Real Estate Lead Follow Up Hack
Real Estate Lead Follow Up with Video
In today’s world, it can be hard to connect with a real estate leads. Driving leads to sign up on your website can be accomplished with Facebook ads or Google ads, however, converting the lead and starting a conversation with the real estate lead is on you as the agent.
Real estate agents know the importance of “speed to lead” and trying to get to the lead in less than 5 minutes. Most agents have access to email marketing software, automated text software, and expense lead generation websites, but how do we communicate with the lead? How do we start a conversation with the lead and improve our chances of conversion?
In this article, you will see how to use an extremely simple video-text or video-email, that will have a huge impact on your conversion and increase your click-through rate to 96%!
When following up with leads, whether it is an online lead, referral, or general lead, you have an option: you can do the same thing as everyone else, or you differentiate.
In real estate, chances are, everyone is following up in the same way. The lead signs up or is referred to the real estate agent and the real estate agent calls, texts, or emails. If the lead signed up on 3 different websites, how can you stand out when you are using the same strategy as others?
It’s important to understand that follow up with leads with video doesn’t replace calling the lead. Ideally, you phone the lead and have a conversation, but we know that people only pick up the phone 10% of the time. As a real estate agent, you need to get crafty with how you follow up with leads.
The Real Estate Lead Follow Up Hack
The real estate lead follow up hack is simply responding to a lead with a video-text or video-email. This is used after your first call (whether the lead answers the phone or not).
If you call the lead and they answer, you follow up the conversation with a quick video email letting them know you are exciting to be working with them.
“Hi [Name]. Thanks for taking my call! I just wanted to let you know I’m excited to be helping you along on your real estate journey. I find putting a face to the name is beneficial, so I just wanted to shoot this quick video for you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me anytime with questions. I am always happy to help!”
This short and friendly script help solidify the bond between you and the real estate lead.
If you call the lead and they do not answer, no worries, instead of leaving a voicemail, try sending a video email instead.
“Hi [Name]. I hope you are having a great day. I just tried calling and I thought I would shoot you a quick video-text, just so you know that there are real people behind the website. Right off the bat, do you have any questions? Feel free to just reply to this message and let me know. Cheers”
Download Now: Online Lead Scripts
Online Lead Script Real Estate
In this script, since I didn’t catch them on the phone, I am finishing the message with a question. The reason for this is I want the video text to start a conversation. I am also giving exact instructions on how to respond.
If the lead is an internet lead, you will be connecting with them on a whole new level. You are treating them like real people and not just an automatic email drip campaign.
If the lead is a referral, you will be solidifying forming a bond with this person before you even talk.
Pro Tip: Pre-record 2-3 videos so you can send one ASAP. Simply have a generic message like the options above, and you can reuse them. It’s best to shoot a specific one for that lead as you can use their name, but this isn’t necessary, especially if you are receiving a number of online leads.
Tools to Use
There are a few tools that you can use to make video text messages, but the best one is just the video camera on your phone. Flip it into selfie mode and shoot away.
If you are concerned with quality, not to worry, Facebook has found the home made videos perform better than professionally shot videos. Plus, you want the video to seem like it was shot on the spot. If it is professional quality, then the video text loses the magic of the one-on-one feel.
If you are doing a lot of video texts or video emails, then you could look at service such as BombBomb. There are alternatives to BombBomb if the price tag is higher than you would like to spend, but if BombBomb isn’t for you then try UseLoom. Currently, this free video and screen recording software that works great for both video email or video text.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to another episode of Rev Real Estate School. My name is Michael Montgomery. What is the very first thing that you need to do when a lead signs up or when somebody sends you a referral? Today we are going to talk about one very quick tip on how we can best interact with our leads and our referrals when they first come in.
[00:00:32] So what this technique will do is increase your lead click through by 96 percent. Your click through rate is the percentage of times that your lead will actually click on your message. So we know in this day and age it's tough to get leads to respond to us. And sometimes that's because they're not even opening our messages. They're not even listening to our messages reading our emails reading our texts. So they're click through rate is the percentage of times that they will click and open and actually engage with something it doesn't necessarily mean they'll respond but they will actually see it.
[00:01:04] So what's the trick? The trick is simply respond to a lead when they first sign up or when a lead comes in as a referral with a video message. I'm not going to go into the importance of video. We know the importance of video in real estate. This has been said to us for the past number of years. But instead let's just talk about how we can use it and how we can implement using video in a way that we will see a result right away. This workks when somebody signs up on your website or lead comes in or when you get a referral from a client a previous client or something like that all you have to do is send them a quick intro video e-mail. The reason why this is so powerful and the reason why video is so powerful is just because you can connect with that person you can see that person you can see their emotions a text or an email it's just way too easy to overlook.
[00:01:53] Now text is better than email because that has quite a high open rate but video e-mails will still work, but ideally it would be a text. So if you have their cell phone number you quickly send them a video text out all of your phones pretty well can do this. There are other tools out there of course BombBomb is one of the big players in the real estate space but if you don't want to spend the money on BombBomb you could also use a program called UseLoom. I will link these up in the show notes so you can easily get to them. UseLoom is great because it's a free product right now. You can do screen shares you can do videos and then you can just send it over by email. It's absolutely amazing.
[00:02:32] How do we go about doing this? Most people don't want to do it because they don't want to be in front of the camera. Here's the thing. If your lead is signing up on three or four different websites and they get a text message or an e-mail from one and then they get a video text from you who's the one that they are most likely going to remember? Although you do not want to be on camera you have to basically punch you fear in the face and start small and start doing this. That's typically what I would say when I was first starting out with being on camera was I would just say OK you just got to punch the fear in the face. Basically that means just do it. The more that you do it the easier we'll become but that doesn't make the first time that easy. Therefore, in order to help make that first time easier if you're doing this for the first time or if you're just starting to play around with video in regards to lead response is simply write out a script and prepare.
[00:03:23] If you're doing this for lead response keep it super short. All you're doing is you're quickly introducing yourself. I'll also throw our script in the show notes too. So if you wanted to just grab that and use that script feel free. Go right ahead. The thing about it is you just want to put a face to the name. So our script something like this Hi there it's Michael Montgomery with Renzo Real Estate just as you signed up on our website. I want to welcome you let you know there's some real people behind the site. Are you currently looking more on the buying side or the selling side? Just hit reply and let me know or which neighborhoods are currently jumping out at you. You'll see the way that I'm finishing this video as I'm finishing it with a question and then also giving them next steps which is basically just reply to this video text this video email and I will get right back to you. So what you're doing you are creating a connection with that lead.
[00:04:13] If it's been a referral so if somebody sent you a referral past clients or something like that this can work just as well because they don't necessarily know you yet. So this is the perfect way for you first off to stand out among the competition but then also start to create a relationship with this person without even truly knowing it. But I would recommend at the end of the video depending on it if it was a referral or if it do try to finish it with a question and then giving them prompting them to just hit reply and that way you're starting the conversation with leads. What we're after is starting a conversation with them.
[00:04:47] We're not after we're selling them a home right off the bat. We don't even know where they're at in the whole process. So more than anything with lead follow up is we just want to start that conversation.
[00:04:58] The next thing that will come up from time time is. You're concerned about the quality so you see some of these professional YouTube videos and that sort of thing. And you think the quality is great. Well actually on Facebook and on YouTube they've found that homemade videos perform better than high quality videos. So this really should just be done with your phone holding it out. Selfie mode and welcoming somebody. Here's the thing most people aren't doing this. So you're differentiating yourself just by doing this one simple act. It's not the most comfortable thing but the more you do it the easier we'll become the other awesome thing is you can just shoot one and then reuse it so you can simply just have a welcome text message that when somebody signs up or whenever a referral comes and you just have it ready to go. Now you can personalize it. I'd recommend personalizing it. But off the bat just have a generic one that says Hi there welcome. That sort of thing. And then you can just work on that one and not have to have the pressure of having a new one. I mean if the lead comes in and it's late at night or something like that you already have one all ready to go.
[00:06:02] Now if you're nodding your head saying ok yeah I get it I want to do this. I just don't feel super comfortable on the camera as of yet. No worries. Tune in tomorrow because we are talking about how to be confident on camera. That's it for this episode. Feel free to go to the show notes and download the script if you'd like to do that. Thank you again for listening and we will catch you on the next lesson.
[00:06:24] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.