Don’t Let Leads Die on the Vine

Who should listen: Real estate agents who need a strategy to follow up with Facebook leads.

Key idea: It’s going to take longer than you think to contact a lead. Don’t. Give. Up.

Action item: Apply the triple-dial strategy we describe.

At ReminderMedia, the producer of Stay Paid, we spend millions of dollars every year on Facebook ads and, because we follow up, we enjoy a 386% return on the investment we make in those ads.

But without the follow-up, the ads are worthless, and the money is wasted.

In this Silver Dollar episode, we share with you the 3 strategies we use to ensure that the leads we generate from Facebook ads don’t die on the vine. And whether it is for Facebook ads or another lead-generating activity, you can use these same 3 strategies to follow up.

1. Call your leads

The first thing you need to do is call your leads. Resist the temptation to simply email them. A conversation will always be more powerful than an email.

It’s going to take longer to connect with your leads than you may initially think. You’ve heard us talk about Stephen, Luke’s brother, who’s an agent in the Lynchburg, Virginia, area. On average, he needs to make 18 calls before he finally connects with his leads.

Why doesn’t he give up?

The answer is simple: in their 2020 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, NAR reports that 73% of buyers hire the first agent they speak with.

How likely are you to be that one? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

• Roughly 44% of salespeople give up after receiving a single “no.”
• Another 22% give up calling after two calls.
• This means that two-thirds of agents will never follow up a third time.

Another startling statistic—63% of people who contact you today won’t buy for at least 3 months.

Don’t. Give. Up.

2. Triple dial and text

This strategy comes to us courtesy of Mark Pattison, our guest in Episode 267.

Mark’s team is trained to call leads 3 times in quick succession and then send a text message. You might rightly think that a strategy like this would annoy people, but Mark’s script is so brilliant that his leads end up reassuring him that they’re glad he called.

We review his script and explain why it works as well as it does.

3. Start an email drip, and watch the activity

Never, ever discard a lead.

As we mentioned earlier, it may take months after their first contact with you before a lead is ready to buy a home.

Take all your leads, and add them to an email drip campaign. Use whatever system it is you have to watch your leads’ activity. If they are opening your emails, you want to keep calling them.

We offer a few suggestions for what to include in your emails, and we share another of Mark’s strategies to help you systematize your follow-up.

Bonus tip

On February 3, we presented a webinar about Facebook ads and a new service from ReminderMedia where we will run and manage ads for our clients. We provide the ads, manage the ad budget, provide coaching and reporting, and more. You can find out more by listening to the recording, but here we wanted to share with you the follow-up script we provide that’s been tested and proven to work.

It’s a simple two-sentence script: “I saw you were looking at homes. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Your leads will instinctively answer in one of two ways. They’ll either say yes (and there’s a good chance they aren’t being entirely truthful), or they’ll say no. In both instances, we discuss during the episode and the webinar how you can move the conversation forward.

Please enjoy this episode, and we’d appreciate it if you would give us a 5-star rating and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. (Not sure how to leave a review? Click here.)

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