Heard these before?

• “I just wanted to know the price, don’t talk to me”
• “Just wanted the photos”
• “Ugh, this is just a bait and switch to get our contact information”
• “You can just look it up on online without giving up your information”

If you’ve used forced registration to generate real estate leads you’ve heard them all and more.

A forced registration system creates a predictable flow of leads, which is the key positive attribute. The main downsides are that it generates negative emotions among potential clients because they’re annoyed by having to give up their information in order to gain access to details about the listing. Details that are freely available elsewhere. This also puts you, as the agent, in a position where you’ll have to do a lot of chasing to stay in touch. Forced registration, or gated content in the SEO community, can negatively impact your SEO.

It can be a grind and traditionally very low conversion rate for most agents.

So what other options do you have?

The Just Sell Homes Listing Update Email Strategy.

It flips the script and allows people to sign up for updates about a particular listing. The value in signing up is no longer in the information, but in keeping a pulse on the situation with the most up to date information. It fits in really well with our Wheel House Marketing Strategy!

You can collect email addresses (or add in phone numbers if you want) of people genuinely interested in following along with your updates. The benefit is that it works at each stage of the coming soon, just listed, and just sold process. With these stages, you’ll be able to nurture the relationship by:

First: Inviting people to trust that you have up to date information to share

Second: Inviting people to trust that you will share this information when, in this current market, time is of the essence

Third: Inviting people to see your success with selling a home, expressing the challenges, and how you overcame them

Finally: Inviting them to connect with you directly!

COMING SOON PERIOD

Especially given the market we’re seeing in most places where homes are selling at a rapid rate,  the ‘coming soon’ is your best period to do the grunt work of your marketing. 

Most Coming Soon marketing is focused on trying to double-end the property but not every agent is comfortable with trying to double end and in some area, it’s not legal.

This is precisely the situation when the Simple Listing Update Email Strategy works exceptionally well. They’re registering to stay up to date on this property. This can also help collect information of neighbours in the area. A neighbour may not reach out to book a showing or ask questions but many will register to know what happens with the listing. You can even encourage this by adding a call to action on your sign rider to register for updates on the property.

Simple videos work really well with this phase.

For example, you can do a video ad from in front of the property and say something along the lines of

“Hi, this is NAME, with BROKERAGE/TEAM, and we’re currently getting this home behind me ready for sale. Photographers are doing their thing, stagers just finished, and we’re getting all of our marketing together. If you’d like to get a copy of the photos and all the other details when they’re available  just click Sign Up button attached to this video and we’ll send you all the updates about this home. Whether you’re interested for yourself, a friend, or just a neighbour who wants to peek inside and find out what it ultimately sells for, we’ll send you all the updates as they happen!”

Now you’re switching from forcing them to opt-in to get the information to coming from a place of value to get their information. You’re not forcing them to opt-in to get it, you’re giving them the option of being the first to get it when it’s available.

JUST LISTED PERIOD

Once you have all the details, the day before it goes live, send an email to everyone who has registered with all the details and let them know it’s going live tomorrow and send them the photos and accompanying details that support the sale. 

We’d recommend creating a blog post to direct them to your site where all the details live.

Once it’s officially live, send them an email with the listing with a “It’s Officially on the Market!” and the link to the live listing.

Updates can include:

• If you’re holding off offers, send updates with how many offers are registered and a reminder if they’re interested with the deadline coming up to register now.
•  If you’re hosting an open house, send them an invite to come and view it. 
• Any time you change the list price

JUST SOLD PERIOD

When the property sells, send them an update of the sold price. I’d include calls to action (CTA) along the lines of either “If you’d like to get similar results for your home or want to get a list of similar homes on the market, just hit reply and we’ll help you out!” or try something more conversational along the lines of:

“123 Main Street sold last night with multiple offers coming in. It sold for $950,000. Were you interested in this property due to the location or the price point?”

That way you can attempt to get a conversation going with the people on the list. We recommend testing both and seeing which gets better results for you.

We also recommend that you create case studies of each property that is sold so that a few days later, you can send your registered clients the case study along the lines of “They got $50,000 more than they thought possible for their home, this is how they did it”. This is your chance to tell the story, take people through your clients journey: when they called you,to when their home sold.

When you have a new listing coming up similar to a previous listing,  send  an email along the lines of “You previously registered for updates about a similar home to 456 Main Street that we have coming up on the market soon. Would you like to get updates about that one as well?” 

You, and your clients will find that every time you reach out, you’re coming from a place of value about something they’re genuinely interested in. People want to stay up to date on particular homes, whether it’s because: they’re interested in buying it, a nosy neighbour, or generally just curious. This Simple Listing Update Email Strategy allows you to communicate with them regularly on their terms, thus eliminating the ‘annoyance factor’.

Don’t forget, you build trust by making it easy for them to opt out of updates, and avoiding peppering your emails with overly salesy language.  When you make things easy, and transparent for your prospective clients, they’ll be more inclined to work with you, than if you were to rely on forced registrations.