Why Warm Calling is 99% Better Than Cold Calling

April 20, 2017

Esther Lee

Cold calling is usually not well-received by most people. I mean, when’s the last time you welcomed a call from a telemarketer? There’s a better way to call and connect with people.

Warm calling leads by tailoring your message to their interests and behaviors increases your chances of making a positive connection. Instead of facing the daunting task of cold calling a giant list of prospect, shift your focus into warm calling segmented lists. You can accomplish this through something we like to call “smart prospecting.”

Smart Prospecting For Real Estate

Cold calling can often be a waste of time. Not only are success rates low, but they can cost your business 60% more. Smart prospecting allows you to fine tune your efforts without spending excess time or energy blindly calling every single lead in your database.

97% of Cold Calling Is A Waste of Time

With the right real estate technology, you can filter and segment your database into smaller, workable lists to maximize your best opportunities.

Your business may have a different client demographic than your colleagues’. Maybe one of your agents specialize in Neighborhood A, while others focus on clients looking above a certain price range. When you are generating leads from multiple sources, your agents need tools that can segment the database according to their needs.

4 Steps to Warm Calling Through Smart Prospecting

1. Segment Your Database

As we’ve previously mentioned, attempting to attack a giant database without any plan or process will leave you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. Where do you start? When do you stop? There’s no method to the madness. You are just taking several shots in the dark, and that will not lead to many successes.

With BoomTown’s segmentation and tagging tools, you can sift through your database to narrow down leads into specific categories. Now you can easily pull up a list of leads you haven’t contacted yet, leads searching in a specific area or price point, or a list based on particular actions taken on your website.

2. Warm Call Your Leads

Once you have your database filtered into segments aligned with your business priorities, you can start calling your leads with tailored messages.

Imagine the following message from a real estate agent:

“Hi, is this Roger? My name is Brad and I’m calling to see if you’re interested in buying a house.”

Roger will likely respond with “I’m not interested” or “I’m just looking.” Not only are success rates of cold calls low, but they typically cost your business 60% more. Now, let’s examine a more tailored approach:

“Hi Sarah! This is Brad from XYZ Real Estate. I noticed you were looking at 3 bedroom homes in the Wagener Terrace neighborhood of Charleston. I’ve got a few listings that match what you’re looking for. If you’d like, I can show you a couple houses this week. What do you say?”

In this example, the real estate agent knows the name of the person he is calling instead of asking who’s on the other line. Also, the agent knows what Sarah is looking for and goes “over and beyond” to offer assistance.

A system like BoomTown tracks user activity and document their search histories, so you can gather information and “research” to prepare for warm calling. BoomTown offers insights such as these to help you better connect with your leads:

Insights from BoomTown:

What area they are searching

How many bed/bath

When they are searching

What price range

What device they search on (mobile, desktop, etc)

Which homes they favorite

Who is back on site after a hiatus

Who is actively searching right now

3. Set Up Email Drips

Just as you can tailor your messages over the phone, you can tailor your email drips to provide relevant information to leads in certain categories. For example, the BoomTown system includes the lead categories of New, Hot, Qualify, Nurture, Watch, and Archive. You can set all “New” leads on a drip that welcomes them to your website, and follows up every few days. Your “Nurture” leads can be put on a drip that only sends listings and helpful tips every 2-4 weeks.

BoomTown Pro-Tip!

Sort your leads based on ‘Last Visit’ so that the most recent visitors filter to the top of the list. This is an easy way to check if your lead categories are still accurate, starting with your most active leads.

4. Use The Right Tools

A lead management CRM like BoomTown simplifies the task of calling your leads. Not only does it allow you to break them down into bite-size, workable opportunities, but the system also provides the tools to help you contact and stay engaged with leads.

Smart Prospecting Tips in Real Estate

Integrations with phone dialers allow you to contact more leads in less time. Making sure all your leads have scheduled to-do’s keeps leads from slipping through the cracks. And then, once you close the deal, our new transaction management integration allow you to track your deals for complete reporting.

Best Practices For Warm Calling

Texting

While calling leads is still highly successful, recent statistics show that only 5-10% of people pick up the phone. Even with email, one can expect a 20% average open rate. However, 90% of people open and respond to texts within 5 minutes.

While our NOW mobile app incorporates Text Templates to save your fingers from overtyping, our clients see best results when text messages are personalized to some degree. Send a text referencing the area or neighborhood that person in searching in, or mention something relevant to their search criteria. While automation is a great tool, you should still show that you are attuned to your clients needs.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Practicing with written scripts is a great initial way to train agents on what to say and how to handle objections. Scripts act as training wheels to help agents get comfortable on the phone. However, depending too heavily on scripts can make your agents sound like they’re reading off a teleprompter and give off a very impersonal vibe.

Example Questions:
Have you thought about your budget?
Are you only looking in Lafayette, or are you open to other neighborhoods?

By asking more open-ended questions, you open the door to having longer conversations and making more meaningful connections. Combining these warm calling tips with the smart prospecting tips above, we have seen a success rate of contacting 50% of all registrants within 2 weeks. Warm calling allows you and your agents to have educated conversations with leads rather than cold calling them in the dark.