While Robot Marketing is a relatively new concept in real estate, the idea behind scheduling marketing tasks has been tried and tested for years.
Robot marketing enables you to preschedule activities and campaigns ahead of time using the contacts stored in your database. Complete Data, as the first real estate software system to use robot marketing, and Real Estate Academy (REA) trialled the technology successfully over the last half of 2011.
As robot marketing uses contacts and information stored in your existing backend database, the server driving the system becomes the robot that sends the data out on your behalf. Think of it as a powerful reminder and marketing calendar that you can set and leave to do the work for you, ensuring your regular messages are sent out to keep you at the forefront of your customers’ and prospects’ minds.
REA CEO Lee Woodward said one of the simplest ways to demonstrate how robot marketing could be used in real estate was to load in your established clients from all the sales you have ever made.
“The robot will then look at the date it was sold and a year or two from settlement, automatically generate an email with a predetermined message. ‘It’s two years ago from today that you purchased your property. I hope everything’s well. Please call me if you need anything,’ Mr Woodward said.
A further SMS or email with slightly different wording can be pre-scheduled to send on your behalf in another year, encouraging the owners to call if they need anything. Once these automated anniversary emails or SMS’s are sent, all client replies become an inbound inquiry or request, which can be handled on the fly. “If I was sitting there and making sure I did it, I may miss my deadlines,” he said, and added this system meant nothing would be missed.
Another situation where robot marketing can be effective is sending a message to everyone who had inspected a property once contracts were exchanged. The robot can look up the names of people who visited during an open for inspection or by private appointment and then generate an SMS saying something along the lines of: “Dear Peter. Thank you for visiting 15 High Street. I just thought I’d let you know that this property has now been sold. If you’d like any further information, please feel free to give me a call back. Regards, Lee.”
This sort of bulk courtesy SMS may already be part of your marketing, however it could be missed one week because you had 10 sales or were on holiday. If it is pre-scheduled through robot marketing, it will never be missed. Think about the opportunity presented when sending a message telling a potential buyer the property they looked at has already been sold.
“When they start to see all of these messages about your sold properties, you can quickly change what someone thinks about you and your agency, and they will see you as effective and as a person who gets the job done,” Mr Woodward added.
One of the best reasons for creating a robot marketing campaign is your Sold to Settlement activities. This could include a congratulations email, an SMS asking them if they need anything or if they want to call you, where-to-from-here email, an information email giving the buyer phone numbers for disconnections of electricity and gas, and two weeks prior to settlement an email explaining how the settlement process will go.
Activities like those listed above in a Sold to Settlement campaign are very predictable and date related, so they are very easy to pre-schedule. If you consider how much contact you had with the buyer when negotiating the sale, this could easily drop off once you started concentrating on the next sale, and the buyer could be left feeling neglected.
“Suddenly we’ve got that lack of contact. This can be a time when your best referrals actually come in. Having the robot doing that for you, being costless and staff-less would be effective,” Mr Woodward said.
This technology is a marketing tool and must be used appropriately. While the robot can send data to anyone and relay any message you write, you should only ever send data to those who are known to you. This list includes previous purchasers, established vendors or past clients.
“Blasting it out to just anyone is inappropriate. Robot marketing was designed to be staff-less; it aims to take away the daily activities that are coming in that could be automated. Robot marketing is not complex. It’s quite simple, and it has the discipline for us to stay on track,” he explained.
Robot marketing can also be used internally to trigger tasks and reminders for staff within an agency. A chain of tasks for one project can be scheduled with messages sent to everyone involved to ensure everything runs to deadline. Think about the hundreds of administrative tasks you could schedule and take off your mind if using robot marketing.
Complete Data users now have robot marketing capabilities.
To find out more about how it could work for you, or to book your installation, contact Cristian Orrego on 1300 367 412