When you’re running an SMS campaign to generate deals for your REI business, you need to keep a pulse on key metrics to ensure you’re moving the needle and setting a good pace and routine. SMS marketing success is all based on strategy, and central to that strategy is best practices and managing your routine. Here are the top SMS KPIs to keep on your radar:

SMS Message Activity

How many texts are you sending each day? How many leads does that translate into? These SMS KPIs focus on your activity, and as the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.”

Your message activity should show consistency throughout the week. Once you have a routine, sending out initial messages, and giving time to manage responses–-rinse and repeat–should be second nature. Your message activity should see approximately the same peaks and valleys as incoming messages and lead volume.

Are you working with a VA?

Virtual assistants are great, but are they following SMS engagement best practices? Checking message activity and lead activity is a good first step to see if there may be areas for improvement. Not sure where to guide your efforts? Message sending should be considerate of your audience.

Don’t text during evenings and weekends. Instead, stick to business hours and be mindful of the correct time zones for your recipients. Once you or your team nail a routine that works for you, focus your efforts on other SMS KPIs.

SMS Message Type

Keeping your eyes on replies? Sure hope so. Remember that texting is a conversation. When you’re sending out a batch of bulk messages, you still need to focus on starting conversations and keeping them moving toward your goal.

Active Conversations

A good way to measure this is by checking your active conversations and how that number is trending. It can take a few active conversations to generate a deal, so imagine how your revenue can explode if that number peaks to a manageable number of conversations you can maintain. Find that comfortable, “high-ish” number of conversations and seek to maintain consistency with it.

Unread Messages

Speaking of conversations, no one wants to be left unread. No one. If your prospects are responding to your messages, it’s a good sign. Unread messages are your first tipoff to triage your inbox and prioritize where you can. See any hot leads? Proceed with caution; you don’t want to get burned.

Just kidding.

Always check your unread first. Your next deal could be lurking in here, but if you’re too slow to respond, that prospect may choose to work with some other investor who does respond quickly.  Their next message could just be, “Too late. Already sold that house.”

Following SMS engagement best practices means you’re managing your inbox well and strategically. It’s not enough to open and eventually respond, it takes a routine, a little time, and a bit of tactical planning to get the most deals.

Use prewritten quick replies to enable–ahem–quick replies. They’re called that for a reason, and that reason is to help real estate investors like you profit from SMS engagement. That takes us into the next of our SMS KPIs to keep your pulse on, those unanswered messages.

Unanswered Messages

Are you seeing a high number of unanswered messages? You might need to go back to the beginning and find the right rhythm and routing that works for your team. Unanswered messages should ideally stay low. If you’re getting replies asking you to stop contacting them, correctly disposition your contacts and move them to the appropriate drip campaign.

Remember, REI can often be a numbers game, and SMS engagement is about maintaining best practices and a strategy that cultivates results. Someone not interested in selling their property today could be in critical need to get out of their loan in 60/90/180 days when you’re actively reaching out to them again.

Reminders

Did someone reply asking you to follow up in 3 days? One week? Six months? Setting reminders and keeping track of them on a dashboard is a great way to ensure potential deals won’t fall through the cracks. Remember, if you’re not connecting with that prospect, someone else is. Stay on top of all follow-up reminders to re-engage the deal and keep moving toward a close.

No Status

Does your SMS engagement platform track messages with no status? Here’s why it’s important. When used correctly, as part of SMS engagement tactics, tracking the status of your leads means you’re on top of each segment and know exactly what the next step and touchpoints are. Your hot leads will take priority and be closest to negotiating a deal, picking up your call, or moving into your CRM.

When you see too many in the no status category, something in your process or routine needs to be tweaked. Keep a pulse on these contacts with no status and look into your drip campaigns to see if one of your existing nurture paths is fit for those rogue contacts in your no status bucket.

Drip Automation Campaigns vs Nurture Campaigns

To-may-TO To-MAH-to, no? Drip automation and nurture sound the same. But scratch the surface and these two SMS engagement capabilities serve two distinct purposes, and each has its place in your success toolkit.

• Nurture:  Send a timed and personalized message from the Inbox page. For instance, the homeowner says, “I’ll be on vacation for two weeks; message me next month.” You’ll want your follow-up to reference that specific conversation and to keep the conversation moving forward.
• Drip Automation: Keep consistent touchpoints with a target group of leads. The classic example is a once-a-month check-in with the “not ready to sell” crowd. It keeps your name relevant and puts you to close when they’re ready to sell.

Top Drip Automation

As you can see from those examples, drip automations are campaigns going out to segmented lists of leads, so keep your eyes on their performance. Which automation are you sending the majority of your contacts through? Do you need to optimize any of the flows to optimize your routine?

If you start to find that you’re seeing trends in your inbox or active conversations, it’s a sign you may need new drip automation to push those types of leads. For example, getting a lot of “no thanks”, “not interested”, and straight-up “no”s? It happens, and when it does, it’s the perfect opportunity for drip automation. Situations, and more importantly minds, change all the time. You want to be there when they do.

You’ll want to monitor the top-performing drips to see which ones are cultivating the most responses and sparking conversations. This will help you or your team further optimize your routine and get more deals.

Top Campaigns

It’s a pain to wonder how a potential list is performing, but luckily you can check your campaigns to see just how many leads you’ve found and how they’re performing.

Other SMS KPIs to Monitor

Average Reply Time

Something to consider… When you text a lead, and they text you back, their phone is in their hand. That’s valuable information. Use it.

Tags

Subscribers effectively using tags to track unique KPIs saw an increase in leads by 18% on average. In addition to the four default tags included, you can create 10 of your own.

Need to follow up on all your discovery call conversations? Make a tag for that and manage everything from the Inbox. Launch Control makes it easy to find those diamonds in the rough.

Template Performance

You’ve got a bunch of Initial and Follow Up templates in your Launch Account. Which ones are killing it and which ones are falling flat? Keep an eye on your delivery and response rates, AND create templates for each type of homeowner to fine-tune your outreach. Leads are more likely to respond when they think you’re talking to them.

Look for stats on your message performance to help you move the needle toward increasing your number of deals. For example, is a certain angle working better in your market? Replicate that recipe as best you can.

Final Thoughts on SMS KPIs

Stick to the strategy. Remember when using an SMS engagement platform, the end goal is to find every hidden lead in your lists. They won’t all be ready to work with you immediately, so use all the tools and strategies to maximize lead statuses, drips, nurtures, reminders, et al, and leverage the help of SMS marketing experts, aka Launch Support and Launch Success, when needed to fill in the gaps. You just may be sitting on hidden deals they can help you unlock. . .

Next Steps: 3,2,1 Launch!

Want more inside tips on SMS KPIs and how to use SMS Engagement to close more deals?

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