To succeed as a real estate agent, it’s important to work hand-in-hand with your database. Contacting the right people at the right time is key to maximising listing opportunities, yet if this doesn’t sound like the relationship you have with your database, then maybe it’s time to get to work improving it.
Your database needs to be your go-to source of information. It’s what will point you to exciting vendors and motivated buyers, and it will also help you record and learn from your many appointments, maximising your personal productivity.
But this doesn’t mean you need to create an exceptionally complicated database that has infinite categories. In fact, too many categories are actually a bad thing.
The first step in organising your database is to think about what you want to get from it. You want to design it so that the money information can be found without you having to sift through thousands of contacts. As a result, it’s important your CRM can make contacts that belong to many different categories so that you don’t have to duplicate data and overcrowd the database.
Here are 7 tips for helping you categorise your database:
Prospect Vendors
Organise your vendors into A, B, C, or even Hot, Warm, Cool. Another option is selling in three, six or 12 months. In the end, the terminology doesn’t matter, as long as you’re consistent. Make sure to clean these lists up weekly so that they’re up-to-date.
Buyers
A good thing to do here is split buyers into active and passive. Active buyers are bidding and making offers right now, whereas passive buyers are more interested in watching the market so that they can be ready to buy in a year or when something comes up.
Active buyers are directly linked to your hot vendors, especially if they are looking to sell their property before or after purchasing something elsewhere. If someone is not active, make sure to include them in your automatic email lists, as this will help keep them in tune with what’s going on in the market.
Past Clients
These can be both vendors or buyers, and the purpose of this list is to help you stay in touch with people you’ve already worked with so that you can maintain a relationship.
Annual Campaigns
Separate vendor and buyer groups according to the campaign activities you want to engage them with. For example, maybe you’re doing an anniversary reminder or a festive gathering. These are nice ways to stay in touch with people, so make sure your database helps you remember everyone.
Referral Partners
Always work to keep up with relationships that support your business. Bank valuers, brokers, accountants, solicitors, developers and school networks are all good sources of information and could potentially refer business to you. Make sure you do all you can to keep these people in your life.
Features and Requirements
Include specific property features to each buyers’ search requirements profile. This will help you better attend to their needs and avoid blast marketing. Don’t be tempted to make contact category names based on buyer needs or property features. This will hurt your ability to deliver tailored marketing to people, making it less likely you’ll make a sale.
With the Real Estate CRM iDashboard you can easily manage and your clients by categories and communicate and market to them based on these identifiers.