To nurture your leads, you have to communicate with them frequently through a variety of channels. However, sending hundreds of emails, texts, or social replies is not always the best use of your time, especially when you have to customize the email to each customer and their place in the customer journey.

One of the best ways to nurture your leads is via marketing automation. If you’ve dreamt of being in more than one place at once, read on and learn what automation is, which tasks can be enhanced with automation, and how this all ties together for easier lead nurturing.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the simplification of repetitive marketing tasks through software. Marketing automation allows you to create specific trigger events on your website and elsewhere in your marketing that set a series of events in motion, helping you to monitor the status of the lead, nurture them on the customer journey, and manage your own internal database of leads.

For example, a prospective customer fills out a form to download an e-book from your website. You have set a trigger here, and now an email series will be sent to the customer in a specific time frame of your choosing.

While automation can be a great tool, know that it can’t replace your marketing strategy, only compliment it. Hubspot recommends that marketers put in the amount of effort that they want to see returned, which includes writing messages for customer journey phases, planning email timeline series, testing their website triggers, and other pre-automation tasks. Automation won’t fix any problems you already have with your marketing strategy, but it can help make great parts even better.

Setting up marketing automation can be daunting, but we’re going to show you the steps you need to take to automate your marketing communications to encourage your leads to become buyers.

What Tasks can be Automated?

There are several tasks you do every day that can be automated to improve your lead nurturing process. Below are just a few examples of areas where automation can boost your lead nurturing success:

• Email newsletters
• Social media
• Email updates
• Text messages
• Lead follow-up
• Website updates

Making the process of lead nurturing more efficient has several benefits for you other than saving time. Depending on how mature your business is, there are different use cases for marketing automation.

Pick Your Use Cases

Decide when, where, and how you’re going to use marketing automation. Where you use automation you use depends on how established you are in the area you want to automate. The more established you are the more helpful automation will be.

If you’ve got a powerful blog with great engagement and you want to take it to the next level, automation could be the perfect step. If you have great website traffic and conversions through contact forms, you might want to automate the response process or create automated reminders to contact leads to ensure they are never left hanging after contacting you. Automation can enable a smoother user experience for your new and existing leads. When they get contacted right away after they fill out a form or download a product they are reassured that your business is professional and trustworthy.

Automation can also be used for internal purposes, like monitoring performance, creating reports, and sorting your leads. We’ve already written about a few other ways to organize your leads and convert them, so check out that blog before you go for marketing automation.

We encourage you to take a long look at your pain points. Think of what where you fall short with your clients. If you’ve had any complaints or comments, review them and prioritize what areas need of your strategy need to grow before you enhance them with automation. Doing this will help you find the use case that makes the most sense to nurture more leads.

Keep Your Personal Touch

Even after you’ve implemented marketing automation, you still need to reach out to your leads personally outside of pre-planned email drip campaigns. Your clients expect a personal touch, and agents should still make their clients the top priority over getting more leads or even increasing awareness. After all, clients are the core of your business.

Once your leads are sorted or segmented in some way there is a much higher chance they will be converted even before you pick up the phone. Automation is a great way to maintain crucial relationships with your clients and keep yourself connected to them.

The post How to Leverage Automation for Lead Nurturing appeared first on WolfNet.

Develop a System

You’ve got leads, now you’ve got to organize them. If you don’t have one already, create a database where you enter all leads and update it with any status changes. Your database doesn’t have to be anything complicated; a simple .xls file or Google Doc will work.

If your database is already up and running, we suggest adding extra information about each lead, which can help you determine whether they are worth keeping in your database, when to reach out to them, and what you’ll say when you do reach out.

To identify the quality of the leads in your system, you should evaluate and include a few key pieces of data in your lead database:

• Where they found you (Your website, email, social media, print, ads, reference, from a friend, etc.)
• How many times they have engaged with your website, social media, or emails
• When they entered your lead system
• What kind of information they provided you if you had contact
• What stage they are in the customer journey
• The next step: ready to contact, hold off, et cetera

For specific marketing advice for acquiring attracting leads, creating awareness, and understanding the customer journey, check out WolfNet’s Real Estate Marketing 101 ebook.

Creating a system for organizing leads that also includes information on where they are in the customer journey lets you sift through your collection to find your lead gems: those who are closest to the Purchase phase in their journey. Use your system to target the different phases and send messages that correspond to each phase. For example, email website and social links to those in the Consideration phase and call leads who have indicated they would like to buy and provide them with listing information.

Stay Timely with Updates

Time is of the essence. You need to connect with your engaged leads through any and all methods of contact you have with them, especially during within the first 10 days of them entering your system. Staying attentive and engaged shows that you are invested in them.

If the 10-day window has already passed, remember to send them timely and personalized messages that are time-appropriate. Acknowledging that it’s been a while isn’t always a bad thing, in fact it shows you are aware of the situation but still thinking of them. Keeping some email templates handy (or call scripts) is an easy way to keep in contact with your valuable leads. Now, after you’ve engaged them once, and maybe gotten closer to making a sale, you’ll want to keep them engaged.

Keep Your Leads Engaged

Here comes the hard part for many agents—steady contact that isn’t too overwhelming for the customer but entices them to become a buyer. Getting people to see you as a valuable resource can really pay off: the National Association of Realtors (NAR) explains that 89% of buyers would use their agent again or recommend them to others. Referrals are highly valued in the real estate industry. Someone who already trusts you is a great lead to have.

Keeping your past, present, and future buyers in the loop through a strong real estate blog, frequent social media posts, and email and phone contact are all methods to keep your leads interested in you and your brand.

Get a Useful Website

We know that buyers use the internet to find their homes. To be more specific, the NAR says that 51% of all buyers found their properties online. The digital landscape is the perfect place to attract clients, add their information to your lead system, and then use it to convert them into a buyer. The key to doing all of the steps above is having an awesome website that shows buyers you mean business. Supporting your social messages and email blasts with a great, easy-to-use website helps in the lead conversion process immensely. If you already have a website but you’re worried that it’s outdated, we have a list of questions that can help you double-check.

WolfNet can set you up for lead conversion success with one of our beautiful real estate agent sites. And once it’s created, we’ll be there every step of the way to provide you with the necessary resources for success.

Now that you’ve got a system to manage your leads and reach out to them in a timely manner, you’ll be converting them to buyers in no time. Start incorporating our suggestions today to stay organized and on top of your lead conversion strategy.

The post How to Stay Organized and Convert the Leads you Have appeared first on WolfNet.

Know Your Target Audience

Before you start hiring, know your target audience. If you are selling multi-million dollar homes, a 21-year-old agent selling houses on the side while he is in school, is probably not your best choice. It’s better to go with someone with more robust real estate and life experience or who possibly lives in the area and thus has first-hand knowledge. If you’re in a historical area, hire someone who knows the history or who is a history buff and can learn it. If you’re selling in a turnover neighborhood that is being revitalized, and empty nesters are moving out, and young families are moving in, consider hiring millennials as your agents. This is a traditionally underemployed group, so you have lots of interview candidates to choose from to find the highest quality employees.

Millennials are very tech savvy, so hiring the right ones can really help your digital real estate business. But you must recruit digitally, too! Use social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to look for current agents, or use Indeed, Monster or LinkedIn as well. You can find agents here who are working without an agency, and find people who fit your firm. Reach out to them and show them your brand. You can find agents who live nearby or who have worked in particular markets or niches. Use Messaging features to send personal notes to potential recruits. After all, who doesn’t like getting a personal note?

Showcase Your Culture

Social media is a great way to showcase your brand and your culture. Millennials want to enjoy where they work (as we all do), so really open up on social media about your team and why they like to work for your firm. List those things that make it a great place to work. Do you have a lot of company parties? Do you have a bowling team? Do you support charitable causes? List all of these things that set you apart.

Showcase Your Business

Of course you must give potential hires an idea about your business. Talk about the size of your firm. Talk about your current agents and their traits, and your team goals for growing your real estate business. Share your financial information and talk about deals closed annually. Many firms give a “day in the life” video or PowerPoint presentation that is a very effective communication tool. Spend a lot of time on developing a way to communicate your culture, brand and business aspects, because the way you differentiate your business from everyone else is a key factor in attracting new agents.

A biggie with agents is what infrastructure and support your firm has in place for them to be successful. Create a list of core benefits that are reasons why they should work for you over a competitor. When you interview, ask them what they’d like to see in place to create success.

Ask the Right Questions

There are other great questions to ask as well. When it comes to hiring, quality is better than quantity. On your first pass through the sea of resumes, look at the candidate holistically—experience, niche, ratings as an agent, and age. This will save you tons of time! You’re looking for the agents that will best fit your brand and your firm’s culture. Once you’ve culled the list, ask the right questions to thin the herd even more:

• Ask why he or she decided on a career in real estate, and to become an agent
• Ask how they currently market themselves and how they generate leads
• Ask how they persuade buyers and sellers that they are the right agent
• Ask how they handle difficult clients or situations

Money (Always) Talks

Of course, money is always a factor, but it’s not the factor. Nevertheless, firms that offer lucrative commission rates certainly get the attention of top agents. Know your competition and what bonus incentives they offer, then top them! Give agents the tools of the trade to increase their earning potential.

Agents Know Agents

Your current staff is crucial in building your future staff. Your agents are a tremendous recruiting resource. They know the business and they know agents who are rising talents. Offer incentive programs to your current agents for bringing in new hires. Social media is a great way to do this, as you can allow existing agents to share job listings within their own personal and professional circles. You or your agents might be attending professional real estate meetings, and that is another great forum in which to scope out talent.

We hope these real estate agent recruiting tips will help you find the best agents who will be with your agency for years to come.

The post How to Recruit the Best Agents for Your Real Estate Firm appeared first on WolfNet.

Marketing Automation

One of the easiest ways to manage your leads is with the use of a marketing automation system. You don’t need the biggest, brightest and newest system on the market, just one that you feel comfortable with and gets the job done. A good marketing automation system allows you to collect leads via your online forms and segment those leads based on characteristics such as stage in the buying process, location they are looking for, property price ranges and more.

Any platform you utilize needs to give you the option to setup drip campaigns. This way, you can automate emails to go out on their own without manually scheduling them yourself. Drip campaigns also give you the option to send out specific campaigns based on certain actions recipients make on your hub. Want to send them a follow-up email after they’ve clicked a specific link? Want to hold a day or two before sending out another email to someone who didn’t open the original? All this can be done by creating specific nurture paths with strong calls-to-action.

Managing Content Development

Once you’ve chosen your marketing automation system you’re now set to start developing content to send out to your new leads. It’s imperative that you create nurture content that goes out to your clients on a regular basis in order to stay top of mind when customers are ready to buy. Here are a few topics on creating great nurture content:

• Develop emails or content pieces on what it’s like working with you as an agent. This is a great way to build your personal brand and show your clients how you differentiate from other agents. It’s important to let customers know your accomplishments!
• Keep a steady stream of open house announcements either on your website or in a weekly/bi-weekly email contact. Let customers know what properties are coming up on the market!
• For clients that are selling their property, send them a regular list of comparable homes that are also up for sale. This will give them a good idea if they’re priced competitively for their market and help you work together to reach the correct selling price.
• Make sure you’re developing unique content for both buyers and sellers. Provide them with helpful tips, especially for first time sellers and buyers. They’ll need your guidance throughout the process so make sure you’re giving them the necessary tools to feel confident in their choices

Nurturing Leads

Nurturing leads is an essential part of the hub and spoke model. If you don’t have the proper content once consumers start visiting your site, you’re going to lose them fast. Take the time to develop a strategy and stick to it as best you can. Clients are looking for agents and brokers that can illustrate that they’re experts in their respective markets and a content strategy is a great way to reinforce that perception.

Over the course of this blog series, we’ve provided helpful tips and insights on managing your website and it’s traffic. With a solid understanding of the Hub & Spoke Model, you’ll soon be able implement effective strategies to increase your client base.

Check out our previous two entries in this series to learn more: The Hub & Spoke Model: Laying the Foundation, The Hub & Spoke Model, Pt. 2: Establishing Your Spokes.

The post The Hub & Spoke Model, Part 3 – Managing Your New Leads appeared first on WolfNet.

Defining Your Spokes

So what exactly are the spokes in this model? Put simply, you won’t get as much value from your hub if you don’t have spokes, or links, leading people back to it. The spokes are the ways in which you amplify or share everything that’s located on your central hub. Very few people are going to know about that awesome blog post you just wrote, or the tour video you spent hours producing, if you don’t promote your content. Knowing the most effective way to get your content out and use it to drive people back to your site is critical to the success of the hub and spoke model.

• Email: Direct emails are a great way to send a message out to your client base that links directly back to your website. Make sure emails are timely and relevant otherwise your click-though rates won’t look to great and the content you shared won’t be engaged. Spread them out and make sure links back to your site are prominent throughout.

• Syndication: Do you subscribe to larger networks or websites within the real estate industry (i.e. RETechnology, Inman, Active Rain)? Networks like these are always looking for content to share through their daily or weekly emails to their members. Take the time to research and develop relationships with these networks in hopes that your content gets picked up!

• Guest Blogging: Not only is this a good way to lead people back to your hub, it’s just genuinely a valuable option when making connections in your market or industry. Offer to guest write for other industry related sites, it’ll help build your credibility and presence.

• Comments: Staying active doesn’t always mean you need to be the one creating the content. Providing valuable opinions, feedback and insights on other blogs, article etc. are a great way to increase your presence and web traffic as well. You don’t want to be that person that has tons of comments on your personal blog but never provides any feedback of your own!

• Social Media: This is probably one of the easiest ways to drive traffic back to your hub. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are a great way to interact with your client base and amplify any existing content you may have.

While this only covers some of the major ways to create the spokes of your model, there are plenty of other opportunities such as YouTube videos, social advertising, search engine ads and more. Anything that leads directly back to your site or content hub is considered a spoke.

Learn how to use these spokes effectively to continue to drive traffic and potential leads back to your hub. The next question then becomes – you have all this traffic, now how do I manage it all? We’ll cover that in the final part of our Hub & Spoke Marketing series.

The post The Hub & Spoke Model, Pt. 2 – Establishing Your Spokes appeared first on WolfNet.

Understanding to the Hub & Spoke Model

So what exactly is the Hub & Spoke model, you’re asking? Let’s look at it this way; your website is the center hub that houses everything. You’ve got your property search, blog content, video streams, virtual tours, listing information etc. – it’s the brains of your operation! Now you add the “spokes” that branch out from the brain or hub. The spokes reach out to everywhere else you have an online presence that  help bring people in and drive them back to your main site. They play an important role in lead capture and development. Make sense now? I’ve added a helpful image below for those of you that are visual learners!

Establishing Your Hub

So where do you begin in the hub and spoke model? Well, it all starts with creating a solid foundation. It makes no sense to put out spokes or links back to a website that doesn’t offer anything of substance to consumers. Here are a few ways to make sure your hub is truly the best place for your clients to visit:

• Responsive Website: Clients are viewing your website across multiple platforms, so it’s imperative that you’re optimized for every device. If they’re unable to access your site while on the go, they’ll be on to another agent’s site.

• Property Search: This is the most important part of the site and the place your clients will visit the most. Just like your website itself, your property search needs to be responsive so clients can easily use it on the go.

• Personal Branding: Take time to establish a logo, brand colors, and a vision or mission statement. This will give your business a personality and differentiate yourself

• Testimonials: Nothing works better at building credibility amongst potential clients than testimonials. Clients value the insights and opinions of previous clients over anything else so don’t be afraid to share testimonials.

• Blog: Creating relevant content for your clients helps establish yourself as a though leader and at the same time improving your SEO value.

• Buyer/Seller pages: Clients have specific needs whether they’re a buyer or a seller. Make sure you have specific pages set aside for each type of client providing helpful tips, advice and resources.

• Bio & Contact Info: Clients need to be able to reach you at any time while they’re on your site. Make sure your contact info is readily available on every page of your site. Also, create a bio page for yourself, tell your personal story. This goes a long way towards establishing your brand and making a genuine connection with your clients.

With a well-established hub, you’re now ready to start setting your spokes. Remember, clients are looking for you to be a thought leader and expert in your market so make sure you’re providing them with the necessary information they need. Once you have a solid foundation, placing your spokes will be a lot easier.

In my next post, I’ll go into further detail about the spokes of the model and how you can effectively place them to drive traffic and potential leads to your business.

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