What to do after they register...

[OCTeam]

Who are the Cowboys?

[Mitch]

I talk to lots of Agents who don't make phone calls and wait for their visitors to call them. I don't really understand that thought process because we are a business and our job is to get leads and work hard to keep them until they become a customer.

Most consumers are very happy that we called and keep us on the phone talking about the real estate market.

By not calling your leads and working to earn their business you are leaving a ton of money on the table. We wouldn't have sold over 250 homes this year if we didn't call our leads.

[alohatony]

i've been drip emailing for 2 years and the key for me has been to have emails that look like I just sat down and wrote a quick email by BY HAND and clicked send.

If the email looks automatic, people are way less likely to respond. I have a huge number of responses to my drip campains.

Here is my first auto response email - "Hi John, thanks for using my website to look at homes here in Hawaii? Just wanted to say hi and see when you're thinking of moving.
Talk to you soon, Tony"

You wouldn't believe how many responses i get to that. The next emails are spread out just like they would be if I was doing it manually.

a couple days later - "Hey john, a couple days ago you were on my Hawaii real estate website. I just wanted to check in again and see if you're still looking for a home here. Let me know if you need help. Thanks, Tony"

It works for me, it might not for you.

[Madtown RM]

This type of more casual email definitely works! I just starting using it about a week ago and I get responses at least 50% of the time. The only time it's really a problem is when you've already had a long conversation with the person (e.g. right after they register on the site you pick up the phone and call them and they tell you everything about their plans). Then they get one of these emails the next day asking a really open-ended question about their plans and it looks like you don't have a clue what they're trying to do or you weren't listening to one thing they said on the phone! I'm not sure what to do about this but I've got several responses to those drips and it did seem like the person might have been slightly annoyed. Comments like "As I already mentioned..." In one case I flat out apologized that I had him on my drip and he was very understanding but that guy was a web developer and probably a lot more understanding (and appreciative of the technology) than the average consumer/homebuyer.

[SCP]

@Jolenta- You should be able to setup different different Groups/Campaigns on the backend to help with this issue.

I have also had some good luck with including links to my site in the emails. Especially when discussing site features in my emails with the user.

[RESteve]

I've thought about the whole issue of a consumer, who you've contacted already on the phone or email, continues to get template drip emails. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to have a seperate follow up program for anyone that you've established contact with; be it either via email or phone.

After establishing contact with your lead, you remove them from the automated drip email program, and place them in a different follow up program.

Your automatic drip should solely be for any lead which you have not established contact. In your seperate follow up program for leads which you HAVE contacted, rather than pre-formatted emails/templates, I'd setup reminders (todos) to contact them instead. Before contacting them, I'd review the contact record notes to get up to speed.

Going back and forth would be a bit tedious, I'm sure. This is where training and systems will play a major role in your lead conversion ratios.

[Madtown RM]

@RESTeve: You are totally spot on about this. I'm going to remove the people I've already talked to from the drips and get some other kind of system going for them. I think I'll be a lot less nervous about the drips after that! Thanks, Steve for a great suggestion.

[Mitch]

Our Agents take a lead through different processes and categories based on the results of phone calls and emails.

We start with our SearchMLS category which is where all leads go. I have that set up with a standard drip in case our Agent doesn't do a good job getting to them.

If the lead has no phone number it gets put into our No/Bad Phone Number Category which has a drip that is geared toward getting them to call us or give us a number.

If we get hold of the person and they are a good lead they go into our Active Lead category which gets a different drip.

When we show them property and don't buy they go into our Show Listings category which has another drip mostly telling them how much we enjoyed meeting them and helping them.

If they put a contract on a property they then go into our Under Contract drip. There is nothing worse than getting a contract and your system is still sending them listings...then they decide they like another house. We learned this one the hard way!

Once closed it goes into our three year sold drip.

It's a little bit of work, but the more we master this program, the better results we see. That's why it's so important to think through your systems and understand the process. I tend to look at everything from the consumers view which is how most my stuff was developed.