Lead Gen: How to Earn your Street Cred As An Industry Expert

CASE STUDY:STRATEGY

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CASE

STUDY: STRATEGY MAR.2009

N O . 1006

COMPANY: UNDISCLOSED R.E. AGENT

INDUSTRY: REAL ESTATE

PROFILE: NE WLY

LICENSED

REAL ESTATE

AGENT

Just One Marketing Brain Storming Session Led To A 100% Lift In Lead Generation

How One Business Turned To Analytics To Build A Creative Lead Generation & Nurturing Plan

Summary: In real estate sales, as in any industry, prospects must trust you to earn their referrals and sales. In a healthy economy a new business needs time to earn that trust. How do you build trust in the weakest economy in 70 years?

That’s why a newly licensed real estate agent sought a way to accelerate the time to develop that trust and generate leads to prospective referrals and new clients.

In just one brain storming session we identified: the agent’s unique selling propositions; his available resources; actionable strategies and tactics; how to use them to generate and nurture leads; and performance measures for the plan.

THE CHALLENGE

How can a newly licensed real estate agent generate leads for new listings? Can we shorten the time to earn the trust it takes to get referrals? What affect on this, if any, does the worst recession since the depression have on solving the challenge?

THE GOAL

Develop strategy and tactics to generate and nurture leads and referral sources that primarily generate new listings from sellers, and secondarily generate buyers. Make sure what we develop is actionable and measurable.

THE SOLUTION – WHAT WE DID

We held Marketing Office Hours–A brain storming session to help solve pressing marketing and sales problems. By the end of the meeting we identified actionable steps my client could take to solve the problem.

During the meeting we determined that building an inventory of contracts listing a home for sale lets a real estate agent leverage his time and maximize his earnings. “Listing agents” sign seller to listing contracts, and then can just let other agents bring buyers. If a deal closes, listing agents split the commission with the other agent. Newly licensed agents earn less than 50% of the commission. Further non-listing agents can spend more time showing one buyer many homes than a listing agent spends with one seller. Long-time real estate agents earn the trust of a referral network over time that gives them an advantage signing home owners to listing contracts.

Plus, sellers list fewer homes for sale in this economy. Led by a collapse in the

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banking industry and securitized mortgages, the U.S. economy slowed as it faced the worst recession since the depression. Pending home sales hit a record low in March 2009.1 Sellers facing declining prices held off listing their homes. Buyers worried about their jobs and tougher lending standards, held off buying.

We defined generating leads for listings as the primary sales goal for the agent, and generating leads to buyers as the secondary goal. We concluded newly licensed agents had to work harder and think smarter to overcome the advantage established agents have in generating leads for listing contracts, and the effect of a market with fewer listings.

The agent had access to independent real estate industry data and analysis that showed such things as sales and listing trends. He provided this information to E*S*Q unlimited which reviewed and analyzed it to produce charts and analysis

like these for zip codes where the agent sought listings. Our analysis uncovered insights for potential sellers that other agents might miss.

He could leverage this to build credibility to help sellers and buyers understand their market better. We decided to test providing this kind of analysis and insight to prospective buyers and sellers to build trust with them with the ultimate goal being to represent them. We wanted to see if prospective clients would perceive this as a unique selling proposition that differentiated this agent.

THE RESULT: STRATEGY. TACTICS. ACTION!

Strategy First–Develop Two-Prong Strategy To Generate And Nurture Leads:

1. Build a house list of consumers and business owners who will trust the agent with referrals of their friends. Use the list to present prospective clients with the agent’s analysis and insight.

2. Develop one or more unique benefits and differentiators from other agents.

1 See: http://Money.CNN.com/2009/03/03/news/economy/pending_home_sales

E.g.: You have a better chance to sell a single 5K sq ft home for >$2mil in 98119

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a. Primary Unique Benefit: Use real estate industry and other trusted third-party data to provide insight not available from other agents about buying and selling in particular geographic locations.

i. Goal: Use the analysis and insights to demonstrate the agent’s knowledge of the market. His insights have to be useful and actionable. Over time recipients will see that the insights demonstrate the agent’s value and integrity so the agent is seen as someone to trust with referrals.

Then–Develop Actionable Tactics And Performance Measures:

1. Action Item: Agent to produce a series of timely insights to distribute to an opt-in list of prospective end-users and referral sources.

a. Distribution Channels: Monthly e-mail of 300 words or fewer. Other channels to be considered later, e.g. blog, printed newsletter, etc.

b. Structure of e-mail: i. Analysis and source of data.

ii. Agent's Insight. iii. An Action Item for potential buyers. iv. An Action Item for potential sellers. v. Call to Action: "For additional custom insights, or to list your

home or find one to buy, call or e-mail agent." c. Topics: Outlined a series of 4 to 10 potential topics as starters. (E.g.,

Sales velocity by change in selling price and change in units sold.) i. Performance Measures:

1. Benchmarks For Existing E-Mail: Response Rate = 3.7%. Bounce Rate = 23.3%. Close Rate = 0.0%

2. Initial Measure: Number of people who opt-in for email. 3. Ultimate Measure:

a. Number of referrals that come in at 6 and 12 months. b. Number of listings obtained.

2. Action Item: Agent to join and attend events held by one or more professional or cultural organizations centered on that language.

This shows the cost of 4 bedroom single homes varies more than 1, 2 & 3 bedroom homes.

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a. Goal: Determine if organizations get the right prospects. b. Performance Measures:

i. Number of people who opt-in to get the information. ii. Number of referrals that come in at 6 and 12 months.

3. Action Item: Identify English-speaking organizations where agent can find consumers who might be interested in obtaining for themselves or their friends, insights into real estate market trends.

a. Attend events and build the opt-in list. i. Goal: Determine if organizations get right mix of prospects.

ii. Performance Measures: 1. Number of people who opt-in to get the e-mail. 2. Number of referrals that come in at 6 and 12 months.

Lastly–Act and Measure Results:

1. The Agent Chose To Implement The Tactics And Own The Results.

To learn how in just one marketing brainstorm session with Bruce and E*S*Q unlimited you can walk out with an action plan to increase your sales, call Bruce at 610-667-8188 or e-mail [email protected] .

Lead Gen: How to Earn your Street Cred As An Industry Expert

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