Critical Components of a Successful Online Marketing Program (Three Part Series)

October 31st, 2008 by roostblog in Industry News

Part 3: Follow Up

We are now dealing with the most critical piece of the online real estate puzzle…follow up. It is one thing to capture leads on your website but you need to contact those leads immediately. Most consumers now expect communication within 30 minutes of their inquiry. Some are even tougher and demand a response within 10 minutes.

What happens if you don’t respond in 30 minutes? The consumers go somewhere else. So now you’ve spent all this money and exerted all this energy to get people to your website and fill out one of your forms and they fly away to another website. They are now working with someone able to answer their questions in a timely manner. What is an agent or broker to do? Well here are some ideas to think of when handling your website leads.

1.       Automatic Email Response – It may not be the perfect solution but an automated response is better than no response at all.

2.       A dedicated Internet Lead Manager (ILM) – this person’s sole duty is to respond to inquiries that come to you website. They can also answer the phone for people that feel more comfortable with that form of communication. They can also provide live chat sessions if your website is set up for it.

3.       Route Inquires to iPhone or Blackberry – This is especially critical for single agents because you are in the field a lot. Now you can at least respond to establish the initial contact and then follow up on the lead in more detail when you get back to your office.

4.       Use a Third Party Company – With labor costs becoming cheaper, it might make sense to use a third party company to do the initial follow up on any leads your receive. Now obviously you can only provide so much initial service with this solution, but it is an option.

5.       Partner with a Buyer’s Agent - This is especially helpful when you are really focused on the listing side and find it hard to respond to leads in a timely manner.

Now all of these are merely suggestions to try and tackle the issue of quick follow up.  I’m just taking the experience I had with running the eTeam at a large regional real estate broker and interacting with thousands of real estate agents over my career. I would really like to hear from people with other great suggestions and ideas on how to make this system better. I look forward to your comments.

Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
derek.overbey@roost.com
Twitter - @doverbey

Comments Tagged in: , , , , ,

  • Folliowing up on web contacts. Do they want a phone call? {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/Hbniaxfwh2_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"Folliowing up on web contacts. Do they want a phone call? "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/LrD7vzR9Xq"}}}
  • I don't think people like phone calls! {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/hs3jUGfxlK_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"I don't think people like phone calls! "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/Iie0NGEcfc"}}}
  • To Call or not To Call. I have gone back and forth with this questions so many times. I have a lead capture system that requires a login after viewing a few listings from the MLS. These people are usually not to interested in talking to an agent right away but get a call from me anyways. The person that says " I like this house and want to see it" well they get a call from me right away. These are my main lead capture solutions other then these lead capture solutions I have not had many people just email me with questions all that often.
  • Sometimes it's irritating for these 'leads' to receive a call. Well that all depends on who they're talking to and if the product you're selling is of any importance to them.
  • Getting back to web leads asap is critical.

    I have a blackberry so I use that to get back to them right away. If there is a number I call them.

    Auto-responders to me are not very personal or professional. That said I so use them when I go on vacation (11 days and counting!) but only as means to let people know about my absence.

    In this market, having people around to do that stuff is expensive.

    I call my web leads right away and I get a good response. That said I am more of a phone guy than an email guy.
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