Automation is simply the use of control systems
I use drip campaigns to staying in touch with my clients, stay in touch with my leads and stay in touch with my sphere.
First let me say I know a lot of folks here don’t like drip campaigns. They feel they are spammy. Yes, they can be, no doubt. But, they can also be a great way to to stay in contact with your sphere, your clients and your leads.
Since 1999 I have been using a drip campaign for my potential buyers who register on my search site. Currently the criteria they put in for their home search will automatically go into my IDX site and when a new listing comes up that matches their criteria it will automatically send them the new listing. They can save that search, or save any search they want to. They can choose NOT to receive any emails. Very few chose that option. The client is in control.
Every drip campaign has a opt out feature on it so the visitor can stop whenever they choose. Every drip campaign has been personalized and tweaked over the years.
We get comments like these all the time:
• “Thanks for sending us all the new listings, we love it.”
• “You sent me a new listing yesterday, can we see it”?
• “Even through we are not buying you have been sending us listings and we are learning about home prices in our area, can you come list our house”
• “Hi, you have been sending us listings for a year and we are finally ready to move, when can we get started?’
• “Remember me, my husband got accepted to medical school so we are ready to look”.
Listings
One of Trulia’s new features is we can automatically send out client reports to our sellers on the activity of their home. I think you can use Realtor.com to do this too, but it costs to do it, Trulia is free, you set it up once for all your sellers and then once a week they get the reports from you, automatically.
This is a great way to stay in touch with your sellers on a weekly basis.
Used Properly
There is nothing wrong with automation if used properly. Automation saves you time. Automation doesn’t mean you NEVER call the client , your sphere, your lead, it is an enhancement to your verbal communication not a substitute. Automation helps leads remember your name if they are house hunting by looking at hundreds of websites.
Has automation got a bad rap because of abuse? In my opinion yes, but automation can be just one system you use to and stay in touch. Automation is there when you are not.
I have campaigns set up for:
• Internet Buyers
• Relocation Buyers
• After the sale campaigns for both buyers and sellers
• Sellers during the listing
Doing the Same things over and over
Why would you want to re-write the same emails over and over again? Why would you want to lose touch with people by not staying in contact? If you are selling 50 plus homes a year and been in the business for years it is impossible to manually stay in contact with all of them.
If you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, it is time to automate the system like in email signatures. Why keep typing the same message over and over again… automate it. I have a multitude of email signatures set up in Outlook and with one click out the door the message goes.
If you are generating hundreds of leads a month from your blog or website it is not humanly possible to communicate with folks on a consistent basis.
The program I use for these campaigns is Intersend.com. I gain nothing from it, and am not promoting it here but just so you will know. I have tweaked the messages many times over the years, they are short and sweet and I try to add value in the message. I set up the exact day they go out and have spread the message to go out over a year.
Again, let me be clear automating your business, and your follow up doesn’t mean ONLY using automation to stay in touch, it is simply one tool.
