As a REALTOR®, the reality is that you likely spend a lot of time and money getting new real estate leads. But once you acquire these leads, do you have a plan in place to convert them into clients?

As you know, not all leads are ready to buy or sell right away. If you’re forgetting to stay in touch with these leads (or dismissing them all together), then in two months, four months, or one year, when they are serious about working with an agent, it probably won’t be you that they’ll hire.

In this article, I’m going to show you how you can use your real estate CRM to very easily (and with just a little amount of time) maximize the likelihood that each and every lead you receive converts into a client.

1.    Add each lead you receive to an appropriate drip marketing campaign

A customer of ours in the Chicago area, Mark, gets approximately five new leads on a daily basis. Each lead, is of course, different in the sense that one could be a potential buyer, another a potential seller, and yet another a for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) lead.

Mark assigns each lead an appropriate nurture campaign that’s already pre-loaded in his real estate CRM. He uses email campaigns but a good CRM should have the option of sending either emails or letters (or both).

Mark does this to stay in touch with his leads over time. Emails are sent out automatically at scheduled periods from the software which saves him a ton of time. And at certain points, the system prompts him to give the lead a call.

If you’d like to stay in touch with your leads easily and effectively with very little time or monetary commitment on your end, drip marketing campaigns are absolutely essential.

2.    Send a monthly e-Newsletter and Just Listed e-Flyers

The next component of your lead nurture plan should be to send out a monthly real estate newsletter filled with useful information that the lead would want to receive.

A newsletter accomplishes these things; 1) it’s a way for you to stay “top of mind”, 2) it helps prompt leads to pick up the phone and call you (they may have a question or two about what they just read), and 3) it positions you as an authority or “expert” in real estate with great expertise in your field.

It’s also a good practice to send out e-Flyers to leads with properties you’ve just listed that may be of interest to them.

A great real estate CRM will come with a professionally written and designed monthly e-Newsletter and a number of design templates, for Just Listed and Just Sold e-Flyers. These types of marketing pieces are fast and easy to send out and are very inexpensive when compared to other marketing like direct mail or paid advertising.

3.    Check campaign reports

Log into your CRM and look at who opened and read your emails and who clicked on the links within them (look at your e-Newsletter and other mass emails you’ve sent out). When you see who’s most engaged with what you’re sending, you can identify potentially hot leads.

Note who these leads are and give them a call. Ask them if they have any questions about what you’ve sent out and if they’d like to learn more, and record the conversation in the lead’s communication history in your real estate CRM for future reference (and for talking points next time you call).

4.    Schedule monthly check-in calls to your hot leads

First, you’ll want to put all of your “hot” leads into a specific group so you can easily search for and pull them up in your CRM. You likely have an idea of who your hot leads are (pay attention to those who have responded to the emails you’ve sent out and are engaged).

Then, give these hot leads a little bit of extra “TLC.” Schedule monthly (or more if you feel it’s necessary) check-in calls. Your CRM will remind you who to phone and when once the calls have been scheduled. Note that it’s important that these calls don’t turn into sales pitches. The idea of the calls are to see if you can be of assistance in any way to the lead.

Perhaps he or she has questions, needs a recommendation on a reputable home professional, would like to see a property, or would like some market data. If so, you’re there to provide this valuable information.

A study by PCMS Consulting and One Cavo found that 75% of real estate leads generated online are lost. Are you losing leads? Having a plan to nurture each lead you receive and convert them into clients is critical. If you incorporate the suggestions I’ve discussed in this article into your business, you’ll be on the right track to lead conversion success. Good luck!