How To Cleverly Use Text Messaging For Real Estate Marketing

No matter how far we have evolved and how the level of technology is available to streamline processes, the fact remains that real estate is all about relationships. Building and managing good relations are vital ingredients for effective real estate marketing. However, effective communication is a necessity in building good relationships. 

We are all aware that text messaging is an essential tool for the real estate marketing team, increasing lead responses by about 50% to 80%. Research has shown that about 40% of real estate clients would choose to communicate by text, and unfortunately, only 15% of agents realize and do so. You as a real estate agent, have you incorporated the use of text messaging? If your answer to that question is no, then it’s time to learn something new and give text messaging a try.

There are clever ways to use text messaging for your real estate marketing, and in this post, I’m going to show and walk you through the process. Just keep reading to learn how to make texting an operative part of your marketing process.

The Basics

Before we dive into using text messaging for real estate as a tool, let’s quickly check some basics to understand text messaging as a tool for your marketing career.

First, you might get confused about the use of text messaging or SMS messaging. They both mean the same thing, and SMS means Short Message Service.

Next, the clever ways we are going to look into involves sending automated text messages. This means that you will need some level of tech tools to execute these text messaging ideas.

Now that we have acknowledged these basics, we can now go into details.

Clever Ways To Use Text Messaging For Real Estate Marketing

Let’s dive into the good stuff.

Creating an auto-responder for online leads

Naturally, 49% of buyers expect that real estate agents respond to them as quickly as they reach out. But then, what if the buyer is reaching out online at 2 AM, searching on your website for houses, and even go as far as filling out a form directly to your email? What do you do? Obviously, you will not see the mail until in the morning when you wake up and check your mail.

Now, not many buyers have the patience to wait until you respond to them. So they would already be searching for other estate agents. Plus, by the time you decide to respond in the morning, the potential buyer may have already gotten another property on a different site, emailed the agent, and probably received a response as quickly as they reached out. Boom! You just lost a potential buyer, and if you don’t do something about it, it might repeat again and again.

This is when you need text messaging to come to your rescue. How do you use this tool for quick responses online? To drop an immediate response online, you will need to set up a text message that will respond when a potential buyer clicks “submit” on the form.

The message will read like this, “Hi (name), thanks for your interest in the property at (address of the property)! When can I contact you?” Now, these brackets indicate the merge field, which will allow you to auto-populate your message with the potential client’s name and address.

In essence, these text messages act as autoresponders, and they have a higher options rate than sending emails.

Keep Your Clients Informed With Reminders And Updates.

Text messages are another way to keep your current clients informed of any significant updates and reminders that may be relevant to them. You can set your workflows to keep your clients updated by sending automated text messages of important dates relevant for their use.

However, before you begin sending these text messages, you should ask the clients if they would like to hear from you. You can convince them to click yes if they wish to get informed of any promotional offers or updates. While some people prefer to get text messages, others may like to get emails or even phone calls. Whichever works for them should also work for you.

Important Tip

In order to avoid any breach of any kind on your mobile phone, you should get a different phone number that you send text messages through. This is because the number you use to make calls should differ from the one you use for text messages. However, before you do this, you should always give your clients a heads up.

Your introduction message should look like this, “You will receive updates and relevant reminders from me, and they will come from this number: (number). Please, do well to save this number in your phone contacts.”

Communicate With Past Clients

The use of automated text messages is another vital tool and a great way of communicating with your past clients. As earlier stated, real estate is all about relationships, and the key ingredient to maintaining that relationship is communication. As a professional or potential real estate agent, here is what your text templates should look like:

• Weeks after the deal closes: Hello! How is everything up there? How is settling in going so far?

• A year after the deal closes: Hello! Just a friendly reminder that it’s been a year you bought your property? Congratulations!

• Client’s birthday: Happy Birthday (client’s name). (real estate business name) the team celebrates you.

You may not see the importance of these text messages, especially with past clients, but the slightest touch can significantly impact people. Use text messages more in your referral and repeat strategy.

Well, that’s all for clever ways to use text messages for real estate marketing. Now, let’s look at why you should implement these strategies.

Text messaging strategy! Yay or Nay?

With text messaging for real estate marketing, there is no right or wrong time; simply find the best way to use it. I’m sure there are questions running through your mind, and this will put you at ease. If you are wondering if you should call off this text message strategy or use the texting tool for all of your clients. Well, the answer to these questions is No. Here is why.

Text messaging is not a replacement for phone outreach or physical interaction, and sometimes, not everyone wants to interact via text messages. However, automated text messages are incredibly effective for good follow-up, sending quick updates and reminders, celebrating with your clients. So, why not? You can go ahead and add text messaging to your marketing strategy.

Final Note 

Finally, using text messaging in estate marketing helps you save valuable time and even pursue additional potential buyers. So, improve your text message response rates while considering the client’s convenience. Remember, good follow-up strategy and communication are key ingredients to ensuring that your real estate business doesn’t miss out on good opportunities. It’s definitely a win-win situation.