New Approach to Real Estate Lead Management

The Internet helped many real estate agents change the way they market their services. Now the same agents are changing the way they approach other aspects of the business - in particular, the process of capturing, filtering, and contacting leads. Web marketing assists in drawing leads more, however, it's becoming clearer that agents might not be the right people anymore to deal with. As the job moves somewhere else, the responsibility of agents is being redefined.

Several real estate agents possibly saw the change coming thanks to the difference between web leads and non-web leads. It can totally be traced down to difference in assurance: non-web leads are regularly firm recommendations from other professionals who know the client already, while web leads can represent anyone with ten seconds to fill out an online form.

Many Realtors with an online home search require people to fill out a contact form in order to view full details on a particular listing, and this tactic has had positive and negative results - mostly negative. People will readily supply their email address in order to view listing pictures, but that doesn't mean they want to buy a home - in many cases, they're simply spam-bots posting fake email addresses. These leads are less than ideal, but Realtors can't afford to disregard them entirely - that's why their role is being re-defined.

 

If Realtors are to keep their new web marketing model, they must also find a new lead management process. As it turns out, they might not have to look far; brokers might be in the best position to deal with agents' web leads. With their wider range of professional contacts, and in general superior office technology, brokers can filter more emails and follow up on more leads that look promising. The change is likewise natural because most brokers role is mainly to offer support to Realtors where needed and don't have a high web presence themselves.

An agent-broker partnership would bring real estate in line with other businesses where leads and sales are handled by different bodies. In the mortgage industry, for instance, over 70 percent of leads are filtered and delivered by real estate agents. The model projected here works considerably different since here Realtors deliver the leads while brokers filter them.

A smoother lead managing company process would also allow Realtors to concentrate on sales and customer service, the two greatest basic sides of their profession.