Leads are the lifeforce of real estate, and without them, there’s no chance your business can survive. The thing is, not every lead that comes your way is going to be ready to make a sale.
Quick note: You have two categories: marketing qualified lead and sales qualified lead. Marketing leads are those collected from various outlets, but not quite ready to buy or sell. The latter is your higher quality leads, determined by a vetting process. They have a greater chance of making a sale.
Sometimes you have to nurture your marketing qualified leads, and lead nurturing is when you build a relationship with a lead that isn’t quite ready to buy or sell a property, but they could soon be an ideal customer with a little support.
It’s easy to get lost in the number of leads you have, but we highly recommend focusing your energy on the quality of your leads too because nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads.
So, are you wondering how to convert your marketing qualified lead into a sales qualified lead? Find out below.
Determine What Qualifies a Lead as a Sales Qualified Lead
What a sales qualified lead looks like can be different in the real estate industry versus other companies and industries, but some businesses see them as the same. Either way, it’s vital that before you start tackling your qualified leads list, you define what marketing and sales qualified leads look like to your business.
If you have a marketing and sales team, everyone must be on the same page before you start implementing any strategies you’ve designed. CSO Insights shared that when sales and marketing teams are aligned, 89.1 percent of them saw a sizeable increase in leads that converted to opportunities. The first step is defining what makes a sales qualified lead, then crafting an efficient strategy, including all departments’ input. From there, solidify each department’s role before executing your plan.
Then, as your lead investment portfolio grows, you can then revisit your definition of a marketing and sales qualified lead and redefine it as you need to.
Newsletters
Creating a monthly or quarterly newsletter to send out to your leads is a great way to keep them engaged or to re-engage inactive leads if they’ve disappeared. Newsletters are a favorite marketing strategy because an agent can showcase new content, announce service updates, and speak on persona pain points. They’re also a helpful tactic if you find that your market lead needs a little nudge to move into the sales qualified lead.
However, a detail to remember is that you should never send all of your leads the same email blast. This is where segmentation comes in handy, and it’s a powerful piece when nurturing leads. Partition your newsletters based on which part of the lifecycle stage they’re in. It ensures that not only will your leads get updates that are relevant to them, they’ll also feel like a special client when you incorporate personalized details.
Pre-Qualify Your Leads
What if we told you there is a way to qualify your marketing qualified leads before they hit your inbox? You can accomplish this by using embedded forms or a landing page to pre-qualify the leads that come through your website. Using embedded forms, you gather valuable information about your leads, including their needs and budget. Ways to pre-qualify leads with forms include:
Multi-step forms: Contact us forms should feature more than just a field for name and email. Don’t be afraid to ask more questions. Be sure to find a sweet spot, though, as the more fields leads are required to fill out, the more likely they are to lose interest and abandon the task.
Progressive profile forms: This method uses smart fields that ask a lead more or fewer questions depending on it they’re a first-time or returning visitor. Over time, this allows you to continue gathering useful information.
Qualifying questions: Here, instead of having your lead fill out the form, you qualify them before they’re allowed to move forward. Though straight to the point, you risk losing out on the chance to nurture those leads that aren’t yet at the sales qualified lead level.
If you’re looking for a way to delegate your process further, Call Motivated Sellers has a team of cold calling experts that can take the task of further qualifying your leads off of your hands. Just give us your list of marketing qualified leads, and we will provide you with the most qualified candidates.
Set Up Marketing Automation to Gain Sales Qualified Leads
In your list of leads, you’ll notice that some leads fall just short of being considered sales qualified lead worthy. But instead of disregarding them, try nurturing them. Lead nurturing is a vital part of the buyer journey. Throughout their journey, you help them turn from a stranger to a customer. You guide them toward their decision to buy with helpful content, tips, and encouragement.
Following up with your marketing qualified leads can be time- consuming, which is why we recommend automating some of your processes by using chatbots, text messaging services, and automated email service to lighten your load.
Keep the Conversation Going
The perfect way to gauge a lead’s seriousness about buying or selling a property is to play the questions game. For every time your lead gives you a statement or answer about their preferences, go deeper. Have them tell you about the importance of having a kitchen island. Marketing qualified leads who are ready to move into the sales qualified leads column often know what they want and why they want it. They’re not shy about giving you the details because they believe that the more info shared, betters their chances of getting what they desire in a property.
However, if you ask these questions and your lead isn’t sure, don’t panic. Rest assured, you’ve given them something to think about, encouraged them to dig deeper when it comes to what they want out of a property, and likely jumpstarted their journey to being ready for a sale.
Set Up Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns are recognized as one of the most common methods used for lead nurturing. They’re especially helpful because you can program your campaigns to trigger based on your lead’s actions throughout their journey. Another great thing about them is that they can be reused as long as the content is relevant. As you work more deals, you’ll start to notice a pattern of behavior and actions in your leads. Keep these in mind as you set up workflows to “drip” emails to your market qualified leads. It’s an excellent way to keep your leads engaged and often influences whether or not they decide to buy or sell through you when they’re ready.
Call Motivated Sellers: Helping You Nurture Leads into Sales Qualified Leads
A lot of work goes into qualifying your leads, converting them from marketing qualified lead to sales qualified lead. Real estate agents often spend hours going through this process only to experience tire-kicker leads who are only interested in wasting time. Our team at Call Motivated Sellers can help! While you’re doing what you do best, closing deals, our group of cold calling experts are hard at work, ensuring that you only receive vetting, highly qualified leads.
Interested in learning more about our services and making us part of your team? Contact us today!