CRM or Customer Relationship Management, maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe you haven’t. They’ve been around for a while if you’ve ever worked in the sales world. Essentially a CRM is a fancy database software for keeping track of leads, current clients, and past clients. They have built-in systems to help agents automate interactions with leads and clients. As they say, the riches are in the follow-up. However, don’t be mistaken, a CRM is not a magic black box that will bring you automatic leads or sales. A very important thing to keep in mind is that a CRM is only as good as how it is being used, garbage data in equals garbage data out. Meaning if you aren’t maintaining the data and systems, it will not give you the best results you’re looking for.
I’m going to cover one specific CRM, KvCore which is the CRM that I use. KvCore is built specifically for real estate agents. Instead of using a spreadsheet to maintain records and contacts with your clients and leads. Contacts are entered into a CRM to manage them easily using systems and automation. You can easily export CSV spreadsheets and import contacts into KvCore. Depending on their status, you can set them as Prospects, Sphere, Lead, Active Lead, Client, and Closed contacts. So here’s how using KvCore can help you as an agent.
- Agent Website
KvCore includes a custom website for agents with IDX access to their local MLS. This allows visitors to the website to be able to search the local MLS directly on the agent’s website. In addition, the website can include tools like a mortgage calculator, and a blog section, and allow visitors to create accounts to create specific property searches with auto alerts. - Lead capture
Visitors who create an account from the website are automatically logged into the CRM as new leads. From here the agent can view the contact info: name, email, phone number if provided, what the contact is intending to do, buy or sell, as well as see all properties that the visitor clicked on. KvCore will also automatically send a nice thank you for visiting our website email to the contact. - Landing pages
KvCore allows agents to create single-page landing pages to feature new listings. This leak can be shared on social or posted on flyers as QR codes. The landing page can also implement a squeeze page prompt where a pop-up will notify the visitor that in order for them to proceed to view more information or photos of the listing, they must either create an account or provide their contact info. You can also create lead generation landing pages, that might exchange a lead magnet, something of value, in exchange for a lead’s contact. There are also landing pages where you can target sellers by asking them if they would like to see what their home’s value is. That contact information is then automatically captured by KvCore as a new lead.
- Email Marketing Drip Campaigns
Now that you have added all these contacts and captured new leads. What can you do with them? KvCore has a number of pre-made drip email marketing campaign templates to automatically assign based on the status of the contact whether they are a new lead, active lead, client, or closed client. For example, if you have a new buyer lead, the marketing campaign will send them an email once a week, to try to engage them to reach out to you and move them along the buyer funnel from a lead that is thinking about buying to a lead that is actively looking to buy. - Accountability
KvCore will remind you on a daily basis to stay on top of contacting your leads and clients. It keeps track of how often and when was the last time you called, texted, or emailed a lead. If you have a lead that you have not contacted frequently, it will give you a reminder task to either call, email, or text the lead. If you have not set up a property search for a new lead, it will add this task and remind you of it. These tasks will also be automatically added to your calendar to help remind you! - Automatic engagement with leads and clients
KvCore comes with a few automatic engagements with leads that are not just limited to pre-made marketing campaigns. Once you’ve set up a client for automatic listing search. From time to time, KvCore will pick and choose specific listings to email over to clients who are actively searching. It will email them a listing and say “Have you seen this listing? I think it might match what you’re looking for. What do you think?” This definitely helps to keep the client engaged in the home search. In addition, KvCore will automatically text clients as well on your behalf. - Sharing MLS listings to third-party websites
KvCore allows agents to create lead capture pages of specific MLS listings which can be shared on Facebook or even Craigslist. Visitors will again arrive at the KvCore listing page with an interest in learning about the listing and then be prompted to enter their contact information. Which again gets captured into KvCore. - Alerts and notifications
Anytime a lead visits your website and does a home search, you will automatically be notified of their activity. This is great for buyers who might have decided to wait, and then all of a sudden start searching for homes on your website. Now you are automatically alerted when they’ve had a change in behavior. So perhaps it may be a good time to reach out.
So these are just some of the ways a CRM can help you manage leads, follow up with leads, and transition them from lead all the way to closed! This is just the surface, there are many more capabilities of KvCore that can be added through add-ons or paid plugins. A powerful real estate-specific CRM like KvCore comes at a steep cost, roughly $500/month. However, it is free for all Exp Realty agents and provided as a standard tool. If your brokerage does not provide you with one. There are other CRM options out there, that are less expensive or even a few free options. However, the features and abilities may vary greatly as well as the ease of use. As I said earlier, a CRM is only as good as how often you actually use it. So the best CRM is the one that you actually use. If you have further questions about KvCore or CRMs, please let me know.