6 Things You Can do With SMS Marketing in Real Estate Agency Business

As a real estate agent in this modern time, the real challenge might be how to create an effective way to communicate with prospects, buyers, and developers alike and how to ensure your communication channels are effective. In addition to these, agents are constantly pressured to find dynamic ways to increase home sales or collect rents from tenants under their agency, none of which is an easy task!

While email marketing and social media are there to sort out communication, SMS marketing remains the most effective method of reaching clients. Just like you use email follow up to reach, and convert prospects to buyers, SMS marketing can do that and more. In fact, according to the National Association of Realtors, 90% of realtors prefer to communicate with their clients through text messages.

It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise. SMS has a 98% open rate, 45% conversion rate, and clients simply few less pressured to make a decision when they get a reminder or marketing text rather than a phone call. In the light of that, here are 6 things you can do with SMS marketing in real estate business:

1. Use SMS autoresponders to handle inquiries

You can set up an SMS autoresponder for your property listings, especially when the volume of inquiries into such property is too much to handle at a time. Autoresponders takes away the stress of replying to every inquiry sent while filtering unserious queries at the same time so that you can focus on leads only. Here’s how you do it:

• Create an SMS autoresponder on your SMS provider platform
• Pick a keyword for the property, for example, ‘Property A’ (ensure your keyword is short and catchy)
• Get people to text your keyword, ‘Property A’ to a particular phone number or shortcode (you can set up your shortcode using SMSexperience). Let people know that this is an inquiry code so that they know what feedback to expect when they text the code.

People would automatically get a message containing details about the property once they text the code to the set-up number. In the inquiry content, you can include items like the number of bedrooms/bathrooms, major amenities, and price. Insert a link to your website or a video of the property if you have one. Always include a call-back phone number in case a prospect gets really interested in the property.

2. Generate more leads through SMS campaign

SMS marketing is a powerful lead generation tool for real estate. This is down to the higher open rate. Simply create a keyword and text code or phone number, then get people to opt-into your SMS campaign. Post the keyword on your website, property signs, business cards, email signature, and social media to let people know about the campaign.

Once people joined you, text them about updates about new listings, open houses, price changes, community events, and anything else people are interested in! This is an amazing way to keep them in the loop with your updates and grow your sphere of influence. Always keep the opt-out code handly.

While SMS marketing is a great strategy for generating leads and sale, 83% of users prefer receiving SMS updates up to twice a month, so be careful not to overdo it. We recommend up to a maximum of four SMS per month or two per week depending on your recipients.

3. Promote your business through SMS business cards

SMS business card is a smart way to allow people who are interested in your property listings to get in touch with you. This is different from an inquiry SMS medium.

All you need to do is to create a keyword, for example, text AgentMark to so and so number. Once someone texts you this keyword, they’ll receive an SMS back with your contact details like name, phone number, email, website, and any other information you wish to share. You can promote your virtual business card on social media, and any review sites like Zillow or Yelp to prove your expertise.

This way, you not only get your contact details sent out to many clients, you equally gain subscribers to your SMS campaign passively!

4. Send appointment reminders

In real estate business, time equals money, literally. When you have scheduled an appointment with a business client who is not really active online or free enough to pick your calls, a simple text mesage reminder might just be enough to get the business underway.

Also, you can use SMS to remind clients of important appointments like showings, open houses, meetings, etc. You would be amazed at the volume of business simple reminders can save. To make life easier for yourself, enter all important dates into your SMS campaign, and you would enjoy easy and organized communication with clients.

5. Send reminders to tenants to pay rents

If you are a landlord or manage rental properties for clients, this one is for you. Gone are the days when realtors have to visit tenants to collect rents and tenants would not have to claim they did not receive your call. With simple SMS reminder, you can send your message clear to tenants. Be sure to include your rental bank account or other payment options in subsequent reminders to make payment easier for them.

6. Send in-touch SMS to keep in touch with past clients

Cross-selling is effective and generally productive when a business finds creative ways to keep in touch with past clients or buyers. SMS marketing is one of those creative ways. You can send felicitation texts, thank you texts after a purchase, seasonal greetings, and of course, birthday texts. These little activities, coupled with good service delivery are the currency used in buying client’s loyalty and trust. You would always find a market in your past clients when you introduce a new service like home maintenance, tools or machinery servicing, etc or when you sell them home-appliances and installations.

Another benefit of sending in-touch SMSes is to gain referrals from happy clients. Words of mouth remain one of the most effective methods of growing a business.

What’s next?

Real estate SMS campaigns carry some great lead generation opportunities that agents can capitalize on. It’s a great tool for growing your business, connecting with people, and keeping the dates on business appointments. There should be no reason why a real estate agent shouldn’t be taking advantage of this mobile marketing tool.

To get started, sign up with a reliable bulk SMS provider. You want a provider who delivers texts to all networks in your country as well as to international phone numbers. Your provider should have flexible features such as a messaging schedule feature to allow your creativity to run, and message analytics tools such as delivery analytics.

SMSexperience offers all these features and more, leading the pack as one of the platforms to kick-start real estate SMS marketing. SMSexperience assists you with technical issues and superb customer support attending to your every request. Speak with an SMS expert to know more or quickly signup with SMSexperience.