Collecting prospective customer emails should be part of every real estate professional’s marketing strategy. In this article, we want to discuss why it’s important to collect a database of email leads…and what you, the real estate professional, should be doing with this database of leads to increase your business.
If you’re already savvy enough to know the importance of collecting and nurturing a database of email leads, please read our follow up article, “Complete Guide to Collecting Email Leads Online“. That article will go over how to start collecting prospective customer emails.
Sell Faster
When you’re representing a seller’s listing, time on market is not only important for your earnings turn-around time…it’s also extremely important for your customer that their property sells fast and holds its listed value.
To decrease time-on-market, there are admittedly many factors out of your control as the agent, such as listing price, sellers expectations, comparable properties, market demand, etc. But, there are somethings very much in your control to help expedite the selling process. One of these key factors is buyer communication.
If you don’t have a clear strategy of keeping potential buyers in the loop with the property, you could be losing valuable time in finding the right potential buyer. By having a list of prospective client emails, you can blast out timely and effective emails about the property to help nudge potential buyers in the right direction.
One simple example of a great timely email is an announcement of your open house schedule. By emailing your entire email leads list (both people currently in the market and even old contacts)…you can simply and affordably market and drive potential buyers to your open house events.
Another simple example is the price drop email. A potential buyer who might be on the fence about purchasing a property, might just make an offer after a price drop. Effectively communicating these changes via an email blast might just be the difference between an immediate sales versus your property being on the market for several more months.
More Commission
The number one goal a seller’s agent has is their responsibility to do right by the seller. But, this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t go out to source independent buyers for the property.
It’s bewildering to still see so many agents who think it’s enough to just list their property online and merely wait for the buyers and buyer agents to roll in. We think this is both irresponsible to the seller, and foolish to leave commission earnings on the table. A successful agent will proactively email their database of leads (both current and old customers), and try to find an appropriate buyer. By doing this, a sellers agent will increase their odds of doing business directly with the buyer and earn both sides of the commission.
Consider this scenario. A seller’s agent blasts out an email, marketing the new listing to their database of old and new clients. One of the email recipients, who was working with a buyer’s agent half a year ago, had already given up on their property search months ago and is no longer working with an agent. They receive your email announcement of your new listing, they find that the property matches their criteria for a home, and they call you the next day and decide to do business with you directly. For this transaction, the agent earns double what they would typically earn.
This is not an uncommon scenario, and it usually happens when the agent is being proactive in marketing their listings…potentially reaching some of the more passive/reactive buyers. Just waiting and hoping for potential buyers to stumble on their property listing is not a good strategy. By that time, 9 out of 10 the buyers will already be working with an agent, and you’d be leaving money on the table.
Increase Referral Sources
Most successful real estate agents consider referrals as the lifeline of their business. Without a healthy amount of customer referrals…most real estate businesses would flatline, and earnings would come to a halt.
This last point is very effective when you keep old clients and old leads as part of your email blasts…when when they’re no longer in the market to buy or sell the house. This group of people is usually the richest source for business referrals and more leads. It almost sounds counter-intuitive to continually reach out to people who are no longer in the market to buy or sell…but read on.
Consider this scenario. You had an open house event for a property a year ago, and you put in the effort to collect 20 potential buyer’s email addresses that visited your open house, even though almost all of them were working with a buyer’s agent. None of those buyers actually made an offer, but you still kept them in your database of email leads. The house sold within a month to another buyer. Everyone was happy…that was a year ago.
Within this year, you continued to consistently email your entire database of leads once a month, even though most of those 20 buyers have already found homes or have fallen off the housing search altogether. During that time, their own real estate agent has even stopped communicating with them (which is normally the case). Consider this…when the friends and families of those 20 people ask for a recommendation for a great real estate agent to work with…who do you think they’ll recommend? Will they recommend their own agent who has fallen off with their communications? Or will they recommend you, the agent who is top of mind who has been consistently showing their real estate activity via email throughout the year?
The answer is obvious, they’ll recommend you…the agent that’s on top of their game. Even in the worst-case scenario, they might recommend their own agent AND you, the real estate professional they still see have active transactions in the neighborhood.
We hope you’re convinced that there are clear reasons for collecting this list of customer emails…whether they are active customers in the market for a house, or old customers no longer in the market. Nurturing this list with consistent email communication will become the lifeblood of your real estate deals.