With many more people moving ahead with plans to buy and sell in 2019, communication will be of great importance in growing your business. Which forms of communication count for prospecting purposes? Use the criteria below as a guide:
– Face-to-Face: the rule for face-to-face for contacts that qualify for prospecting purposes is as follows:
Any person or group that you are seeing or talking to face-to-face about real estate qualifies as prospecting. In other words, if you were to go golfing and discuss real estate with the members of your foursome during the game, and spend 5 minutes with the golf pro and the subject of real estate came up, every contact would qualify. If you were to do a presentation to a networking group of 25 members, and you gave a 5-minute market update in front of the group, this would qualify as 25 face-to-face contacts. If however, you met with 10 other agents to discuss the market for 3 hours, none of these contacts count as prospecting for obvious reasons. Don’t forget, holiday gatherings also count as face-to-face contacts if real estate comes up.
– Phone Calls: the rules for phone calls that qualify for prospecting include any phone conversation that you have with people will be as follows:
Any phone calls that you have with past clients, buyer and seller prospects, advocates, sphere of influence, or existing listings. Only if you ask, “do you know anybody who is thinking about moving” or if you say, “please don’t keep me a secret.” Calls to existing listings to discuss showings don’t count unless you ask one of the question’s above. Nor do phone calls to friends and family unless you ask one of the above questions. Additionally, if a buyer or seller calls you for an update, from a sign, or from the internet, each one of these counts as does your returning a phone call from one of these prospects.
– Although not as effective as face-to-face and phone calls, mailings provide the biggest bang for your buck. Every direct mail piece counts including birthday and holiday wishes, obviously for branding purposes, compelling real estate information is best. Another benefit to direct mail is that you don’t need permission. Postcards can be best because the recipient doesn’t have to open an envelope. A word to the wise, if you’re mailing only once or twice a year without making each piece part of a larger 24-touch communication campaign, you may be wasting your money.
– Email: if you don’t have money to invest in direct mailing, an email campaign is ideal. But it only works if you’ve been gathering email addresses. Unless you have a CRM like ACT or Top Producer, it is strongly suggested that you set up groups in Outlook or use an email service like Constant Contact. Three very important rules for any email campaign:
- Never, ever send emails without permission – no spamming!
- Be sure that the emails you send are interesting to the recipients
- Don’t send anything that requires the recipient to take an extra step by downloading pictures. All graphics and images should be embedded in the body of the email.
Great prospecting campaigns will keep you busier than you’ve ever imagined. Every successful campaign should include as many face-to-face and phone contacts as possible with emailing and direct- mail contacts being used to be sure that no one is left out. Another good rule of thumb in a 24-touch campaign is to make 1 touch every month via email and 1 touch every month via direct-mail. If it’s a hot buyer or seller that may go to contract in the next 90 days, you should have a contact every week!
Finally, your goal should be to maintain communication using the above mediums with at least 1,000 people.
Please note some of the best forms of communication or messages you can share have nothing to do with buying and selling. Your clients will really appreciate it when the message isn’t just about buying and selling but instead is something that benefits them.