5 Strategies for Converting More Prospects Into Customers
Ever lose a lead to a competitor after all the hard work and money you spent attracting the lead?
I have, and if you’re honest with yourself, you probably have as well. Sometimes it seems that there is no good way to avoid this. It seems that even if we try to keep in touch with our leads, sometimes we can’t stay in touch. Or even worse — we stay in touch, but somehow things break down when talking business and getting the deal done.
The good news is, with the right tools and preparedness converting more leads into clients is possible. Here are five strategies that can help.
1. Meet your leads and prospects where they are in the customer journey
When we market our real estate services and brand, we have an opportunity to find and engage prospects “upstream” before they turn into active buyers and sellers. These are the people that are not going to convert into clients right away. As they get to know you, like you, and trust you, the odds of them giving you their business increases.
Approaching these leads and prospect via an omnichannel approach, personalized to them, is best. This needs to take into consideration their needs, wants, and pain points. Use different marketing channels to give them content relevant to them and that positions you as a neighborhood expert and leader in real estate. By using this nurturing approach, your leads and prospects get to know you, like you, and ultimately trust you with their business.
One effective way to begin is to segment your leads and prospects into groups. For example:
| Combine Personas | Observed Behavior | Time frame |
| First time home buyers | Property search on your website | Next 30 days |
| Downsizing | Downloaded e-book | 30 – 60 days |
| Vacation Home | Attended seminar | 60-90 days |
| etc | etc | etc |
For example, Millennials that are currently renting, whose lease is expiring in 90 days, and have downloaded an e-book on what a home buyer needs to know could be set up on an automated nurturing campaign within your real estate CRM software. However, that campaign would be quite a bit different from a family friend you have spoken with that is planning on retiring in three years and moving to a different community. Using a CRM with automated drip campaigns and the ability to customize your own makes this an easy process. Using these automated marketing campaigns prospects and leads receive content that matches their needs and wants. This, in turn, will increase their enthusiasm and overall confidence in your brand and services. This will also drive consistent traffic to your website, which should increase your chances of success.
2. Have your marketing strategy prepared before you start
As a recreational fisherman I know I can go to the ocean or my local fishing hole and throw out a net and I might catch fish, and possibly more than one kind in the same net. If on the other hand, I want to target a certain species of fish, say a rainbow trout or an Atlantic Cod, I know that I need to fish in a certain kind of water (salt or fresh), use a certain kind of rod and reel, and use a type of bait that will attract the species I am fishing for. I could fish all day at my local fishing spot with a 5-weight fly rod, and a copper john fly, and I would never catch a codfish. My local fishing spot is freshwater and cod live in the ocean.
The same principle applies when marketing your services. A pamphlet that says I sell houses may attract buyers and sellers, A pamphlet that says I specialize in working with first-time homebuyers will attract first-time home buyers. A website such as https://www.sellmomshouse.com/ is focused on the portion of the market that is downsizing. If you want to convert more leads and prospect into clients, then you need to prepare a marketing strategy to do it. The marketing strategy needs a well thought out approach that defines how you plan to attract customers, how you keep them engaged, and the results you plan to achieve.
Think of the personas you have identified in strategy #1 above; how will they benefit from working with you? Pinpoint several outreach methods and highlight the services you bring to the table, the ones that your prospect will find most helpful. Once you have this information, you can develop a marketing plan on how you will engage your leads and prospects at every step in their buyer or seller journey.
For example, if you are planning on targeting people that are assisting their parents in downsizing, it might make sense to write a pamphlet on the services you offer and place those pamphlets in a nursing home or an assisted living facility. Many agents use first-time home buyer seminars as a way of attracting prospects and leads.
3. Have the correct strategy for content strategy in place
Converting prospects requires the right content delivered to the right persona a the right time. So now let’s talk about what goes into developing it. Your goal should be to develop a content library. It is much more valuable to you to have a certain type of content prepared and ready to use than it is to tell a prospect you will find something for them and get back to them.
When I was an active real estate agent, I worked in the Boston Metro Area. While I primarily focused on the neighborhood where I live, I had content on my website about each of the neighborhoods of Boston. If someone were to ask me a question about how two neighborhoods compared, I could simply send them to my website to see the information. If someone wanted to view a home for sale, or rent an apartment, in a neighborhood outside of mine, I could demonstrate that I had at the very least a familiarity with that other neighborhood. Both the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts use the same motto that applies to real estate agents: ‘Be Prepared.” If you have quality content prepared before it is needed you are less likely to lose your prospect to another agent.
Don’t feel that you must reinvent the wheel. It is okay to use content written by someone else if you have their written permission, or if you simply give them credit by citing the words you copied with the source. It is even better if you find an article, report, or book you like and rewrite it using your own words. This obviously is not something that you are going to be able to do overnight. It takes time, but it will pay off in the long run and be worth the effort you put into it.
4. Using data insights to improve your efforts
If your marketing efforts are not producing an increase in engagement, even when you are launching new campaigns you’re probably not using the data and insights you have, to improve your efforts. Look over previous campaigns you have tried. Look over data to see what worked and what did not. Use those results to improve your current campaign.
A very simple A/B test can sometimes be the very thing needed to kick your marketing up a notch. For those that might not know what A/B testing is let me explain using an example.
You want to send out an e-mail informing your contacts that you are listing a home for sale at 8 Sunnyside St, Anytown, USA. In the past, you may have sent out new listing emails with the following subject line: “You will love this house.” To A/B test send out half of your emails using your tried and true subject line and a half with a different subject line: “Meaghan Markle would love this house.”
Review the open rates the emails that received your emails. Which one of the two different subject lines had a higher open rate? Your first test is complete. Now run an A/B test on the Call to Action (CTA) you have in the e-mail. Is the CTA a link to your website for more information? Did version A or B have a higher click-through rate? Is the CTA a request for more information? Did version A or B get more engagements?
You can use A/B testing to test all sorts of things: bold versus italic fonts, Arial font as compared to Comic Sans, colors, pictures, letterhead, one sentence, one word, almost anything. The only trick is that you only want to test one variable at a time. Doing so will ensure that you know which change you made had which result.
The objective is to keep improving the quality of your content to get better results…a.k.a. CONVERSIONS. The more engaged that your leads and prospects are as they move through your sales funnel the better chance you will have of converting them into clients. That is, as long as they feel you are keeping their best interests in mind.
5. Sales and Marketing are not the only things that convert
Adjusting your sales and marketing is a great place to start, but not always will that be enough. Today’s consumers want social proof that backs up your efforts.
Current customers, former customers, and even vendors can be sources of this social proof. Customer referrals and success stories speak well on your behalf. Interview some of your clients to identify the ones that are extremely satisfied with your efforts on their behalf. If possible, record a video of the interview. Pull some quotes from the interview to use in your marketing. Ask happy clients if they’d write a review for you on Zillow or on your website. The best time to ask is right after they’ve closed.
The strategies presented here will increase the engagement you have from customers and will convert more of them into clients. We have shown you a path to follow, and it is up to you now to choose if you will follow it! Learn how the marketing and communications tools built-in the ZipperAgent platform can help you improve your success with the above strategies by talking with one of our experts today!
