CRM is the latest cool topic

Customer Relationship Management or CRM’s …

… are designed to help you keep in touch with your sphere and past clients.

CRM’s are one of the hottest topics on the most popular real estate Facebook Groups right now, so let’s take a look a little deeper.

There are dozens and dozens of choices – everything from stand alone products, like MS Outlook to cloud based solutions. (Check out this Realtor Mag article  for short reviews)   

Some CRM systems are basically being sold as prebuilt drip email systems – the typical set and forget and hope to get rich model. 

But this may not be your best option. If you have been on the receiving end of one of these systems, then you will know exactly what I mean by:

“I’m not an opportunity in your CRM.”

Watch the video below and see if you still want to signup for one of these -

So what’s an enterprising real estate agent supposed to do?

Don’t abandon the concept, rethink it.

Choose a system that offers the features that you want and the ability to create your own campaigns. Ease of use is paramount – you don’t need every bell and whistle to make this work. In fact the more complicated a system is, the less likely you are to fully implement, if at all.

When you are creating your system review everything.

I mean everything from the timing of each email through your choice of content, the use or choice of email templates, everything …

Think about what you are trying to achieve before implementing anything. The most valuable results of a well executed campaign will be gaining trust and respect for your expertise.

Consider your audience and the sort of content that they would like to receive, I’ll bet it’s not the canned pre-written cr*p that most systems are touting. This article describes what makes an email suck – it’s worth reviewing.

Sort and segment your list:

You should also segment your lists, what’s appropriate for buyers may well be totally irrelevant to sellers, and not appropriate at all for past clients.

With a good CRM you can schedule phone follow ups, individually written personal emails, birthday wishes, labels for postcards or snail mail letters – you get the idea, don’t be confined to just emails.

Here are a couple of important points to keep you on task:

Keep you messages short. Long messages don’t get read.

Give people a reason to respond. Ask a question or give the reader a good reason to reply.

Don’t bombard. The sending frequency should tail off in the long run too.

Keep to the point. Be relevant to your segmented list.

Best not to try to be hilarious or edgy. Email tone is often misinterpreted.

You are a professional expert in your field. Recipes & holiday tips don’t fit into this category.

WordPress options.

There are actually a couple of CRM systems that you can install on a WordPress site …

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