This is part four of Digital Mind Shift. You can also read: part one | part two | part three.
There’s nothing worse than working day and night chasing leads that never seem to amount to anything. Working manually through the process only exasperates the frustration, especially when it seems like leads are slipping right through your fingers.
Below are thoughts to help you identify hot buyers and reach out effectively. However, the tips assume you have already handled the following three items: (1) You have an automated marketing tool in place; (2) You are already capturing the name and email of browsers; and (3) You have property search and detail pages to monitor online behavior. For more information on why these assumptions are important, take a moment to read the previous Digital Mind Shift articles: part one | part two | part three.
Monitor hot behavior
Think of your property search and detail pages as a stocked pond. Drive as much traffic to your pond as possible because that’s the best place to catch fish. This is where you can discover the hot buying behavior of browsers. Look for a combination of the following behaviors to determine how and when to reach out.
- Saved or preferred properties: Give your users the opportunity to favorite or save properties that most interest them. In doing so, you provide a value-added online benefit and know precisely the type of properties the user wants.
- Length of time browsing on site: Pay attention to browsers who are spending considerable lengths of time searching for properties. This is a key indicator they are serious about finding the right home to buy.
- Expense level of properties: Buyers who are interested in more expensive properties should raise an eyebrow and warrant your attention. Just sayin’.
- Frequency of returns to the site: Buyers who are visiting your site frequently and searching for properties are demonstrating clear signs of hot buying behavior.
- Frequency of returns to a particular property: When a browser keeps checking out the same property repeatedly over the course of a few weeks, you might want to take notice.
Communicate like a human, not a machine
It’s important you don’t scare customers away or annoy them with messages that look and feel like spam. Yes, you should set up automated campaigns to reach the maximum amount of people, but you can do it with a personalized and human approach. Here’s how:
- Let the customer know you’re paying attention by putting the property address she has shown interest in directly in the note. This can be done automatically with most marketing tools.
- Give the impression the email is from a real person by always signing off with a name and contact information. Also, be sure to craft the messages like you would in any normal email correspondence. Be positive, personable and try to generate a dialogue.
- Show yourself as helpful and friendly by offering to answer any questions about the property. Every customer who responds to an email should immediately be contacted by a real person (even though they think the note came from a real person to begin with).
Start building your campaigns around hot buying behavior and personalized messaging techniques. Happy fishing!
Rob Wachter heads up the inbound and lead generation marketing program at Coldwell Banker Bain.
