More Facetime or Facebook?
How about both? The day that real estate stops being a face to face business is the day Real Estate Agents become obsolete. The truth about real estate is that if you want to double your business (regardless of the methods and tactics used) just double your amount of face to face appointments. Simple Right? The secret sauce of Real Estate lead generation success is the right mix for each individual Agent (everyone is different). Every Agent has different goals, different finances, and different strengths and weaknesses.
It All Starts Here!
Database: What does every Agent need? Without question every Agent must have a real estate database. If you do not have a database — you will fail in real estate. Your database is never finished — it needs to be constantly fed and maintained . In the beginning its not so important which database, but having one. There's dozens of Customer Relationship Management (CRM's) for real estate. Agents can also use Gmail, Outlook, Excel, or any program that can categorize customer groups. Your database should be the largest source of qualified lead generation.
At the Joe Wiessner Realty we have state of the art CRM's. Agents who want to piggy-back along with the Company CRM are encouraged to do so. Our Company Communication Coordinators (CC's) know the CRM system inside and out. This knowledge can be a huge benefit to Agents. The CC's have specific knowledge and skill in work flow set-up, drip campaigns, auto responders, and database follow-up techniques.
Agent Website
The importance of having a professional real estate website is unsurpassed. This all-important asset, which is essentially the virtual face of your business, will not only help to establish credibility online, but enhance the overall presence of your business—whether online or off. Along with helping to strengthen online visibility, a real estate website acts as a central location for customers to visit, browse, shop and gather information. Done right, a real estate website will have a polished appearance with easy navigation and functions, quality content and an overall experience that impresses users.
The most valuable part of the website is for lead capture. Clients trade their contact information for access. Captured contacts are routed back to a CRM for contacting, nurturing, and closing. This is a proven winner for adding leads to your database. The database can be for multiple re-marketing purposes. The Company website "thinkw.com" has been very successful. We have the expertise on how to build out the same for you!
Social Media Lead Generation
Facebook: Does your office manager or Broker know how to generate mass Facebook leads? Joe Wiessner knows how! We have been at the forefront of Facebook lead gen with excellent results. We will freely share this expertise with our Agents. Our Agents can also partner up with the Company CC's for best practices Facebook lead gen, follow-up, nurture, and close.
Google Adwords: (aka Google Pay Per Click - PPC). Joe Wiessner Realty has built the infrastructure for successful (PPC) campaigns with great success. We can teach our Agents how to for this platform as well. Understand that building an Adwords campaign is quite an under-taking. We have made every mistake in the book... so you don't have to! The rewards for this type of system are large, but so is the cost to launch and maintain.
Instagram: Goes hand and hand with Facebook because it's owned by Facebook. This platform has its pros and cons. The main benefit is that it is the social media platform of choice for the younger generation — the future home buyers of America!
Lead Forwarding: Agents that contract with Zillow and Realtor.com have the option to forward these leads to the Company. The CC's and the Agent can partner so that the CC's can professionally answer to contact, nurture the contact, and close as a qualified contact for delivery back to the Agent. It's a great system — completely optional.
Showing Time is the program that allows Agents to schedule appointments to see listings. All Agents have their own
Showing Time Account. The program allows Co-Operating Agents to set appointments electronically direct from
the MLS. The Agents are responsible for uploading the all showing instructions and notes.
Docusign
The Company program to obtain electronic signatures for contracts and addendums is docusign. The agents
have access to the Company docusign account. It’s a real time saver!
In the end, real estate agents who recognize that technology is a tool that can and should be leveraged to support new ways of conducting business and building successful relationships will lead the way. Educating consumers has become our best asset. We should use it to our advantage.