By James Sheldon
There are numerous reasons why real estate agents fail miserably at generating consistent sales and earning substantial commissions. One of the major reasons, in this case, is not having an estate agent database that is full of previously engaged users. Whether that be users who signed up to a newsletter or a person who has previously bought or sold a property with your agency.
What is a real estate agent database? How does it help agents in closing off better deals at regular intervals? A real estate agent database is a record of the customers/clients your business has dealt with over the years. The database contains records of all such clients and the agent follows up with them from time to time. This helps in a lot of ways particularly when the market is not performing well. You are able to reflect back to users who you know are interested or have been interested in your agency.
Sending out targeted emails or giving your database a courtesy call to see how they are doing, is an easy way to build relationships that leave your brand at the forefront of a person’s mind. Leading to referrals and positive experiences for all parties involved.
As it is mentioned above, a real estate database is a record collection of customers who the agent has worked with in the past. These details include customer preferences, contact details, email addresses etc. Suppose that a real estate investor had purchased studio apartments through your agency. He or she can be contacted back and more deals can be pitched. Having a well-maintained database helps agents in numerous ways. This can be done on a low level, manually or, if you are a larger agency, automatically through different means.
In terms of technological options, Real Estate databases in the most basic form can be seen as a CSV form full of information. Cloud-based CRM systems are also used, customer records are stored on digital servers. At Property Webmasters our websites integrate with every major CRM system an estate agent could possibly desire, making this task a whole lot easier.
Simply having a real estate database does not help if an agent does not keep it updated regularly. This is why a CRM can be superior to a manual list. Suppose that a client record has an outdated contact number and you were unaware, your database is not going to be aware of that, and you would be wasting time sending emails to a person who is no longer receiving them. On the contrary, a CRM would track how many times you have delivered an unopened email, leaving you confident that you can remove this user from your database as they are no longer interested or responding.
It is a fact that a well maintained Real Estate database does wonders for agents. We have seen this first hand for clients we work with, whether that be targeted emails we design and send, or just in our general day to day conversations with clients.
There is a general consensus that if you do not have a database, it is too late to start one. Or, if you only have 100 users’ details, that is not enough to see a result. What we like to display, is the high standard of enquiry and engagement that a well-managed database can provide.
A good client not only helps you with attractive deals but top-notch connections as well. Smart agents get in touch with their existing clients particularly when the market is feeling slow. The Real Estate market does not perform consistently at all times. Depending on the location of your agency it is almost certainly going to experience some sort of seasonality.
At times, inflation and other related issues can reduce profit margins. In such situations, both investors and standard property buyers avoid selling or purchasing. This is where the experience of real estate professionals comes into play. Keeping conversations going and maintaining relationships through this time is critical.
If the market is not performing as you would have hoped or you get some downtime, get in touch with people who you have worked with before and had good experiences with. Check whether they are looking for more property options or not. In a lot of cases, this can lead to more work. In addition to that, property investors prefer working with agents who they have worked with, in the past. They avoid working with new real estate consultants.
Even if they are not looking for property investments at that time, their referrals can come into play. For instance, a previous client may refer someone who you are not currently aware of to your business, due to the outstanding relationship you have built up. Usually, people communicate in their social circles when they are looking for real estate agents. They do not prefer experimenting with new ones. Thus, you can get a good deal by following up with people in your real estate database.
Waiting for a potential buyer/seller to get in touch with you is fine, but it cannot be relied upon without mass investment in marketing. This is something depending on almost fate or marketing spend leaving you to be reactive when an enquiry comes in. Instead, having a database allows you to use a proactive strategy that can be used for much better results due to the intent that these users have already declared for your business. Here is an insight into how you can work this out.
Use an automated CRM system to create and manage your database.
These cutting edge applications have the option to set alerts, with no lead left behind. They can centralize your leads making it easy to route them to agents, track activity, and send hyper-targeted nurture campaigns, you can reach new leads first and take advantage of automated tools with branded emails, minimising your workload.
With a CRM like PropertyBase you are able to be one step ahead of your enquirers, as you have an insight into what they have been doing on your website, your sales team can take advantage of detailed information to customize their approach when communicating with the leads.
It is important to understand the function of a Real Estate Database and how it can prove to be helpful. The best results can only be attained if the right tips are used. For instance, construct the database gradually and add long term records to it. A lot of deals are one time wonders as not everyone is an investor looking for multiple deals.
As mentioned, a real estate database gets constructed over the course of time. Consider that you may have to start constructing a database from scratch. After one month, you may have 30 customer records and this would increase the probability of closing off a deal successfully.
Real Estate marketing and database updating is something that requires continuous work and support.
As well as targeting and nurturing your database directly, you can utilise your database in other ways. Advertising channels such as Facebook, Instagram & Google give you the opportunity to create ‘lookalike audiences’. What are they? Lookalike audiences allow you to take a database, website traffic, or page followers and create prospects that match similar characteristics in terms of demographics, interests and behaviours of the sample size. This is an effective way of prospecting as you are using relevant data to reach new audiences. Users who have been on to your website, are in your database or are a follower of your business have already shown engagement with your agency and therefore this should give you a headstart when looking for your target audience.
As most of you will know, when utilising an interest-based audience there is always that little bit of hesitation whether or not you are reaching out to the right people, and with the Facebook removing certain demographic targeting options, it is more important than ever to feel secure with who you are targeting.
A lookalike audience eliminates this worry and increases the likelihood of a successful campaign. With the ability to control and adjust the percentage size of your audience, you can make it as narrow or as broad as necessary allowing you to direct your campaigns to the right target audience.
Keeping a clean, high-quality database not only improves your open and click-through rates but will improve the quality of the audiences you are targeting and provide you with relevant data from which you can make informed decisions.
Although over 95% of first-time visitors won’t enquire or make a purchase straight away, no one wants to be targeted by a company who they haven’t interacted with in years! This is no different for your agency. If you are keeping hold of prospects who have little to no intent you are blocking up your database and potentially hindering your analytics and marketing efforts.
Making sure you have everything all in one place is key! Are you using a CRM system? Not only does this help organise and collect all of your customer’s data in one place, but CRM helps you to build upon your relationship with your customers, increasing their loyalty and ineffectively your business revenue!
Experimenting when it comes to your marketing is something that can not be ignored and is paramount when it comes to understanding your audience.
Following trends is not always the best way to work, one thing that works for one agency may not work for yours, although A/B testing gives you the creative freedom to see exactly how your audience reacts.
Once your content is created the A/B test will split your database in half, sending 50% of traffic to Version 1 and the other 50% to Version 2. Depending on the type of content created within a week you should start to see trends showing which campaign is performing better and when looking deeper you should be able to see the reasoning behind this.
User Experience – Move certain CTAs to the top of your page instead of the bottom, this will then give you an insight into where your user is most likely to enquire.
Design Test – Change elements of a design to see what users engage most with
Subject Lines – Alterations with subject lines to see what performs best in terms of open rates. For example, using an emoji vs without an emoji.
Hopefully, you now understand just how important it is for your business to set up or make use of an already flourishing database of previous enquirers. If you are looking for a place to get started, your website must be set up with data capture in mind. Comprehensive forms are essential in order to draw enquiries, at Property Webmasters we have a range of website options for you to choose from. How about you take advantage of our current offer of a free, no-obligation website Mock-Up? See how your brand looks within one of our AgentPlus solutions.
By Ben Spowart