomes something the reader expects. Highlight the changes. We put the percent change in the subject line and represented it graphically in the e-mail. This makes it seem timely and relevent, which will help increase open rates. Drive to the agent. In this example, we literally have an arrow pointing to the agent. When the reader is ready to reach out to an agent, they will know exactly where to go.

3 Steps to a Faster Moving Sales Pipeline
Creating an efficient sales pipeline allows you to analyze who's moving through your pipeline and what it looks like, as well as to find the best way for you to get those prospects moving through it in a way that makes sense to you and your process. A sales pipeline is systematic approach to understanding your sales process and where the 'money' currently is. Think of it as the journey your clients or customers take from becoming a prospect to following through on the sale with you. Some representations may show the pipeline as a funnel, others depict it as a forward moving, linear chart, but there's no right or wrong here; it's whatever makes the most sense to you and your business. So how can you activate your sales pipeline and start converting more prospects? We'll walk you through that, and go over the best metrics for you to track to become more efficient. The bottom line here is that the sales pipeline that works for you may not always work for someone else in your field, let alone one of your co-workers. It's a fairly personalized experience and, at the end of the day, the pipeline is there for you to get a grasp on what's coming up, or who you may need to spend some time with in order to activate them or get them moving. While some larger companies and corporations have a uniform sales pipeline across the whole team, as a solo practitioner or member of a small team, you may find yourself working to create your own pipeline in a more personal manner. But before you do so, understand these three steps as a way of establishing your pipeline and maintaining its effectiveness to start activating all of the sales.

Who Spoke to Your New Customer?
New customers contact your brokerage every day to get property information. More than half of the time, they are never responded to. It is a tragic condition of every brokerage driven by business rules that are totally understandable. Brokers send leads on company listings to the listing agent as a general rule. And that is a good rule. But there are new trends emerging. A lot of leads are garbage, and top listing agents get worn down by the time suck of following up on dead end inquiries. After a while, they stop responding. The good news is that there is a path to success with automation. Here are two proven lead triggered responses that are providing amazing results for many brokers: 1. "Thank you for inquiring about {insert address here}. Would you like me to provide you with a virtual tour of the property or set up a private showing?"

Do you know the cost of 1%? Industry secrets on conversion.
As an industry, we've become hyper-focused on lead generation. Brokers, teams and agents invest valuable time and resources on website development, marketing strategies, SEO and systems to capture opportunities generated from online leads. Yet there are so many conditions that need to be met for these leads to result in a sale that, as a whole, industry conversion rates hover around 1 to 2%. Consider this common dilemma: There are roughly 6 million home sales in the U.S. annually, yet there are approximately 15 million online leads generated. It's mathematically impossible for all of these leads to convert. As such, many agents are reluctant to put a transaction-ready customer on hold to jump every time an online lead comes in. This only adds to the problem, as frustrated consumers send more inquiries hoping an agent will respond. Despite these difficulties, 44% of homebuyers manage to find a property they purchase online - and many of them find the agent they transact with on realtor.com®. A big contributor to this is starting with accurate data. You can't sell a property that's not really for sale. But, the ability to respond first and have a meaningful exchange in the critical first five minutes when the consumer is asking for help makes all the difference.

Your Real Estate Lead Conversion Rate: Are You the Bottom of the Barrel?
With real estate lead generation, there are lots of different ways and methods to receive and generate those leads. One undeniable truth is that the source and method of collecting these leads is going to have an impact on the quality of the lead. The other truth is that all leads, and especially online leads, need a solid and refined follow-up plan to get top conversion. With online leads, you can get a huge return and great closing rate—if you understand the pieces of the real estate lead puzzle. Most agents or brokers that contact us struggle to put together the right pieces of the real estate lead puzzle. Take this statistic, for example. Over a period of time, we polled new clients coming to our Lead Promoter solutions. We asked what they are seeing for a closing rate on leads currently. The normal answer would be something along the lines of 3-5%. When we dug in deeper with a little analysis, it turned out to be about .5%-1%. This is happening at the same time that 70% of online real estate leads report they are not followed up with effectively. The key is: You need to separate yourself from the pack of real estate professionals that don't know how to consistently build a strong brand, generate good leads, and refine their closing rate. So, what are the right components for great lead return?

20% Lead Closure: Part Real Estate Lead Generation, Part Lead Management System
With a variety of real estate lead generation programs out there, we will frequently run into a client coming to us who has tried three or four different lead generation methods before. One of the first questions many of them ask is how we claim higher close rates than other companies – sometimes it seems like we are making claim to something that can't be done. But really, there is nothing magic about it – it is all in combining the right marketing ingredients and steps to get the right result. Obviously, we are all dealing with the same people that are out searching on many portals or other locations out there, so we don't claim to get in you in front of different end-consumers. The key to the right kind of lead generation is really in the how. It is the "how" in the process of the lead finding you and the "how" in the process of you following up with the lead. If you are looking for good quality leads to build your own business or your team's business, here are the major things to keep in mind: Make sure your real estate leads are building trust in you from the first step. If one of the first steps of your marketing or lead generation strategy includes buying a lead or set of leads from a big brand, one thing you already know is that your leads don't know anything more about you than your competition. Make sure that you put in the time and resources to establish a real estate lead and marketing strategy that includes your brand being the core lead driver, and your websites and online presence being the location or "net."

The 5 Best Ways to Nurture Leads
Last week, I discussed some easy ways to capture more leads on your site. The inevitable question then becomes, So now what? According to the B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, 74% of all B2B leads are not "sales-ready." So how do you stay relevant and keep your brand top of mind until those consumers are ready to buy? You need to drive those leads to the sales finish line. Let's talk today about the car that will get you there. Here are five best practices to effectively nurture leads so most become new sales for your business. 1. Qualify Before you bring them into your car, you should make sure this person is right for you. You know your target consumer – does this person fit that criterion? Determine if someone is a good lead with a brief quiz. It doesn't have to be invasive or extensive, just a few pointed questions that lets your organization know if this is a person worth further investment. Qualify your leads with a brief quiz. Make it fun. Optimize it for mobile. And keep it short.

What’s the Score? 4 Ways to Track Real Estate Lead Generation Activities
To succeed and grow your brokerage, you need to do several things at the same time: generate leads, recruit and train effective agents and track agent activity with full accountability, all while utilizing the right tools to convert leads into sales. Lead generation activities like prospecting can often mean day after day of rejection and can take a toll on an agent's confidence. Tracking and reporting real estate lead generation activities helps agents stay motivated and holds them accountable to their goals, and keeps them focused on the activity instead of the end result. We don't always have control of the outcome, but we always have control over our effort. Here are four ways you can keep your agents accountable by tracking their lead generation activities from first contact to closed deal. Track Your Numbers Have you ever said, "I am doing everything I am supposed to be doing yet my business isn't growing?" If so, you probably aren't tracking your numbers effectively. Top performing agents understand that prospecting is a numbers game and are aware of the real estate lead generation activities they need to perform each day to accomplish their goals. If certain activities aren't completed, it will be reflected in their scoreboard. Numbers tracking holds agents accountable to revenue generating activities and ensures that they are hitting their goals.

6 Strategies on the Best Time to Nurture Leads
Summer is a great time to develop your garden. Delicate seeds require a lot of attention to grow into strong flowers. Just like your garden, the best way to ensure successful sales is to nurture your leads. Surprisingly, 80% of leads need 5 follow-up calls after the initial meeting to become a sale, but 44% of salespeople give up after only 1 follow-up, leaving a lot of room for improvement. Nurturing leads by making them feel important with a follow up improves the potential for present and future sales. Often a lead requires more than just a sales pitch to be convinced to buy or continue using a product. Knowing the best time to follow up with leads can be a difficult skill to master. Through trial and error you can determine the best times to contact your leads. To help you get started, here are some techniques we found: 1. Respond NOW The best time to follow up with a potential client is immediately. The longer you wait the less likely you are to qualify the lead. The odds of qualifying a lead decreases 6 times over the first hour. Waiting more than five minutes before contacting your lead causes the chances of closing a sale to decrease 4 times, and 21 times if you wait 30 minutes.

Make It Personal
When it comes to lead conversion, the Internet could be viewed as a mixed blessing. Ninety-two percent of home buyers go online to look at houses for sale, according to the National Association of REALTORS®' 2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. That translates to a potential boatload of Internet leads—but also to the time-consuming task of separating the casual browsers from the serious inquiries. Large brokerages such as 8z Real Estate in Boulder, Colo., with 104 agents, assign a customer service team to qualify prospects by all available means—phone, text, or live chat—and match them with an agent. Lane Hornung, CEO of 8z, says the customer service reps help ease prospective clients into the homebuying process. "The consumer feels less pressure because many Internet consumers want to stand back a bit," he says. As co-owner of a four-person team at Keller Williams Performance Realty in Colorado Springs, Colo., Mariana Wagner assigns the qualification process to administrative staff or does it herself. "Most people get into real estate because they're really good at negotiating or they're really good with people," Wagner says, "not because they are really good at converting leads." The Human Touch Wagner, who works primarily with listings, has a strong referral base, but she also gets leads from tools such as zBuyer and AgentMachine and from Facebook ads. She's a firm believer in contacting a lead, usually by phone, within five minutes. After that, qualification can take anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. But it's vital to make contact when the lead is still thinking about real estate, she says. "If you wait too long, they are on to other things, like Facebook," she says. If leads don't respond to a phone call, Wagner reaches out to them with text messages. "We have a remarkably high response rate when we text people," she says.

Using Your IDX To Close Business
Why nurture leads? Marketing to acquired leads is smart! Forrester Consulting found the following consistencies in companies that nurture leads: They generate 50% more leads at a lower cost per lead They reduce the percentage of ignored leads They raise close rates on leads by 7% They increase agent take home pay – and with a shorter ramp for new agents How to nurture your leads Let's start by looking at a typical lead funnel. The top of funnel activity includes activity such as paid search campaigns (i.e. AdWords, Bing), publisher ads, reciprocal links, SEO/organic traffic, and manually entered leads acquired from events such as open houses.

How to Identify Warm Leads Using Tools You Already Have
How can you tell "good" leads from the not-so-great? The answer may be to analyze the data available in your real estate apps and software. Brokers can use this information to detect patterns in consumer behavior and identify which leads may be more ready to buy. By targeting these "warm" leads, brokers and their agents save time that may have been wasted on those not ready to buy or sell a home. The good news is that real estate apps are increasingly giving users access to this data via built-in analytics tools. We've rounded up three common types of real estate solutions and ways you can identify warm leads in each. 1. Call Capture/Text Message Services Do your sign riders feature automated phone numbers that prospects can call or text for more information? If so, most of these services feature call capture capabilities that record a prospect's phone number at the moment of peak interest--curbside. More advanced solutions, like VoicePad, go one step further by funneling prospect information into a lead management program and giving those prospects the ability to search for other properties from their mobile device. The program can then track all properties that prospect has viewed, how many times they've viewed it, what homes have been favorited and more. Agents and brokers can use this information to target the most active prospects and craft a tailored follow-up strategy. You can see all your options for call capture and text messaging services here.

Leads Are All About Connecting
Once you have generated a lead, the game has really only just begun. Until your in-house staff or your agent makes a personal connection with the lead, it represents only potential. Converting potential into dollars is where lead management and best practices come into play. Below are four actions that will dramatically improve your lead conversion performance and profitability. In this discussion, I am talking about contactable leads. This is someone who has expressed an interest in being contacted in order to receive more information on a listing, to schedule a showing, or receive a CMA. This is in contrast to IDX site registrations (either voluntary or forced) and other website forms that do not convey a true or actionable interest. Make Contact in Less Than 30 Minutes You are probably sick and tired of hearing those of us in the lead management business screaming that you need to make contact in minutes, not hours, and certainly not in days. We do this for one simple reason: it works. There is no one action you can do that will convert leads into prospects better than making contact FAST. Period. You've heard about the MIT study that shows that the chances of making contact are tens of times better the sooner you call. LeadQual's research showed that of the leads that convert, 65% do so on the first call attempt. Then there is the research from NAR which shows that 75% of serious leads will work with the first agent to make contact. Do you know that over 50% of leads are never contacted and 75% of those that are contacted are contacted after more than a day? This leaves the court wide open for your agents to be the first to call.

4 Lessons in Lead Management
It's likely that you have heard of the MIT study which revealed how making contact with an Internet lead very, very quickly – in two to five minutes – has a remarkable impact on winning that lead's business. The most startling and often quoted revelation from the study was that you are 100 times more likely to successfully make contact with a lead if you call within five minutes compared to 30 minutes (and 13 times more likely to connect than if you called in 15 minutes). Wow. It is obvious to any fool that Realtors should always call the prospect back within five minutes, right? Maybe not. Looking deeper into the MIT study, we see that it focused on B2B leads. In our industry, almost all leads are from consumers. While some of these may be performing a search while at work (naughty, naughty), there is a substantial difference between contacting a consumer and contacting a business prospect at his or her desk. To understand how this study applies to the online real estate consumer, we need to look at their expectations and how this applies to lead conversion.

Your Prospects Are Rounded Up – Now What?
Now that you have those names and email addresses, the money is flowing right? Hardly. You've merely converted some suspects into prospects. And a prospect isn't going to hand you money. You don't get paid unless these names and email addresses end up next to you at the closing table. The one thing the Internet has done with amazing efficiency is to allow the real estate buyer or seller to spend as much time as they want in research and shopping without ever once talking to a real estate professional. The buyer process in finding a home has moved from a few weeks, most in the presence of a real estate agent, to many months online. Sellers also have a number of comprehensive resources online to gather information about the selling process and find out what homes in their neighborhood are selling for. Even if they like and continue to use your website and IDX search function, you're still just a website that works for them. You're no more valuable than any other real estate website, and you're still competing with the Zillows and Trulias of the world. The most important function in your lead generation plan is now in play. You must follow up and build a relationship to get them to your closing table. Drip email, or scheduled emails is the most effective way to start a discussion, but you need to do it right so that you don't alienate the prospect. First, develop an email campaign that's tightly woven around information of value to the niche. Don't send "make your kitchen smell good" emails to first time home buyers. Don't send residentially oriented emails to investors or commercial prospects. If you captured your prospects with focused reports, the forms would have grouped your prospects for you.

Stop Throwing Leads in the Garbage
The way you manage leads is one of your most important business rules as a brokerage. In the most common model, the listing agent receives a lead that comes in on one of their listings. When a lead is generated on another firm's listing, that lead goes into a rotation for all agents. However, rule-setting shouldn't stop there. Many brokers use solutions to add complexity to their lead management so that the leads that come in are responded-to in a timely fashion and don't go to waste. We talked to the team at Quantum Leads as our lead management experts. They offered several recommendations for improving lead routing. 1. Set a "time to live" for incoming leads. With this rule, if an agent doesn't respond to a lead within a set period of time, the lead is automatically redirected to another agent. 2. Take unresponsive agents out of rotation. For example, you could set it so that if an agent fails to respond to 10 different leads within 15 minutes or less, they will be taken out of rotation for a set amount of time or until they have completed training in lead follow-up. This will help you get rid of "deadbeat" agents.

Doorsteps: The Tool You Never Knew You Needed Until Now
Lead Generation is great, but lead conversion is better. Do you have a tool in place for meeting a potential homebuyer early in his or her journey, before the home search begins, or before they think they need you? If yes, does this tool simply help you keep in touch with them or does it help them move closer to actually engaging in the buying process with you? Doorsteps is one of those tools that does something different than what's currently out there — it allows agents and brokerages to engage, educate and incubate buyers who might be a little further out from an actual purchase. Which type of agent or brokerage is this for? Those who wish to engage customers in pre-buying collaboration (identifying neighborhoods, mortgages and listings) that inspires action (before the competition even has the chance to attract them online or offline). Doorsteps is a clean, simple and inviting place where you can can invite any buyer to research all of the important pieces of information about homebuying BEFORE they are even ready to start looking at houses with you.

What’s Your Web Lead-to-Closing Ratio and Why?
What are the most successful lead cultivation practices? Real estate professionals cultivate leads in a variety of ways. Before the Internet, it was all about networking, print marketing, T.V., radio, homes magazines, business cards and other traditional media that still work for us. Then along came the Web and we added websites, blogs and social sites. Let's examine how we handle leads that are generated on our websites and why one agent takes a higher percentage to the closing table than another. There's only one way to define "success" when it comes to working with website leads; it's a closing and commission. Nothing less is acceptable if you place maximum emphasis on lead conversion. We should also define a lead as a prospect, someone we have enticed into giving us their contact information. Until we have that, we have no lead to cultivate. 1. EVERY lead is a good lead. Start with this in mind and don't pre-judge leads by their questions or search habits. If you're watching their activity in your IDX, you still may not know their true motivation or financial capability. 2. DO NOT judge, but definitely use their questions and search habits. If you're going to try to help your prospect, you'll want to send them information that relates to their needs. Don't send canned email about McMansions to a searcher who is marking 2 BR ranch homes as favorites.

Some Brokers Really Suck
WAV Group is blessed to work with some excellent brokers. We have never worked for an agent unless it was through their broker. Regardless, we try to keep the agent in clear perspective because agent retention and recruiting are the mantra of the best brokerages in America. Yesterday, I ran across the path of a brokerage that really sucks. Here is the story. A young family with three children struggled with a stay at home mom who nurtured each babe through adolescence and into first grade. The mother was raised a dancer and supplemented her sanity and the family income by teaching dance classes at night. This is how we met. When her youngest child entered school, she added more part time jobs to help the family. Eventually she found her way to becoming a real estate agent. Still in her first year, she worked as a buyer's agent in six transactions, procured two listings and sold one. Clearly this gal has skills. We were sitting together last night when a tweet popped up on both of our phones from Point2, something about a sale on leads. We both chuckled at the irony of following the same company on Twitter, but she asked me about leads and Point2. I retorted with questions about how she generates leads today, how many leads her current listing is pulling in per month, and how she follows up on leads. To my surprise, she said that she did not get any leads. Since I am a "fixer," she and I set out to see what was broken. We checked online and saw her listings syndicated everywhere. I suggested some improvements to her profile and told her how to modify the description text on portals to generate more calls and clicks. Then we tested the lead routing solution from her broker. I inquired about her listing and we watched her phone for the lead to come in.

LeadRouter Gets Much Better
LeadRouter is the solution that is used by the REALOGY firms to manage the hundreds of thousands of leads generated by the franchises and the franchisees across the world. It is arguably the most commonly used lead management solution on the planet. Today, it just got better for the agent and for the consumer. In Thursday's version release, LeadRouter has taken steps to allow agents to immediately contact the consumer by phone when the lead comes in, and the record of that contact record is automatically published in LeadRouter. It is simple, elegant, better. If you are not a LeadRouter user, you may not appreciate this subtle sounding improvement. But it is big. Before the update, an agent would get a get a lead from LeadRouter. Hang up the phone, make another call to the consumer. Complete the call to the consumer, then log into LeadRouter, accept the lead, then update the lead status. All of these steps have been reduced to "Pressing 5" on your phone keypad. When an agent gets a lead and "presses 5," LeadRouter will dial the consumer's phone. If the call to the consumer spans 30 seconds, then the contact will be automatically applied to the status of the lead in LeadRouter. One step. Press 5!

Mobile App or Mobile Website? The Pros and Cons of Each
The 'Mobile website versus mobile app' debate might as well be Coke versus Pepsi. Smart online marketers have long been divided between the two, as many find themselves taking sides (though more prefer 'Team Mobile'). If online real estate stats follow those of eCommerce purchases, roughly 65 percent of customers would prefer to purchase from mobile websites, while the remaining 35 percent purchase from apps. So which would you choose? If you're leaning toward the direction with the highest percentage of customers, you're on the right track. But you might be forgetting that you could be losing 35 percent of customers by gaining access to 65 percent of them. The ideal solution is to have both options since you have customers who strongly prefer one platform over the other, and vice versa. By utilizing both, you can leverage each to its individual strengths, giving your real estate business maximum exposure and opportunities to drive business from all mobile customers on all mobile devices. If you're limited as to which platform you should start with due to resources, there's no wrong answer. Both offer customers the opportunity to find your business from mobile devices—the fastest growing segment in real estate marketing. Let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. You can view a more thorough breakdown by downloading our Free Mobile Whitepaper.

Brokers: Total Transparency of Agent Performance and Activity is Here
Market Leader made significant additions to its market-leading brokerage CRM system last month, including an innovative lead management dashboard that gives brokers and office managers visibility into agent performance, activity and lead follow-up. Lead management services have been around in some format for years, of course, but Market Leader is the first to provide comprehensive tools specifically targeting the broker, office manager and team leader.  Agents historically (and still today) are inconsistent, at best, with responding to online leads (and are usually worse at follow-up). With Market Leader's Office Pro package and new lead management dashboards, leading brokers can increase ROI and profitability of their marketing investments, plus increase the success and retention of their best agents. Market Leader is responding to two trends we see emerging that are changing the landscape of lead management for brokers. The first one is confounding. Agents want syndication and online advertising, but only respond to about one in four leads. When they do, it is normally a "one and done" call or email. The second trend is the need for brokerages to increase their visibility, management and ROI of leads – online and offline. Market Leader is now delivering a comprehensive Office Professional solution that includes not just the new dashboard, but CRM, Lead Management, and Lead Funnel management.

Moving Is an Emotional Experience, Part 2
This is part two of a three-part series by Jose Perez of PCMS Consulting. Read part one here. I am very lucky to have spent so many years in the real estate business. I have made lifelong friends, bought and sold many homes, and lived in some pretty cool places. Due to the intersection of my professional career and personal experiences as a real estate consumer, I feel that I can speak pretty credibly on what it takes to create a positive experience as a real estate agent and brokerage. As you read in my previous post, the experience I just had moving from Atlanta to Miami was uneven, at best, in spite of my contacts and visibility in the industry. If I, Jose Perez, industry veteran is saying this, what is Everyday Joe Real Estate Consumer saying? Instead of writing what I hope is a constructive narrative to highlight this issue, Everyday Joe Real Estate Consumer might very well be posting a negative review about his experience — with agent and broker names included. How many times have you heard the saying about negative impressions impacting your business more than positive ones? I had my share of both on both sides of my move. Lesson #3 Find ways to create a consistent and positive consumer experience online and offline every time they interact with anyone in your company, regardless of whether they are a "hot" buyer or seller.