Zapier allows you to connect the many apps you use daily and eliminates the repetitive busywork required between them. Currently, there are 750+ apps that can be linked to your GoCRM account through Zapier in the form of Zaps. For more information on Zapier and how it works check out their website. In order to use Zapier with GoCRM, you must first sign up for a Zapier account here.
The thing that makes GoCRM such a unique Customer Relationship Management solution is that it’s more than just CRM, it boasts a powerful combination of sales and marketing features. Because it has been built with the purpose of streamlining sales processes, clients like Hosanna Construction & Realty usually have amazing feedback.
Since using GoCRM, they have reported increased conversions, optimized sales processes, and streamlined sales management. Basically, sales are easier and ROI is higher. These are some of the main benefits they said are highly beneficial in the home builder industry.
As a home builder, Hosanna relied on marketing channels that include magazines like the New Homes Guide, events like the Home and Garden show, offline and traditional, Facebook and signage. With our tools, they could divide leads into the different channels to track how effective each channel is. Channels can be customized with a unique URL and phone numbers that are used for that specific channel. This way, all leads that connect via a specific number can easily be connected to a specific marketing campaign. Hosanna used many channels over time and would reuse these numbers by reassigning them to new marketing channels once the old ones expired.
With a designated area for all leads, Hosanna could see all the details about a lead, such as where it comes from and when it came in. Our Dynamic Number Insertion technology ties to current sessions to give a detailed breakdown of how leads arrived at the site, like via Google. It also tracks all form submissions, states the source, and gives the names of leads.
Once Hosanna implemented the tracking system, all their leads were funneled into one centralized lead list. From here, they could generate detailed reports that break down the percentages of leads that come from different channels. As a result, Hosanna was able to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. They saw they got most of their leads from Facebook and Google, while magazines weren’t being as successful, and shifted their budget accordingly to get more leads.
After seeing where their leads come from, GoCRM helped Hosanna to take that further by comparing leads with number of sales. These figures didn’t align, so they used our tools to pinpoint weak areas in the sales process and optimize those areas for more sales. With GoCRM, they could instantly see everything they need to know about a lead: where they came from, when they made the first contact, or when your team engaged with them.
From within the platform, leads can be assigned to the relevant salesperson or randomly assigned. Staff can use the app or CRM to call leads via a dedicated VoIP number. These calls are automatically recorded, so it’s easy to listen to all calls on the lead’s feed and know exactly where they’re at. These virtual numbers are owned by you, so you never lose them and can transfer them to new employees if someone leaves. The Hosanna sales team didn’t have to do manual data entry, they just resumed with normal sales responsibilities and everything is logged automatically. Staff can also send promotional or transactional text messages and emails from their phones or desktop and, to make it even easier, you can create templates with relevant information or attachments.
Because they had to navigate through hundreds of leads at a time, Hosanna used GoCRM to figure out who to target next. They could type in specific questions like “Who haven’t I called in the last 90 days?” or categorize leads according to a range of filters, then save different segments.
Making use of the marketing automation features, Hosanna automated follow up messages to leads. This is as simple as creating a template text or email and setting at which stage the message should go out. You can also choose the day and time the message should go out. This way, you don’t have to worry about missing out on a lead. They also created more powerful marketing automation with a series of emails or texts. Additionally, the outreach feature allowed them to use the drag and drop designer to create email blasts for events like open houses.
With an admin view that shows a full pipeline of all activity in the organization, such as leads, calls, texts, form submissions, and closed deals, Hosanna greatly streamlined processes. This view can also be filtered by team members to track individual activity. Ultimately they reported GoCRM as being an all-in-one solution that offers CRM, call tracking, phones for salespeople, call recording, and email marketing. They could also customize everything to suit their specific processes and business. Ultimately, Hosanna enjoyed that their sales agents didn’t have to do anything differently and instead could focus on what they do best: sell.
GoCRM’s phone manager allows you to manage your team’s phone lines and your marketing tracking numbers.
The homebuilding marketplace is steeped in competition. Everyone wants to get there first. Websites are put up and promoted. Aggressive marketing follows. But the moment a lead is generated, many businesses make a critical mistake. They don’t know what to do with that lead. Or handle it wrong.
In the business world, time is money and sales cycles take forever to close.
To mitigate losses and increase revenue, lead generation, and management are now being automated. This automation gives builders more control over sales and profits.
Read on to find out more about:
Homebuilders connect with customers over a series of touch points. But before a prospective customer can be converted, businesses have to pass through a complex sales process.
While the home builder customer touchpoints can be split into six cycles, we can also divide the entire sales process into four main steps:
The only problem is that the sales cycle refuses to follow this neat pattern. Leads slip through gaps in the sales funnel and touchpoints are wasted.
In order to better understand the lead cycle, home builders first need to have a clear idea of the lead management process.
An adequate lead management process helps you track, manage, and convert your leads. It gives two core benefits:
Driving leads to your website is still a priority but following up with them is where most home builders fumble. The connection with your leads has to be made. FAST. Prospective clients will either fill out a form, email, or call you up. Drawing them in immediately is the next crucial step, the path where leads turn to sales.
Hence, a robust lead management system should enable home builders to enjoy full lead visibility. This visibility can be achieved through software that assists builders at every step – from lead to sales, post-sales, and customer relations.
CRM systems like GoCRM offer high levels of integration and automation of these steps into your business so you can manage all of your business operations smoothly.
A CRM software takes care of the 5 stages of lead management:
With a complete grasp of how the integration work at every step, you can not only achieve sales targets but also get more out of every dollar spent in promotions.
Let us take a look at how different stages of the lead management system works and how CRM integration is able to give a push to sales.
A lead is generated through multiple channels. Some of these channels include ads on Google, Facebook and YouTube. Also, online directories, rider ads, organic search, and signage can give rise to a sizable volume of leads. Next, you need to capture all of these leads.
Lead capture consists of storing all of the customer details you obtained through all of your marketing channels. Everything is noted in an internal spreadsheet. Unfortunately, lead capture eats into a big chunk of your daily work day.
It is also impractical to manually type in the name, source, contact, and touchpoint for every potential customer, especially when traffic is high. That is why you need automated lead capture.
Automation in lead capture enables businesses to add each and every lead into the sales loop. It shows them the accurate point of origin of the customer data – pay per click ads, phone, chat, social media or company website. It performs another vital function – identifying the money-making and money-wasting channels. You can easily see which channel is bringing you the most profits and which are just adding to your expenses.
What does that do for your business?
It gives your sales and marketing teams the liberty to plan a new budget and allocate funds to sources that have a proven lead generation record.
Automated lead capture should give you customer details like names, phone numbers, email, interest (product or service), and their preferences (e.g. willingness to subscribe to newsletters, messages, etc).
Automated lead capture also allows you to sort your leads into short-term and long-term prospects. An updated list of customer details is indispensable in subsequent stages of the sales cycle. You will know just who to follow up with and which names to send an occasional email to.
Lead tracking for builders plays a crucial role in the customer lifecycle. The right CRM solution will help you answer some of the following questions:
Leads or potential customers may perform any number of actions. Whether they are going to deliver profits for you depends on how smartly you can track them. Automated lead tracking can show the way.
Lead tracking software shows you the actions leads take and their tendencies. It tracks URLs, and monitors chat and phone calls too.
This software can also show you the source of your leads. How do they find out about your business? What brings them to your online store? Is it the social media ads or the expensive banner you put out? Finding out about the performance of your sources can open up further sales opportunities.
So a few people are interested in your business and you have tracked them back to a channel. What next?
The stage is set for your sales team to enter. You pass on client details to them and hope for sales to pick up. But passing on every detail manually is not only time consuming but also unnecessary, because you can get a robot to do it for you. Lead distribution software can connect clients to specific members of the sales team. A CRM software solution like GoCRM provides automatic instant lead distribution to your sales team.
For example:
If a customer has been in touch with your business, they’ve likely repeated the same action on your competitor’s website. They are testing which brand to spend on. The faster you answer a customer query, the better your chances are of selling. Lead distribution quickens your response time.
Also, since you’ve already pre-set the software, customers will always end up with the same salesperson. This helps you build trust and deliver a seamless experience for your customer. Which brings us to the Follow-Up part.
You can sometimes get sales from a new lead by simply getting to them first – before your competitor has had the chance. However, it is important to identify which lead is already half-sold on your product/service and who is just passing by. Companies usually take the three-pronged strategy of – evaluate, score, qualify. Before you launch a follow-up cycle, make sure you are working with the right set of names and numbers.
This starts when you reach out to a query. You can respond via phone or email immediately. In case you are unavailable, an answering machine/ autoresponder would be practical. Some CRM systems provide call recording. The conversation is first recorded and listened to. If these new contacts turn out to be leads, it is time to connect with them at a personal level with useful information.
Email responses usually contain a thank you note and an acknowledgment. They may also contain quotations, one-time coupons or codes. Now is the time to gauge if your leads are interested in sales right away or whether they fall into the eternal follow-up loop.
While handling leads, it is important to keep an open mind. Not every new contact is going to be converted right then and there. Sometimes a lead is just confused. Sometimes, a lead is particular about brands or is facing budget constraints.
Despite a lead’s hesitation, you may be able to convert them in the future. No lead should be a lost lead. They may not want to buy a house right now, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get an ebook as a free gift from you. They will care about your service if they know you care about their needs.
Leads who do not convert at once enter the lead nurturing cycle.
Companies engage with ‘Maybe’ leads continually in various ways – sharing content, industry news, customer feedback, success stories, product walk-throughs, Livechat, promotional codes, and the like. Conversion time is particularly low in some industries. The waiting time is filled with these things. You may send emails or SMS, engage in social media marketing, or target them as new leads all over again.
However, some prospects may be offended by aggressive follow-up and refuse to engage with you further. Instead of bombarding them with generic messages, share meaningful content. No one wants to be treated like a sales target.
All these factors come together in an integrated, automated lead management system. Leads are, traditionally, tracked, followed-up, and nurtured manually. But, manually managing leads makes for a lengthy sales cycle that has no place in businesses that run at a fast pace. The need of the hour is for an instant, automated systems that shorten the conversion time and show you results faster.
Sales and marketing automation has led to synchronized actions from different departments and teams towards different goals and targets. It has streamlined customer connect and reduced turn-around times. In automated real estate processes, text marketing for realtors has emerged as a favorite business strategy. It is quick and easy. Many clients seem to prefer it to other promotions. For the real estate industry, a CRM with text messaging has bolstered reliability and performance.
We have listed 6 real estate text marketing scenarios with examples that can be implemented in your marketing communications strategy.
Online when the world sleeps? Offline when your client isn’t? Missing out on leads? Many real estate agents face this dilemma at one time or another. They fail to establish an immediate response to client queries. Even well-meaning clients who express an interest in a property at the dead of the night hope to be quickly taken in. But you have just fallen into a well-deserved nap. There’s trouble in river city tonight.
A delayed response from your end sends the signal that you are not sincere enough and the deal dies a premature death. Enter real estate text messaging. With suitably worded auto-responders you can now reply to client queries instantly, whether you’re napping, eating, cycling, snorkeling or showing another client around.
Auto-response real estate messages to clients can be formulated in any way you like. Example:
Hi {client name}, you expressed an interest in a property at {street address}. What time can we get in touch with you?
When these messages reach your client’s inbox the moment they click on a listing, they set the ball rolling. Auto-responders automate the first contact and close the leakage in the sales cycle. Learn how to auto reply a new lead with GoCRM.
So, you’ve made the contact, scheduled an inspection and got busy with other customers to schedule more inspections. Your client, meanwhile, has promptly forgotten the date and has almost moved on. Get them back in the loop with follow up messages. Example:
Hi {client name}, check out these photos of the house that I want to show you tomorrow. Let me know what you think.
You might also want to try a follow-up text or email that gets sent automatically after a set period of time. Two weeks, a month or 90 days, whatever you feel is appropriate. CRM with texting features like follow-up message and reminders show your client that you are taking care of their interest at a more personal level. Learn how to automate lead re-engagement with GoCRM.
Texting is not meant for just prospective clients. All your new customers (and especially) your past clients deserve the courtesy of a call, text or email. A simple congratulatory message on buying their home can do wonders. You may also ask how they find the property. A little more engagement on the personal side is a good will gesture you had better take care of. Some examples below:
Hi {client name}, this is {agent name} from {real estate company name}. It’s been a while since we worked together on selling your home on {street address). How have you and your family been?
You can also use the opportunity and ask for referrals:
If you know of anyone considering selling or buying, feel free to share my information with them. I greatly appreciate the referral.
Send messages to get client feedback so you can build a formidable repository of glowing testimonials for your company and services. These will strengthen your online presence and highlight your brand’s reliability. It doesn’t take long for positive news to go viral, especially among the smartphone-dependant customer base. Learn how to automate lead re-engagement with GoCRM.
Another way you can use real estate text message prospecting is by asking clients to provide you with basic information. For example, whether they wish to buy, sell or rent out property. These are the texts you should send every online lead. Apart from designing personalized plans for each of these queries, the information is useful for drawing up well-segmented lists of customers with different needs. Example below:
Hi {client name), thanks for your interest in {real estate company name}. Are you ready to sell or buy a home?
What’s even better is that you get a centralized database to access. With real estate text message marketing working in tandem with your business acumen, there is less room for mistakes. All your scattered data – client names, phone numbers, emails, responses, schedules – is consolidated at one place, ready at your disposal. There’s no need to run from mobile to desktop. Learn how to automate customer on-boarding with GoCRM.
Follow-up messages are usually sent after a site visit or an open house. They are also the go-to communication for checking out if clients are still interested in your listing. A simple follow up may read as follows:
Hi {client name}, thanks for joining us for the Open House at {street address}. Leave a message if you have any questions!
The difficult task of getting them to finally visit the site is done. What next? Drawing them even closer. You already have their phone numbers. Drop a text thanking them. It is often useful to ask about their experience or answer further queries. Composing the right message here is important since it can direct the sales flow. Learn how to create segments with GoCRM.
You can’t go wrong with a warm greeting. Everyone likes to feel cherished, especially on their big, happy birthdays. Go ahead and drop the message, for example:
Happy Birthday {client name}, from all of us at {real estate company name}.
A nice happy birthday realtor greeting keeps things cordial and creates a positive impact.
Extend a holiday hug with a season’s greetings. Holidays are the times when families get together and a text at the right moment can trigger lead generation. Learn how to automate anniversary reminders with GoCRM.
Real estate messages to clients is the new kid on the block. Home builders are queuing up for this automated service to stay in touch with prospective customers at all times. The need for pen and paper documentation has practically been eliminated.
Through text message marketing service real estate promotions carry a high degree of transparency. Not all customers would want to connect via texts and texting is certainly not meant to be the sole marketing plan. But it remains the quickest and the most personal. Reach out if you want to take advantage of automated text marketing for your real estate business.
Ready to start with sales and marketing automation? Start your GoCRM Free trial to optimize your sales funnel and start closing more real estate sales today.
With more light shed on the value of calls in generating leads, converting them, and maintaining excellent customer service, call tracking became very essential to understand how to utilize this powerful channel to close more deals and boost ROI of your marketing efforts. Let’s look at call tracking and learn some of its benefits, specifically for sales and marketing.
In the past, calls were more of a “black hole” in the marketing world, very powerful, but very mysterious. The only thing business owners were able to automatically measure about these calls was the number of calls they were receiving and the geographical location of each. Businesses had to rely on manual processes such as customer surveys, sampling, or call tracing in order to tell which were their lead sources.
Now, call tracking helps marketers understand everything about phone calls; where it originated, how it got handled, when was it last contacted, did the lead convert or not, where things stopped, etc.
Call tracking in 2020 is both a process and a technology (software) to enable the correct association of business calls to each lead source. It is used by sales and marketing departments to measure and improve performance-based campaigns in channels such as Google Ads, Facebook Paid & organic, Google My Business, Direct Mail, Billboard, Email, Landing Pages, Etc.
Every ad, webpage, or landing page gets assigned a unique virtual phone number. When the phone call takes place, every interaction (from the first contact to conversion) can be tracked by the business. Each call is recorded and key data metrics can be stored and analyzed for follow up. Finally, they can also be shared to a CRM system to ensure all leads are properly followed up, even after conversion.
The value of having a call tracking system in place is that businesses can use data to allocate resources more intelligently, instead of relying on hunches, ever-changing trends or unreliable customer surveys. By being able to tell the source of each lead, business owners, as well as sales and marketing teams can allocate more resources to the best performing channels. They can also remove some others that are not as profitable.
When coupled with a CRM (such as GoCRM), Call Tracking enables you to follow up on leads in whichever stage they are on the sales and marketing funnel.
The importance of being able to tell the origin of each lead is crucial. Let’s look at 5 reasons why your business needs call tracking.
You most probably have invested in many marketing channels and you pay quite a fortune on marketing. With call tracking, you can understand which channels originate more calls, and from these calls which channel gets your business excellent and converting prospects. So it is both the number of leads and the quality of leads coming from each channel.
Why is this important?
Similar to the first point, by understanding the web pages and third-part-sources that most calls are coming from., you will understand how you are found by the search engines and what keywords used by customers most to find you and from there you can build an excellent SEO and SEM strategy to drive more leads the same way.
Contact us if you want to learn some clever ways to use Google My Business with Call Tracking for your business.
You can also improve the website experience based on the call tracking data by adding a call-to-action button and improving the user experience with the different web pages.
Studies found that phone calls have 30-50% conversion rate. With such high-potential prospects, you need to understand as much information as possible about this lead to increase the conversion rate to even more. Such information can be the web page the lead was on, which consequently helps you understand their needs and concerns and where to take it from to close the lead. If they called from and ad, you will be able to understand which selling point to use in your pitch and focus on.
Using a CRM system to integrate it with a call tracking software or even better using a CRM that offers call tracking all-in-one helps your business in many ways:
Call tracking value doesn’t stop with marketing and sales but continues to customer success. A CRM that records calls and track their source, and can segment calls based on certain attributes of the callers; helps businesses to provide excellent customer service on so many levels:
Call tracking is a game-changing business strategy that helps you determine the real value of your marketing ROI, cut off wasted marketing expenses, convert more leads based on data-driven pitch, identify your excellent sales people and assign them the right leads and finally provide you with customer service insights needed to grow your business.
Ready to start with call tracking? GoCRM offers you call tracking, marketing automation and CRM all in one! Start your free trial now!
Texting is now considered the most favored way of mobile communication, replacing calling and emailing among all age groups and genders. The open rate of texts is very high and it is also done very fast. Experts believe that 98% of all text messages are opened compared to only 22% of emails. On top of that, 9 out of 10 messages are read in just three minutes of delivery.
We have previously discussed why sales team should use texting. Now we will discuss how and when to make the best use out of texting communication in business. Read on to find out how and when to use texting, as well as the best way to implement them in your sales process.
While a CRM with texting feature will do the trick, you still need to follow certain rules for best results. Spam is spam and the last thing you want is to get your business considered as a spam and be totally ignored. Being a very personal way of communication, texting needs to be approached cautiously or you might lose all the benefits of this excellent communication method. So here is a list of business texting rules to keep in mind:
The ideal way is to have approval from all your prospects to text them through your introductory call. Something simple like “would it be okay if I text you?”. Having your prospects expecting your text increases your chances in achieving the goal of your text.
Whether you were successful in getting your prospect approval over a call or you never had the chance to get on a call with them, always introduce yourself and don’t assume that the prospect remembers you. Use something simple and clear like first name and your business name.
Texting is great because it’s short, the last thing you want is to have an email sent in form of a text. So keep your message short and interesting.
While texting normally includes lots of emojis, acronyms, and sloppy punctuation, it’s best to avoid these when texting your leads. Find your balance between a professional tone and a causal one. And adding a personal touch goes a long way!
So you wrote a short text with the right tone, but what is it that you are actually trying to say? Always have a clear goal and offer a value when texting your leads. You can either: Suggest a call time; Confirm a call time; Answer a question, or; Send a valuable resource.
Too much of anything gives opposite results. Avoid mass generic messages without a clear purpose. When you send too many messages, your prospects will lose interest in actually opening them or going through them.
If you have these text messages set in part of an automation workflow, always choose a suitable time. Avoid texting outside business hours and on weekends. Take the time zone of your leads into consideration. After all, you are looking for a reply or an action, and your chances will be really low if you text them at the wrong time.
GREAT! Now you are ready to start texting your leads and get sales numbers boosted! Here is WHEN to use texting in the sales process:
As we have explained, at the end of your introductory call, ask for permission to text your leads. After the call send more information about what you have went through and some helpful links and resources. You can also ask to schedule to a demo or another call where another key staff member will be joining you.
Send a reminder of your call or demo and send a link of the platform you will be using.
From time to time send your prospects some useful content that you have created on your blog or social profiles or some e-books or case studies that can offer them real value and direct them to your website.
After each phase if you start to feel you are going to lose the leads’ interest, you can send a warm follow up with a call to action asking for “another call, demo to other team members”, or you can follow up thanking them for downloading your e-book or checking your latest blog. You can use something similar to “thank you so much for downloading our e-book about Sales texting! Are you available for 5 mins at 3 or 4 today to discuss the how GoCRM can help you get started with texting?
If you have a marketing campaign running with discounts or offers you can text your leads list and urge them to subscribe now and benefit from it. If you have a referral program, texting can be a really affective way to announce it and bring in many affiliates. Check out other promotional text message examples.
A prospect who lost interest and stopped replying to your emails and calls, might take the time to open one last text message. Make it interesting and showing real understanding of their needs. Avoid generic templates, like just checking-in and take time to invest on writing a personalized message with clear call to action.
With simple automation and segmentation you can use texting to wish your leads and customers happy birthdays, holidays or use it to go the extra mile and congratulate them in a new job they posted about on LinkedIn or a new fund the company received etc.
Texting is a very powerful tool, it is the most used form of communication on cell phones, more than calls, emails and even social media messages. With excellent open rate up to 98% and great speed, you can utilize this tool to increase conversion and close more deals. All you need to do to achieve excellent sales texting is to write the right text message to the right person at the right time.
Ready to start with business texting? Start your GoCRM Free trial to optimize your sales funnel and start closing more sales today.
Text marketing for real estate is an efficient way to engage your buyers on their mobile devices and generate leads. You can communicate with them about properties, give the information they are looking for, and lead the mobile users through the sales cycle.
Sales funnel with objectives and channels
Particularly for a real estate agent who relies on mobile devices, a text message allows them to respond quickly to the users’ queries or requests. Whether it is sending a piece of information about a property listing or a free report, you can use automated text messages to reach them at any time. Text message marketing can increase real estate leads as you can inform the buyers and keep them interested while combining texts with photos, gifs, emojis, or video.
Especially when you compare text message real estate marketing to email, text messages are beneficial as they can be read faster, understood easily, and can reach more buyers.
Let us see here the top 5 benefits of real estate SMS marketing in 2020.
Real estate text marketing can be a good lead capture system for realtors that lets them attract new customers or nurture current leads. You spend less money and finish the task within a fraction of the time needed for traditional real estate marketing strategies.
You can use specific keywords unique to each listing or location, and use them in your ad or sale sign. Riders and potential buyers can text you these designated keywords to get more information regarding the said property.
You can then follow up with new leads when you send the response text that includes a link directing them to the sales page.
Pro tip: Automate this on-boarding process with a CRM system as GoCRM.
SMS Texting is native to mobile devices, irrespective of feature phones or smart devices. So, when using SMS in your marketing efforts, you can be sure there will be no lengthy learning curve as users already have an understanding of how texting works.
Moreover, users have their cell mobile phones close by, wherever they go, which gives them the opportunity to respond faster to your notifications. Besides, text message marketing takes advantage of the short 160-character limit for an SMS.
Understandably, some real estate leads take time to close a deal since buying a home is a big investment. Automated SMS marketing allows you to set up custom responses for the SMS you receive, based on the buying funnel. e.g., gathering information, comparing builders, getting pre-approved, negotiating the contract, etc.
You can use autoresponders to remind leads of their scheduled appointment by sending an SMS the day before, or a few hours before the meeting. You can track and manage your prospective buyers’ actions easily using a CRM system as well as link clicks and coupon codes.
SMS automation also helps you determine the performance of your real estate marketing campaigns.
In 2020, traditional marketing on TV or radio does not cut it. Profitable businesses can guarantee ROIs only when they know about their customers and understand them better.
A real estate agent with an automated system in place can collect information on their leads, such as their living arrangements, neighborhood preferences, and financial position. You can access this data collection feature at any time.
Using this data, you can automatically follow up with more property listings on your portfolio. Use your SMS real estate marketing strategies to offer prices that are in their budget.
SMS has a 98% open rate compared to the 20% of an email. This makes text marketing much more effective than real estate email and social media marketing. Also, the language on texts feels more natural and immediate, which makes people want to respond and keep the conversation going through the texts.
You can use SMS marketing initially to entice customers to bond with your brand. Since the users give their consent to receive promotional and transactional SMS messages, they are genuinely interested in what you are selling.
This opt-in model also helps establish trust among prospective consumers. Once you generate leads, you can start communicating offline, follow up and then, close the deal!
Real estate is one of the highly-competitive industries, and real estate marketing ideas keep evolving. Businesses must update themselves to changing times. Once, email marketing had replaced faxes but is now overshadowed by text marketing that offers improved response times. Sign-up for your GoCRM Free trial today!
The simple times of “one-size-fits-all” approach has passed. Now it is the era of customization & personalization. The more you know your audience the better you get to win their trust and basically their business. Technology has made people question if they are talking to a bot or an actual human being. Are they being emailed by a spam list or by an actual worth-their-time business. So keeping your human and personal touch is the key for your business to stay in the game.
As your business grows it’s nearly impossible to know each one of your prospects and to figure the best way to win them. We all as business owners dream of having this magical ready-for-every-question assistant that stands behind you and lean in to whisper to you all the details about your potential client as they are walking towards you.
For example, when talking about text marketing for real estate, wouldn’t it be perfect if we get to ask our clients how their tax refund is coming along? or check if they were able to find that house in the suburbs they were looking for? If you manage to make a lasting connection with your leads and customers it’s easier to become friends and thus win clients for life.
Unfortunately, few have the capacity to do that. The good news, however, is that a perfect assistant does exist and her name is automations. Today, thanks to technology and automations, you get to know a great deal of data about your prospects before calling them or cold-emailing them. Social media can help you find prospects based on geography, demography, interests, their industry, size of their business and other aspects.
Using technology can guide you through the next steps, not just lead generation. With the right CRM, you can utilize segmentation technology to win these leads, turn them into paying long-term customers, and keep your existing customers happy and interested.
Segmentations is defined as the act of intelligently dividing a broad consumer lists consisting of existing and potential customers, into other sub-categories of consumers based on more specific characteristics that help business managers to target the right type of audience with the right type of personalized and customized content for excellent results.
First, because every person hates to be treated as a part of a herd where they lose their individuality and uniqueness. Everyone gets the same email, same sales call, same offer and same everything.
Secondly, imagine emailing a customer you have arranged a demo with already saying “Hi, ready to schedule a demo time!” or if you send a closed deal an email with a new hot discount after they purchased at full price. It is also very annoying for customers to be emailed about things they have already said NO to or to receive multiple following emails about the exact same thing.
Segmentations help your business communication be more professional and personal and to avoid these awkward moments. More importantly, it helps you achieve great results with targeted and to-the-point content that’s specifically created for this category and for a clear purpose.
Status segment is based on the position in the sales funnel. The clear broad line is “Leads” vs “Customers”. However, under each category there are many ways to segment these two broad categories. Leads should be divided based on where they are in your sales funnel, have they just clicked on your ad, booked a demo, have they received an introductory call, were they at all contacted, have they responded to your emails or not, and finally have they started a trial or the deal never got closed.
Using the “Status” filter helps you send an interesting message with clear call to action based on each phase. It also helps you create an automation workflow with best list of actions based on wither it’s ‘fresh lead’, ‘hot leads’ or a ‘cold lead’. Not every lead should receive the same content.
Based on last contacted date. One of the most common reasons for people to unsubscribe for an emailing list is that they get dozens of emails right after the sign up feeling you are a spam. That’s why you want to check the “last contacted” time closely along to your prospect status and only send what actually interests them.
It also helps you decide when is the right time for sending follow ups, or for checking on them again if they have turned to a cold lead or to check on your “trial customers” but not too soon so they get time to actually play around with your product.
The deals segment is based on the type of business deal. A closed deal is a tricky situation. You want to carefully make sure you are there guiding them and creating best first experiences for them with clear customer on-boarding campaign, yet you don’t want to overwhelm them with features and “how-to”s that they give up finding you too complicated.
Monitoring your list of closed deals is critical to find this perfect balance between not leaving them alone with them not understanding how can your service work for them and between suffocating them with look-how-awesome-we-are kind of emails!
If you offer a free trial, that’s even more crucial because you will be running out of time shortly and you want these trial days to leave excellent impact on them so they turn into paying customers.
This segment is based on how valuable the customer is or can be. You will definitely have a list for your paying customers, but you might as well need to divide them based on their value. This can be based on how much money they spent with you, how large their business is, or how loyal/active they are with your promotions and social content.
Whenever you find something really promising about a customer you can use “Favorite” filter to add them to your favorite or VIP customers list. You can use this list to ask for reviews, testimonials or referrals. You can also choose them to be the first to know about your new released upgraded plans for premium features.
Segmentation is the base for a successful marketing and boosted sales. Knowing your audience best means building excellent communication with them, remarkable experience and tailored service.
Creating segments in GoCRM is easy, take a look at the following video to get you started into creating your first customer segments.
The below video will walk you through creating the following segments:
There are many ways and strategies to utilize segments in order to better serve your leads and customers. But the best strategy is the same. Start segmenting your leads as soon as possible. It will keep your business running more efficiently and grow faster.
Ready to start with segmentation? Start your GoCRM Free trial to organize your contact list and to start creating marketing automation campaigns in no time.
Automations are flows that you build out in a visual canvas by connecting shapes, these shapes create different personalized pathways, that contact would progress to when interacting with your business. It allows for the easy and efficient delivery of information to your contacts.
Each automation starts with a segment, the segment defines which contacts should enter the automation. It may be that they are on a static list or they submitted a form.
There are 3 different types of shapes in GoCRM, these are filers, events, and actions.
Actions
Actions are things that happen to contacts when they are in an automation. You may want to send them an email or an sms or wait for a certain period of time to pass to follow-up. You can also do updates like adding contacts to a list, or creating a task.
Filters
Filters are the traffic directors of the automation, they check if a contact meets certain criteria and then routes them accordingly. For example, I may want to send a different text message to contacts depending on the time of day, or if it’s a weekday or a weekend, or if they have responded in the past or not.
Events
Events are conditions in order for the next step to continue, the automation waits until the user or contact has completed one of these steps before progressing to the next shape. For example, the automation may wait until the contact has replied to a text message, or the deal stage has been changed by a user.
Now we will connect each action shape together, when connecting a filter, make sure to select the appropriate option to stop or progress contacts through the automation. When these shapes are connected into sequences the automation will progress through each stage doing exactly what you tell it to. Automations will not become active until you’re completely ready to go, this means there are no accidental emails sent or confused customers.
When you’re ready you hit Start Automation, and the automation will do the busy work for you. For ideas on how you can use automations, visit our blog! But for now, that’s what is an automation.