May 6, 2021
Ginger Crosbie
Steal our best practices and download our ‘How To Get A Response’ checklist
Your ads are working.
You’ve got leads pouring in.
But, there is still a problem…
You’re still not getting responses from those online real estate leads that clicked through on your ad, gave you their information, and said “Hey, I’m interested in this”.
You know something is off, but you’re not entirely sure where the problem lies.
Luckily for you, you’re in the right spot.
Getting online real estate leads to respond is our specialty. Smart Alto has a team of real estate ISAs that know how to engage with leads and get them to respond.
Let’s break down some of our best practices that help make us so successful so you can get more responses from your online real estate leads, even if you’ve failed before.
At Smart Alto, we follow up with leads until we get a response. You should be too.
If you’re following up just once, or even twice, you’re missing a HUGE opportunity.
I know rejection stings, but not getting a response from your leads is not rejection. In fact, it’s not rejection until they tell you to get lost.
(And remember that old saying in real estate sales? Some will. Some won’t. So what? Someone’s waiting).
Only about 40% of people who will respond to you are going to do so on the first follow-up attempt.
But, over 85% of people who will respond will respond by the 6th follow-up attempt.
That means that your leads aren’t dead until you’ve followed at least up six times.
We tend to let our emotions, judgments, and limitations keep us from following up because we don’t want to come across as needy, pushy, or the like.
The other factor that keeps agents from consistently following up with leads is time. To call 300 leads, each a minimum of 5 times, would take at least 30 hours. And those numbers don’t take into account those people that will answer the phone.
When you know you’re looking at 30 hours worth of phone calls, it’s hard to consistently make that time commitment, especially when you consider all the other business demands.
But remember, your leads showed interest in your service.
Sure, some accidentally clicked on the ad. Or maybe the lead changed their mind. Or perhaps another agent got in touch with them first (remember that is important too). All of those things do happen, but don’t let your own perceptions stop you from success.
Texting is the best when it comes to lead follow-up.
Sure email and phone calls have their place in the real estate business, but when it comes to getting your real estate leads to respond, they will fall short every time.
(Not sold? Check out our articles: Texting VS Calling: Which Is Better For Converting Real Estate Leads? and Better Than Email Campaigns - Covert More By Texting Real Estate Leads to see why texting is best)
Our ISAs at Smart Alto rely solely on texting to get online real estate leads to respond because it’s simply the most effective and scalable channel available.
Besides, people want to be able to text businesses, and the numbers don’t lie. In fact, they support our other points.
95% of texts are read within 3 minutes of being sent. If you weren’t texting your real estate leads before, that number alone should be enough to get you to start.
What other available channel has a 95% read rate within 3 minutes of the message being sent? We’ll wait while you try and find one…
There isn’t.
We’ve all heard the expression, “the early bird catches the worm”…
Well in today's instant gratification world, ASAP is no longer fast enough.
You need to respond to your incoming real estate leads within 5 minutes because contact and qualification rates for new leads drop significantly after 5 minutes and continue to drop over time.
That’s why Smart Alto has ISAs available 24/7/365 to respond to online real estate leads within the first 5 minutes.
Your leads are impatient. Actually, we are all pretty impatient. We want answers and we want them now.
This creates a problem for you because you have a life and a business to run. Lead conversion isn’t your sole focus. You have:
You’re just one person. How can you perform all of these important aspects of your business and still be available for your incoming leads? ( Hint: Smart Alto can help)
If you’ve participated in any sort of sales or communication training you’ve probably learned about open-ended questions.
Open-ended questions are questions that require the answerer to use more than 1-2 words to answer the question. They are designed to get a person to talk and share more about themselves.
These are great for building rapport with someone you’re working with, but they are the kiss of death for getting a lead to respond.
What you need to be doing is asking frictionless questions. Questions that don’t require your lead to think. All they have to do is hit 2 buttons and the question is answered.
Why are these so important?
Because your lead is busy. They have work, family, friends, appointments, etc…
The chance that your lead is sitting with nothing going on when you reach out to them is slim to none. They are probably juggling multiple things. So you need to ask them a question that they don’t have to think about. For example:
Remember, your first goal is to get your lead to respond. It’s the hardest (and most important) thing you can do.
There is a very fine line between asking frictionless questions and sounding robotic.
Though you want to ask questions that are designed to get your lead to respond, you want to avoid sounding robotic.
“How many bedrooms are you looking for?” Is a frictionless question. But if you lead a conversation that way your lead might feel like they are dealing with a bot and not a real person.
At Smart Alto, we have mastered the art of Personal Touch. Our Real Estate ISAs are humans, not chatbots, and trained to engage with your real estate leads in a way that lets your leads know they are dealing with an actual human on the other end.
Each component of the text message has a purpose. Let’s breaks this down:
“Hi Robert, this is Alex (yes, a real person), the real estate coordinator for [insert name] and [insert brokerage].”
This first sentence introduces the author and lets the reader know that they are dealing with a real person.
“I noticed you clicked our Facebook ad about homes for sale in your area, and I just need some quick info first. How many bedrooms are you looking for?”
The second and third sentences inform and remind the reader why you are reaching out to them in the first place and ask a frictionless question to get the reader to respond.
The frictionless question makes it easier for your lead to respond, and remember, the more responses and engagement you get from a lead, the easier it is to move them further down the funnel.
(By the way, here is an article we wrote, 3 Soft Skills You Need For Real Estate Sales And Could Never Teach A Chatbot, to help you be even more personable when engaging your leads.)
Getting online real estate leads to respond is our specialty at Smart Alto. There are plenty of things that you can be trying to get more responses from your online real estate leads (yes, even if you’ve failed before). Remember to try these five simple things before you label your leads as ‘dead’ next time:
Doing all of these things makes our team of ISAs at Smart Alto incredibly successful at connecting and converting online real estate leads for our clients.
If you’re ready to get more responses from your online real estate leads, download The Ultimate Checklist For How To Get A Response From Online Real Estate Leads.
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