Finding success in real estate can be a challenging job at times, one defined by hard work and determination. After all, you only get rewarded financially when a sale goes through, and for that to happen, you either need to win a listing or engage a buyer. And with so much competition out there from other agents, doing so often requires a great deal of prospecting, marketing dollars and energy.
Over the years, numerous companies have come up with opportunities for brokers and agents to better find leads, with portals like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com® selling leads. But even then, real estate professionals don’t always find success with the leads they’re spending their hard-earned money on. The real work begins after the lead comes in; calling, qualifying and following up with that lead until they’re ready to take action and begin a transaction.
With the abundance of leads coming from lead-generation portals, online advertising and re-targeting, print, signage and a slew of other sources, lead management can be a full-time job in and of itself. In fact, brokers often have to make a significant financial investment to build an internal call center or e-leads team, both of which require additional dollars or commission splits. Taking this one step further, they may even have to hire an external call center.
Plus, in today’s fast-paced, split-screen world, consumers expect an immediate response from their agent, so if someone doesn’t respond right away to an email or call, the consumer is likely to go elsewhere. A big challenge for any agent is managing the consumer’s expectation in regard to responding in a timely manner, in addition to all of their other job functions.
However, there may be a better answer. The Win Local® Suite—offering a new service called Mobile Concierge™, a new type of call center model powered by Mobile Real Estate, LLC—provides real estate professionals with the tools they need to take a mobile-first approach to marketing their brand and listings within their local market. Made possible by a partnership between Rock Connections and Life in Mobile, Win Local® allows real estate professionals to compete where it matters most.
“Win Local® was built as a turnkey platform that allows residential real estate agents and brokers to help them win on the local market—generating leads, getting more listings, finding buyers,” says John Lim, CEO of Life in Mobile Inc. “We built out a platform that allows them to maximize their ability to mobilize their marketing.”
While Life in Mobile works with a number of fortune 500 clients across numerous industries, the company recently upped its real estate offerings by partnering with prominent call center Rock Connections to create a platform that generates leads through mobile.
The Win Local® Suite takes the philosophy of creating a mobile-first approach to marketing listings within one’s local market by utilizing text message lead generation. It includes branded mobile IDX and GPS search, a custom branded app, vanity text codes and a mobile business card with lead capture.
“We wanted to make sure that the concierge service would bring value, and that the integration process wouldn’t interrupt the agent’s day or make them do more work,” Lim says. “And eliminate the risk.”
According to Lim, the platform allows real estate professionals to compete where it matters most…and where the biggest impact to the bottom line can be seen—locally, with mobile consumers who are looking to buy homes.
“A mobile lead is a more aggressive lead than an online lead because the human behind the device engaging is an indifferent consumer, a more powerful consumer. The ‘I need it now consumer,’” says Lim. “The concierge service will call every single one of those leads back quickly, and customize the response on behalf of an agent personally,” he adds. “No one will have to outlay any money until it works. You only pay if and when you sell a property, or when the lead results in a buyer.”
Once a sale has been made, the only charge is a flat rate that will range from $300 – $500. Monthly rates will be available for all power agents.
With the official launch of the platform slated for October 2016, a number of firms are currently taking advantage of everything it has to offer in beta. One such firm is Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate, serving Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.
“We have a pretty good pulse on how different online channels perform for us, whether we’re seeing a reasonable return on investment, and it’s helped us to figure out what to continue to focus on and what strategies need to be adjusted,” says Donna Greenspan, director of marketing & technology at Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate. “The call center engages and responds to the lead,” adds Greenspan, who notes that the brokerage has a dedicated business development center that manages the majority of leads that come into the organization through various forms of online activity. From there, the leads are funneled over to a call center before being handed off to the agent.
By using Win Local® Suite’s new model, Greenspan explains that the call center workers will be responsible for calling those who text Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate looking for information. These are people who haven’t actively reached out asking for assistance or to schedule a showing, but have asked for more information.
“I’ve been in the business for about a decade, and we’ve seen a significant shift in taking marketing dollars and investing more online so our listings and agents can be found easier,” Greenspan says. “We’re really not sure what to expect since we’re pursuing the leads a little bit, and being more proactive is a new strategy for us, but there’s not any out-of-pocket cost, so we think it could be a great thing.”
For more information, please visit www.winlocalnow.com.
