The most vital skill a real estate person will ever master is to prospect. An agent or broker’s success lies in the ability to locate prospective clients and close deals. Prospecting is an art, an art honed through time. Technologies change, people change, but the ingredients to successful prospecting remain the same. Have a quick look at these real estate prospecting tips that will help get you new clients and gear up your selling touch points.
1. Leverage Technological Tools
Think of how much change the real estate sector has undergone over the past 10 years. Then, imagine how it could be in the next five years. Mind boggling, right?
To remain relevant, you need to use tools that propel your lead acquisition process. Digital tools give you the power to search thousands of property records and retrieve accurate contact details. Tech tools ease the process of collecting key facts about real estate markets. They give you better visibility of the market. For instance, ProspectNow uses an algorithm that enables you to see which houses are likely to sell. The tool considers historical data to map out a homeowner’s selling or buying behavior.
- Create and Follow a Marketing Plan
A plan is a roadmap that guides your prospecting goals. It is easy to create a plan but following it is often challenging. As an agent or a broker, you have to incorporate prospecting into your daily routine. And that means you need a schedule, calendar, and objectives to follow.
Your plan should include:
- Daily prospecting schedule of 60-90 minutes
- Your target market and associated demographics
- Market segmentation strategies
- Competitive advantage strategies
- Daily, weekly, and monthly goals
- Communication and outreach efforts
- Digital marketing strategies
Proper planning provides you with a chance to outline key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your return on investment (ROI) and to identify which strategies yield the greatest results.
3. Know More About Your Market
It might be an uphill task exhausting opportunities in a market you have no clue about. You need to research your chosen area, understand the market culture, and identify real estate dynamics in the area. Get to know the movers and shakers in the market and how they affect your prospecting channels and goals. Know what you can, and keep learning while adjusting to the changing market needs.
At times, physical boundaries act like the determinants of your market. But they do not have to limit you in any way. You can choose a certain niche of property owners or investors, such as high earning entertainers or a given income class, and make them your chosen market.
4. Focus on Data
No more guesswork. Collect, analyze, and use prospecting data to your benefit. Property information tools such as ProspectNow have millions of real estate properties’ data that can be used to facilitate the creation of accurate reports.
Data is indispensable in understanding your clients and serving their needs. A wealth of information can become actual wealth if it leads to closing more deals. Knowing things like zoning, building regulations, and upcoming government projects in your area can help identify desirable investment properties. Data not only helps in knowing more about leads but also informs your prospecting decisions.
Undoubtedly, data enhances your understanding of the prospects across the marketing funnel. Sellers will go for agents and realtors who have bespoke knowledge of trends, laws, and real estate economic outlook.
5. Be Quick To Grab FSBO Opportunities
Most for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) properties end up in the hands of professional agents and brokers. Try to find out owners who have listings that have overstayed in the market. Approach them and give them tips that would help them sell fast. Use an FSBO service or tools such as the ProspectNow platform. Also, leverage your networks to engage FSBO owners.
6. Create a Sphere of Influence
We have relied so much on social media and digital channels that we have forgotten the importance of face-to-face conversations. Be active out there. Attend community events and use every prospecting opportunity to create relationships.
Create great relationships with the people around you. These are past clients, friends, and family who form your sphere of influence. They can act as a reliable source of referrals. If possible, always offer discounts or gifts to them when processing their real estate deals. Also, add your sphere to your social media handles, and create marketing pieces tailored for them.
7. Follow a Social Media Strategy
Social media is a pivotal network for acquiring prospects, but most brokers do not have a robust social strategy. With proper strategy, you can achieve quick engagement, reinforce your brand, and establish a solid CRM (customer relationship management) funnel.
You need a strategy that works for your goals, one that harmonizes well with your business plan. Present yourself as a professional expert and entice your audience with news, trends, and happenings in your area. Use stories and polls to engage your audience. If you are still struggling to find an audience, consider using influencer marketers.
When finding potential home buyers, you can consider brand exposure tools such as the Zillow premier agent. Facebook and Instagram are useful social handles for marketing. But don’t forget that the likes of YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram are vital as well.
8. Categorize Your Leads
Uncluttering your sales pipeline by organizing your leads will help reduce churn rates. Potential property sellers have different needs. So, why would you add every prospect to a same email drip campaign? You can classify leads as cold, warm, and hot depending on core questions driving prospects to buy or sell. Consider questions such as: why are they selling or buying? What kind of property are they selling? When do they expect a closing? How do they want to sell or buy? Such classifications will assist you in scheduling processes and customizing marketing campaigns. It will enable you to organize meetings with leads who have similar desires.
9. Use Content Marketing to Fuel Your Campaigns
Do not push ads to your prospects aimlessly. Take time to provide something of value, such as a discount, entertaining tidbits, or insightful how-to videos and blog articles that can help them make sound investment decisions.
Content can help you win the hearts of prospects. Look for anything from funny posts to memes that can strike an emotional chord with your audience.
The effect of content marketing is cumulative. So, be consistent with your tone and message as well as consistent in producing content.
10. Consider Postcards and Door Hangers
If you want to get sellers that would have never considered agents or brokers, postcards and door hangers are essential. By informing potential prospects that some houses in the neighborhood are selling way above their asking prices, they might consider selling their homes.
Even in the age of digital marketing, old-fashioned direct mail campaigns remain effective. Of course, you should use modern methods for executing the direct mail marketing. For example, ProspectNow not only helps you create targeted lists of prospects based on your chosen filters, the platform offers templates for postcards to enable you to create and send direct mails to prospects on a whim.
11. Personalize Your Offline and Online Campaigns
Everyone wants to feel unique and special. Personalization enhances engagement, drives leads, and improves customer’s satisfaction.
When you do it right, your lead conversion rate skyrockets and you will make several listings in a month. Consider using geofencing to understand your prospects better. The good thing is that you can get as granular as you want – down from the city to the zip code and the block.
Understand the demographics of your social media audience and take time to craft personalized materials. Personalization draws you closer to your prospect acquisition goals.
Bottom Line
Real estate prospecting is a journey that is unique for everyone. There are no rules of thumb or special guidelines to follow. Some can take years to master the art of prospecting; some can achieve their prospecting goals in a matter of months.
ProspectNow helps real estate agents and brokers develop the roadmap for their success. The platform helps agents perform market segmentation by providing them with accurate historical data and current information about properties and owners. ProspectNow’s data analytics algorithms map out a homeowner’s real estate journey to identify which prospects are likely to sell or buy homes.