If you are a real estate agent then you have a contact list, but oftentimes you don’t know how to leverage that contact list. Your contact list contains all your past clients, prospects, and current clients. Maybe you have the contact list on Google or Outlook, but you have no idea what to do with it. If this sounds like you, then read along and find out how to leverage your contact list to gain more business and get more organized. This blog will tell you exactly what steps to take to become a master in effective contact management.
Begin using a good Real Estate CRM System:
Ask yourself, do you have a good real estate CRM? The one that helps you be effective and efficient in contact management. If the answer is no, continue reading and find out why it is so important to have an effective CRM system. A good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is the key to effective contact management and managing your sphere of influence (SOI). Remember, you need a CRM that is tailored to real estate and hence Outlook or Gmail will not be sufficient. A real estate CRM not only effectively manages your contacts but also manages your listings and helps you send pre-written marketing communication items that have been specifically designed for your business.
Segment your database into groups and categories:
Why is this important? To have personalized conversations with your SOI and organize your business effectively, you need to categorize your contacts. The first step in doing that is to assign every contact to the appropriate contact type: prospect, client, business-to-business or personal. This is very important as it helps you segment and differentiate your contact list and it also helps you communicate with each group in a different way. The emails and letters you send your clients should be completely different than the ones you send to prospects.
Gather more information on your contacts as time goes by:
It is very important to have as much information as you can on your clients. It doesn’t necessarily have to be right off the bat but over the course of time, you can gather more information. What kind of information would you need? This goes beyond having a phone number, mailing address and email. We are talking about interests, hobbies, birthdays, various details on your contact’s partner and children. Why is this important? It will help you have meaningful and relevant conversations with your clients that can help you gain more referrals and repeat business.
Use your information to have more meaningful conversations:
Now that we have established how important it is to gather information about your clients, the next step is to use that information and have a meaningful conversation. Imagine not dreading a call to a past client because now you have something to talk about that’s relevant to their life. Getting to know your clients as real people is so crucial in building those lifelong relationships. Who do you think John will refer next time he is asked about a real estate agent? You. Be sure to wish your clients Happy Birthday, Happy Home Purchase Anniversary etc. Your CRM will remind you of these dates when the time comes, and it will also give you a selection of e-Cards to choose from. Doing these small things makes the biggest impact on your clients and their relationship with you.
Build a Marketing Plan that Grows Your Business:
You got yourself a good real estate CRM system, categorized your contacts, got some wonderful information on most of them. Now, this is where it all starts. You have built a foundation of your CRM and it will help you market to specific groups. For example, you just received a listing. and you want to share this with your current prospects who are trying to buy a house. Your CRM will help you create mass email or select the group and create mail merge letters and labels and help you send the email to only the prospects. Since you have done all the heavy lifting, now it is only organizing those marketing plans to target different groups depending on their needs.
Start realizing the benefits of IXACT Contact’s Real Estate CRM today.
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