4 Ways to Warm Up a Cold Lead

In real estate, leads often comes in very warm or very cold.

Recommendations from friends and family whose homes you've sold are about as it good as it gets. Meanwhile, a form submission requesting a copy of your newsletter is likely to be a lot colder.  Regardless of how you get in touch with a prospective client, there are some things you can do to warm up those cold leads. 

Give Value

One of the first rules of marketing is to give, before expecting to receive. 

You can't ask for someone's business until you've built up some degree of rapport, but fortunately, even a cold lead is a good place to start.

Focus initially on just giving as much value as you can. Offer up market data and sales information that would be most relevant. Look to solve their problems and answer their questions.

The more value you give and expertise you can offer, the more you are building a relationship, even if you have never met or spoken face to face.

Stay in Touch

Research shows that it makes more than 10 touch points to ultimately make a sale in many instances. As a general rule, the more touch points, the better.

The one mistake that many people in sales make is that these touch points need to happen slowly. If you've been touching base with a lead once per month and you need 12 touch points to win a listings, then that will take you 12 months.

However, why not expedite the process and try a weekly touch point? You might just find that the sales cycle will dramatically decrease in length. Additionally, your touch points don't need to be perfectly segmented. You might connect monthly for the first 3 touch points, then shift to weekly, and then back to monthly - the process is customisable to suit yourself as well as your potential client.

Maintaining communications and touch points after a deal is also critical when it comes to servicing your clients post-purchase. This will increase your opportunities to warm up and older lead, or even get a referral.

Change the Way You Reach Them

People respond differently to various forms of marketing. Not everyone checks their emails, and not everyone wants to talk on the phone.

Just because someone isn't opening their emails, doesn't mean that they are not interested in the offer, it might just be that this method of communication does not work well for them.

Always try different approaches for various segments of your database. If email is not working, then look to send an SMS. Believe it or not, some people will welcome a cold call if your goal is simply to give them value and ask for nothing in return. 

Spot the Sales-Ready Leads in Your Database

With the power of a modern and intuitive CRM, it's quick and easy to see what type of lead you are dealing with and just how sales-ready someone might be.

For example, if a prospect has opened your email a number of times, then it's very likely they might be further advanced in the process than others. Why not give these people a call and see if you can help them? Those who are not engaged will need a different approach.

Knowing where someone is at is critical and can really improve both your efficiency and results.