Email your way to real estate success!
Recently I overheard a businessman from France explaining how it was that when he bought a game farm in South Africa he chose to buy near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.
He said that when he became interested in buying a farm in South Africa he sent an email enquiry to a number of estate agents all over South Africa. Only one agent replied and he replied well.
Needless to say, the agent who replied, who happened to be from Port Elizabeth, made the sale. Who knows where he would have bought if the other agents had replied to his original enquiry? And why did the other agents not reply?
There may be a whole lot of reasons why these agents, and many others, sometimes fail to reply to email enquries. It might be that dealing with emails at the end of a pressured day may be the last straw for some. It could be as a result of a whole lot of technical problems. Or maybe some people just feel that replying to emails takes too much time and often is a waste of time. But the moral of this story is very simple: reply promptly and professionally to every email enquiry and you will make extra sales!
I came across an article recently (http://bit.ly/4Hsj6 ) that quoted a study that found that 50% of people who made property enquiries would purchase property in the next 12 months. The article said that most of that group would make their purchase 90 days to 12 months after their initial enquiry. Based on these statistics the article advised estate agents could profitably use a short follow-up email to revive dead leads.
Closer to home, Skilpad.Com Property Portal has recently implemented an automated email enquiry reminder service that contacts real estate agents and property enquirers with a view to ensure that no valuable email enquiries are left unanswered. The response to this intitatvie has been very positive.
So, if you are an estate agent, be sure to attend to that “inbox” and perhaps it is time to sift through those folders where you file old email enquiries.
Tags: email, estate agents, property marketing, real estate
April 6th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Some very interesting stats re email enquiries. Well done Skilpad in implementing a reminder service for such enquiries – busy estate agents need this useful facility in order to maximise their internet marketing opportunities.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Our company has been operating a property website selling game farms, farms & tourism related properties, like hotels & guest houses for nearly eight years, with great success. We pride ourselves in answering all enquiries very promptly. We’ve found that although there are a lot of enquirers who dont answer our intial response, probably 60%, we do a second follow-up & then let them go. The process can take time, but in the end we probably end up with a 20% genuine buyers & have over the years converted maybe just more than half of those, ending up with a 10 – 15% strike rate. It is very important to financially qualify all clients, so as not to waste time in the long run.
The internet route is much more effective & cheaper than the old way & the great expense of the hard copy advertising media route! Especially if the international market is what you’re looking for!
I’d be interested to hear from others in the industry.