How to Know if your Lead Follow-up is Working

After almost a decade spent working with some of the top producers in the industry, and countless hours spent researching and developing software to track follow up response rates and what really works, we have the answers. We’ve gathered up the best ways for you to get a clear, organized process in place so you can quickly asses the effectiveness of your follow up.

Effectively Organize your Database

This might not sound like a direct route to determining if your lead follow up is working, but it’s completely fundamental to the process. A workable database is the foundation to an effective lead follow up strategy. And cleaning up your contact pool is time well spent.

No matter how large and looming your database might feel, we promise we’ve seen worse. And with a few quick changes and some dedicated time, you can turn it into workable lists to make your follow-up so much simpler and more effective.

Your database should be a mix of segments addressing those who:

• Want to act buy or sell now.
• Are looking, but not ready to act.
• Searching a few months out.
• Searching for a few years out.

Go a step further with each of these segment and create sub-groups like “first time homebuyer” or “investment property” and consider price ranges and other differentiating needs.

When your database is sorted into thoughtful categories, you won’t have a prospect fall through the cracks and they’ll follow a clear path from first contact to closing. Like any well-organized aspect of your life- from a Marie Kondo approved closet to the contents of your desk drawers, there needs to be some dedicated time for maintenance. This is a personal choice to suit your organization tendencies (or propensity to let things fall into disarray), but many people have found success sticking to a monthly time frame.

Tailor Your Marketing Campaigns

Segmented groups and categories in your database makes follow-up a breeze. It also provides a much more engaging experience for your prospects. (And a much higher success rate for your marketing efforts.)

You need the right tools. While it is possible to create and maintain a database in excel or some other form of manually-managed template, a successful nurturing process becomes trickier and far more time consuming when you’re trying to market to your prospects effectively. A customer relationship management system (CRM) can shave hours  off your process and one that offers effective automated marketing can take you even further.

The first steps when you begin working on follow-up in a CRM is to establish a process. This process will begin according to your team structure and/or distribution model.

Systems such as BoomTown are easily customized for several structures and these can be changed whenever it needs to be switched up.

The key to maintaining consistent and successful follow-up is to train your team on processes, systems, and scripts. Establishing a clearly defined step by step lead nurturing process is the linchpin to making the most of your lead generation efforts

Create “Action Plans” for each type of audience in your database. For example, you can create a follow-up plan specifically for new leads, or for leads who are 6 months out. These should include a variation of to-dos to call, email, text, and even to set leads on email drip campaigns. To get you in the right frame of mind, here’s a sample plan for new leads:

Day 1

• Call
• Goal: LPMAMA
• Text
• Set up e-Alert

Day 2

• Send email
• Call
• Before calling, check if e-Alert was opened or favorited listings, etc.

Day 3

• Text

Day 4

• Call or leave voicemail

Day 5

• Email

Day 6

• Text: Do you prefer to be contacted through calls, text, or email?

Day 7

• Call and leave voicemail: Hi (lead name), this is (your name) with (Team/Brokerage name). I’m just following up on my call from the other day and was hoping this was a better time to reach you. Please give me a call or shoot me a text when you’re free. My number is (555)-555-5555. Talk to you soon!

Day 8

• Text: Hey {VisitorFirstName}, I’m working on my schedule this {TimeOfDay}, would you like to set-up a showing for any of the homes you’ve seen?

This plan goes on for 14 days of follow-up, and the full version can be found in the Sharing Library. This is where BoomTown clients share their best follow-up plans, ranked by response rate. The BoomTown communities provide a platform for users to share best practices, mastermind strategies, and compare successes.

Track and Measure your Lead Nurturing

Organized database? Check. Tailored outreach? Check. Now let’s get to measuring response rates and marketing efforts so you can get a clear picture on what’s working in your follow up strategy and what could use some improvement. You should track everything from phone calls to email campaigns to texts. Everything.

This is easy in BoomTown. Calls, emails, transactions, team performance: everything is tracked and logged in the system for immediate reference and simple tracking. But no matter the system, everything should be tracked to measure success, and whether or not it is working for the specific category. Maybe a certain category would respond to texting over email, or video over straight text? You’ll never know unless you A/B test and track your progress.

Once all the main pieces of your marketing plan are in place, determine the goal behind your campaign. What actions do you want your audience to engage in? What type of influence or advocacy are you looking to draw back from them? For example, by sharing quality educational content, you showcase your authenticity and insights to build trust and loyalty with your audience. The CRM will track open rates, responses, and log each interaction automatically. This makes it easy to see what emails are working, and where you might want to improve.

If your data shows one specific email isn’t helping move leads through the funnel, or recipients are increasingly unsubscribing and/or reporting spam, it’s time to adjust your messaging schedule. Keep in mind that your prospects may be receiving emails from more than one agent, so keep content fresh and original. Look at ineffective emails as a test, not a failure. You’ll no longer be wasting time on a message that isn’t resonating with your prospects and you can focus on different subject matters that drive results. With time, you will discover what is successfully reaching different segments of your email lists.

Find the Right Technology Partner

The goal of marketing is to build enough trust to start conversations. If you are not thinking about how to structure and leverage your database for multi-channel marketing, it will become steadily more difficult to compete in the future. BoomTown takes all the pieces and elements into consideration in every feature of our system. By matching intents through the CRM, you become highly relevant to your audience. Once they become confident in the insights you provide, they will grow to trust you enough to do business with you.

Just as people will partner with real estate professionals to help them buy or sell a home, partnering with BoomTown is a smart move to help you navigate real estate marketing and grow your business. It’s time to get on board and watch your business flourish.