Lead management
Channel Those Leads

Here are easy ways to manage a flood of prospects.

BY MICHAEL RUSSER

There’s nothing worse than spending time and money generating leads only to find yourself without the time to cultivate them once they start rolling in. Online leads are particularly tricky because many of them won’t be ready to act for three to 12 months from the time they contact you. They need to be nurtured if you want any chance to turn them into clients. The secret to successfully managing your online leads—or any leads for that matter—is to define and follow a comprehensive lead-management process.

• Identify lead sources. Keep a list of all the sources you use for promotion, including your Web site, any third-party sources such as lead-generation sites, and even print sources such as direct mail.
  
• Prepare a variety of initial e-mail responses. You’ll find many responses fall into one of several categories—information on a listing, a review of financing options, a request for information about your services, an inquiry about the value of a prospect’s home, and so on. One easy way to ensure prospects receive rapid yet personalized responses is to create standardized e-mail response templates that can be modified to address the particulars of each request. Personalize each response by using the prospect’s name and adding language that specifically references something in the query.
  
  Spiff up your responses a notch by sending contacts packets of information, such as your brochure and newsletter, as PDFs. Adobe Acrobat easily converts the materials into a PDF, which retains the look of your materials.
  
• Stay in touch. A drip-marketing campaign, described in my May 2004 column (“ E-market Effortlessly ”) is an ideal way to painlessly keep relationships with your leads alive. Send information packages, e-newsletters, and updates of new listings. Drip campaigns also are valuable for sending timely updates on the transaction’s status and, of course, for continual follow up with customers to maintain long-term contacts and build referrals.
  
• Set up a contact-management system. Web-based contact-management software programs such as Top Producer 7i are invaluable in helping you or your assistant follow a systematic program of repeat contacts that will turn prospects into customers. Software programs should include not only a database of prospects’ contact information but also automated reminders that pop up when it’s time to make another contact.
  
• Create a lead-tracking system. This step is crucial. If you can’t track your leads, you have no idea where your prospects are coming from. Tracking leads doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be as simple as setting up an Excel spreadsheet into which you or your assistant enter the source of each lead (use different e-mail addresses for each of your Web sites and codes on direct mail), when it came in, and which prepared or custom responses were used to contact each prospect.
  
  It’s also critical to track which leads are converted to clients so that you can calculate the true cost of each lead-per-dollar of gross commission income earned. This will give you a strategic view of which lead sources are most profitable and which should be dropped.
  
  Obviously, setting up and running such a system takes time, effort, and sometimes computer skills beyond the capabilities of most busy real estate professionals. That’s why using a marketing coordinator is a good investment. If you don’t have the volume to support a full-time coordinator, follow the example of Amy Gerbe, ABR®, e-PRO®, of MassHomeSales.com in Sudbury, Mass., and hire a virtual assistant to keep your leads serviced. Click here to see a flow chart that gives an overview of how Gerbe and her virtual assistant handle the leads generated from Gerbe's Web site and from four third-party sources, such as lead-generation sites. Notice that Gerbe is notified by phone or pager only about leads that require an immediate call from her. That way, she doesn’t have to worry about this falling through the cracks.
  
  Even though it can be time-consuming, lead management isn’t an optional part of your business. Without it, you’ll lose most of your prospects through neglect. Fortunately Web- and software-based contact-management and lead-management options make it much easier for you to flow that flood of leads into productive channels. Now, that’s a great way to run a business.
  

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