Lead Response Times: A Study

Ok, so I stumbled across this MIT study on Lead Response Management and found a literal treasure trove of information that continues to back up what we know instinctively about responding to leads: response time is a factor! Huge factor, even.

On the Lead Response Management site is a whitepaper about the Jim Click Automotive Team.  The automotive industry, like the real estate industry, has been hammered by the economy.  Yet this automotive team increased their gross profit by 102.8% in eleven months!

They did this with an integrated system generating web leads.  Sounds like a truly neat system that would be fun to implement in real estate.  However, without dropping a bunch of money on a fancy integrated system, their results and findings, still point the way to increasing your own success with online generated leads.

THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED THE WAY CARS & HOMES ARE SOLD

The Internet has also conditioned people to demand an immediate response to information inquiries, and if not, they lose interest quickly.

This same study found that 92% of automotive consumers felt that the speed in which a dealer responded to their inquiry affected their perception of the dealer and whether they ended up purchasing a vehicle from them. 74.3% said it even affected their perception of the manufacturer who supplies cars to the dealership.

So, we know that response time is a factor…and a big one at that.  Now, due to the immediacy web users have come to expect, your brand and service/product are now being judged by your response time.  Unresponsive/slow to respond means the customers perception is dropping.  Respond quickly and you have least allowed yourself the ability to continue the conversation.

PROFESSIONALISM, COURTESY AND FORTHRIGHT ANSWERS

People are less inclined to subject themselves to the high pressure sales tactics of dealerships as they were in the past. They want real, courteous answers to questions. Or they just go elsewhere.

Information about real estate cars can be found everywhere on the internet.  Jim Click Automotive Team learned and profited from their ability to meet the needs of their customers shortly after responding to a web lead.  Dealerships struggle with the some of the same negative perceptions as real estate agents; namely, high pressure sales tactics.

They found that by contacting the web customers immediately, answering their questions and inviting them to the dealership, they were able to generate more sales.  Here are the three critical opportunities they discovered:

Critical Opportunity #1: A number of Salespeople may be talking to customers and qualifying them prior to capturing vital contact info and getting them to come in to the dealership.

Critical Opportunity #2: Not answering inbound calls and responding to Web leads immediately (as in 5 minutes.)

Critical Opportunity #3: Not proactively reaching out to leads, prospects, and past customers effectively, efficiently, and with a high volume of contacts.

Great points for anyone generating leads, let alone online leads, would do well to heed.

Online Classified Services

Just like a newspaper, the internet has had “classified” websites for a long time.  Some of the original bulletin board services (BBS’s), when the ‘net was fresh and new, were glorified, online swap meets.  Someone had some hardware, furniture or something that they needed to sell and they offered it via their BBS.

Craigslist is the 800 lb Gorilla

If you’ve not heard of Craigslist, check out the site and learn how you can expose your listings to a much larger audience than just your local MLS.  We’ve used Craigslist to market our rentals and first time home buyer priced homes.  Every time we put one of those listings out on Craigslist, the phone and email inbox light up with inquiries.

Craigslist isn’t the Only Gorilla in the Mist

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Listing Videos: Quick and Easy

Want to increase the exposure your listing gets online?  Want to easily incorporate video in your marketing without taking a whole bunch of time to shoot, narrate and edit listing videos?

We’ve found a quick and easy way to generate videos to be exported to YouTube.  Read on to see how you can put your toe in the water of video distribution without learning a new skill set or taking too much time.

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Web Applications To Make Life Easier

Web 2.0 has been about collaboration, more than anything else.  One of the benefits of this collaborative nature, has been web applications (apps) that are free to use.  In spite of the free nature of these web apps, many are very well developed and highly useful!  While the version you can use for free isn’t as fully featured as the “for-a-fee” version, many still have become very handy in day to day use.

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Updating your Technology?

The three tools a Realtor® needs, in fact are as necessary as breath itself, are a smartphone, laptop and a digital camera.  Ok, so maybe not as life-giving necessary as breath itself, but these tools go a looong way to making our job a lot easier, more efficient, and fun.

If you are getting ready to purchase for the first time or upgrade any of these items, be sure to check out the following sites for making an informed decision.  Sometimes the kind of technology can hinder or enhance your efficiency and real estate systems.  For example, here at theRockStarAgent.com we are rocking the BlackBerry smartphones for the instant email, and are split 2-1 on the laptops: PC to MacBook Pro.

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Trulia and Zillow: Online Area Experts

You’ve no doubt heard about Trulia and Zillow.  Did you know that both services want agent input to help answer consumer questions?

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Lead Response Times – It’s Not Just Us!

Ok, so at theRockStarAgent.com we are flat out rabid about responding to your leads quickly!  In fact, on our team in Ann Arbor, all the agents are using Blackberry smartphones and have a habit of responding to leads within 15 seconds of the lead coming in.  Often times, we catch folks still searching our site when we get them on the phone.

http://media.therockstaragent.com.s3.amazonaws.com/lead-response-intro.flv

But you’ve heard and read all of that before.  And quite possibly, you think we’re a little around the bend.  Honestly, can’t blame you.  However!  I’ve got research, statistics all based off research done by M.I.T.

From: THE INSIDESALES.COM/MIT LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT STUDY OVERVIEW

We used the data from the InsideSales.com system (critical to this purpose because it generates and stores quantitative call data linked directly with qualitative lead process and flow information).

We examined 3 years of data across six companies that generate and response to web leads, from over fifteen thousand leads and over one hundred thousand call attempts.

Web Users Want Information NOW!

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Selling Real Estate: A Look at Home Seller Trends

So, recently, I covered some of NAR’s buyer trends from their 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.  This time we’ll dive into the trends of sellers in 2008.

What Sellers Want Most From Real Estate Agents

As you can see, across the board of level of service brought by agents, sellers wanted real estate agents to help competitively price their home.  What’s curious is that sellers that utilized a “fee for listing” agent, most wanted”Help sell[ing] the home within specific timeframe.”  Sellers that utilized a “full-service” or “limited-service” selling agent wanted price assistance more than anything else.  If nothing more, this shows that sellers, on the average, get that price is the issue in selling their home.

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Selling Real Estate: A Look at Home Buyer Trends

Every year, the National Association of Realtors® produces a report on the trends of real estate buyers and sellers.  NAR’s 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is a 116 page document filled with graphs, charts and brief analysis on real estate consumers’ behavior.

Here at theRockStarAgent.com, we strive to assist agents making the jump into Real Estate 2.0.  Part of the jump includes understanding the reason for the shift.  Real estate changes rapidly and if you’ve not noticed, the internet and technology of merely increased the rate of change.

This post will focus on the Buyer side behavior of the real estate transaction.  But really, who cares? Right?  After all, once you get in front of a buyer, you know instinctively what you need to do to help them meet their real estate goals.  These assembled words and charts simply attempt to show where the change is and where you as an agent should be moving your business and marketing efforts.

Overview:

The internet is not a fad.  It’s here and it’s changing how real estate is searched for, how housing information is accessed, and what’s important.  From the report we know that:

• the internet is as important as an agent in finding a home for buyers;
• members of Gen Y are using “off the beaten path” sites with real estate listings nearly 15% more than any other group;
• agents and the internet are seen as equally useful among home buyers;
• buyers want help in negotiating and finding the right home, but NEED help in determining price.

[after the jump, charts and stuff...you've been warned!]

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The New Real Estate

theRockStarAgent.com was born as a result of doing real estate differently.  We found that the systems and processes that we used were not only unique to our marketplace, but to the industry at large.  When the local real estate market declined, and many licensees decided to parachute out, we had our best years ever.

Don’t Get Caught Napping

One thing that we know about life in general and real estate specifically, is that change is constant.  In real estate, change can be alarmingly fast.  For agents not keeping pace with the drastic and swift changes to our industry, it almost appears as though the industry is lethargic. Slow to change.  Yet, there are agents that are on the cutting edge of the change and using it to their advantage.

Developing an edge in today’s market requires REALTORS to have a user friendly website with IDX listings available.  Practitioners need to be proficient in Blogging, social media, search engine marketing, and how to work with the e-consumer once they contact you. Using savvy marketing techniques may generate leads for agents, however with no skills in permission marketing and inbound marketing, you will be lost. Nearly 90% of the home buyers are searching homes on the Internet prior to ever contacting an agent. Are they finding you, when they go to Google, Yahoo or MSN?

Mike Bowler has a great post on the change that we are currently undergoing.  And he’s right…

Those agents that see, educate themselves and take advantage of their new knowledge will be well set when the market turns.  This business has always been about the buyer or the seller.  Now, with information at their fingertips, consumers are in the drivers seat when it comes to choosing the agent to represent them.

Will they choose the agent that presents all of their listing information online, holds “office hours” when they can be reached via instant messaging or webinar and is easily accessible via the ‘net or phone?  Or will they choose that agent that “forces” them to contact the agent for the address, number of bedrooms or square footage of a property?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel Does Not Need to be a Train

With information so easily found, and so free on the internet, here are a few simple steps to help you become the resource your future clients so desperately need:

• Be sure that you are visible on the internet
  • start a blog, get involved in social networks, fill out your own Google Profile, do something that the search engines will see when someone searches for you as an agent.
• On your website, be sure to have a user friendly IDX search solution
  • Consider creating web pages dedicated to your marketplace’s neighborhoods: photos, general description, a map, etc.
• On your website, be sure to have information about your marketplace
  • take your site to the next level by doing some business reviews or restaurant reviews
    • business owners will love the exposure, and your readers will begin to see you as an area resource

These are just a few ideas to implement, but there are many more you can put into place to be found on the internet and show yourself to be the real estate resource that your future clients should be contacting.

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