How To Revive Dying Real Estate Leads

The thrill of cultivating a lead can easily be flattened if that lead suddenly becomes cold. It can leave a real estate agent or real estate ISA (real estate inside sales agent) feeling frustrated, often frustrated, wondering what exactly went wrong.

It’s important for real estate agents to remember that leads that seem like they are dying or leads that have “gone cold,” aren’t necessarily now dead.

It’s quite possible to to pump a little new life into those leads by assigning the right kind of approach for each lead.

You may not always get the right method on the first try. In this article I have broken down a few strategies that real estate agents can use to revive leads that you sense to be slipping away.

Some of these ideas may seem like old news to some agents, but it’s worth revisiting the ideas, and remembering what’s worked for you, personally in the past.

Learning from the past will help you determine what might work moving forward.

Digital Touch Strategy

There are different types of people out there, who will respond in different ways, to different forms of communication.

You may already keep some kind of tabs on which of your clients typically opens or responds to your marketing emails or texts. However, the fact of the matter is that the standard email open rate is just 20 to 30 percent, according to a Dynmark report. By comparison, texts have a 98 percent open rate.

If you want to send emails out, they’d better have some attention-grabbing subject lines and content. A lot of people appreciate holiday greetings and may be feeling more in the spirit to open emails if they’re headlined with a holiday vibe. Then, you can add in a quick nod to real estate and the market, reminding leads of what they might be missing.

Some people may still delete those emails immediately. Since texts often feel much more pressing and interesting, this might be the right route to go with your lead.

Lead Text Message Strategy

Texting leads about deals in their area, like foreclosures, as well as new listings and the option to sign up for notifications about new listings, are some of the most popular texts that Your Friends in Real Estate Team Owner (and Inman contributor) Barry Jenkins and his team often send out. According to Jenkins, these texts typically receive a 66 percent and 65 percent response rate, respectively. As always, be sure to follow all relevant laws related to marketing communication.

More personalized texts that make reference to the current day of the week or a lead’s activity on your website also perform better than the average email, with respective response rates of 52 percent and 44 percent, according to Friends in Real Estate Team’s own numbers.

Lead Nurturing Automation

Some agents also have great success with specific lead nurture automation software.

Calls-to-Action are GOLD!

It’s all well and good putting marketing automation in place, but every communication needs a call to action.
Your messaging sequences should be simple with one goal. You’ve heard of “funnels,” and I, personally, hate the term funnel; however, it’s a good visualization of a customer journey.

Marketing 101 states that your messaging sould be singular, purposed, and have a goal – such as completion of a call to action.

Example Marketing Journey

Send the lead an email, or a text, with the purpose of getting the person to click a link, then trigger the next action to those that have clicked the link. Repeat the message to those that haven’t clicked a link, to get them to do so.

Consistently, leads will continue down a path of becoming more and more qualified.

In the process, we’re learning more about the lead. This insight into what the lead wants will help us to personalize their journey, making your automation more effective.

Lead Nurturing Automation (Marketing Automation) is like having an automated virtual assistant, that works for free, 24/7/365 without getting sick.

Address distinct personalities, needs and lead types

Pass the Lead to Someone New

Sometimes, it mkaes sense toa lead that’s gone cold over to a business partner. You have to face the fact sometimes that. You might not be a perfect personality match with that particular lead. There might be something about your partner’s communication style that prompts the lead to be more responsive. Don’t take it personally — some people just mesh better together than others.

Maybe a fresh, new voice will stir them up!

Make Contact A Personal Thing

Make an effort to ensure every contact with a lead is personal and goes beyond just talking about transactions.

Making personal calls and texts frequently can go a long way. The key to communication is personalization and authenticity behind your approach. If you’re a genuine, honest, kind person, you want your clients to feel that.
Try to put your real estate clients above the transaction, and make sure they feel like that is the case too.

Communications should never appear to be automated. If your marketing automation is set up correctly, then leads should be responding to your communications. Therefore, if you’re doing it right, leads will reply to your automated emails.
Be sure to respond to any replies they make to your emails, no matter how trivial.

If a lead … responds with a non-committal response to one of your emails, be sure to take the time to respond. Even if their question is unrelated to your services, responding to them increases their likelihood of converting.

Keep Your Database Organized

Along those same lines of catering to a lead’s specific needs, it’s important to have an organized database in which you categorize leads.

Create different labels for leads within your database that help specify at what point in the buying or selling process a lead might be. This will make itmuch easier to communicate with them in an effective way and establish a connection with them.

If you want to use third-party manpower or a marketing tool to streamline your efforts and most efficiently utilize your database, you need to get specific with your labels. This means setting statuses for your leads that are accurate, are clearly defined and come with a set objective.

In iMaxCRM, we have developed very specific follow-up plans for leads at every step in the buying or selling journey — even those they haven’t heard from in a while. In general, humanizing messages by varying content, structure and timing will make a greater impact.

Send A Follow-up Message

The little things, like, sending a message after your first one saying, “let me know what you’re thinking,” with an emoji and a thumbs up, make communication seem a lot more human.

It’s equally important to get tone right. This is especially true with old leads. Keep your communication conversational, and not too pushy.

Also, don’t give up on them! Unless it’s very, very definitive that they don’t want you to chase them anymore.
When they say they’re not interested, don’t completely write them off, and don’t over-communicate, either. Just turn down the heat and send them something that might be of interest, at a later date, such as a local event invite.

Encourage engagement with events

Inviting leads to events from which they only stand to benefit is another good way to approach them in a non-committal setting and win them over.

This could be as simple as inviting locals to a free yoga class. This would be an example of an event totally unrelated to real estate, but it’s a nice gesture that will keep you top-of-mind. If you’re not into yoga, it could be A BBQ, or something Beer/Wine Related.

Befriend Your Leads

This takes no extra effort, and if you can possibly ‘befriend’ your leads, then you can get them back on the road to a purchase or a referral from the friends.

Events during COVID

There are plenty of ways to still engage leads with virtual or drive-by events too. Virtual cooking classes, or other virtual classes/activities could potentially be in-person events, if things with the pandemic start looking up later in the year.