How real estate CRMs drive lead generation

When it comes to growing your real estate business, generating consistent and high quality leads is a critical part of any agent’s long-term success. In addition to finding new leads, agents also need to maintain their relationships with existing clients who represent future opportunities when they’re ready to look for another home. 

But manually keeping track of all of your hot, warm, and cold leads can be time-consuming and prone to human error. The last thing you want is to overlook a potential opportunity because you didn’t have a client’s lease renewal date marked on your calendar or forgot to follow up with a prospective client. Luckily, with a real estate CRM (customer relationship management) solution, agents can simplify and automate the lead nurturing process while keeping all of their client contacts organized in one place. 

What is a real estate CRM?

A CRM is a system or software that helps you keep your client and prospect information organized and tracks your interactions with leads. CRM tools make it easy for organizations to monitor and manage their revenue, nurture customer and prospect relationships, and enable the flow of information across internal departments like sales, marketing, and customer support. 

Similarly, a real estate CRM system serves as a single source of truth for agents keeping track of their active and inactive leads. With CRM software, real estate agents can:

• Organize and manage contact information for existing and potential clients
• Keep track of their latest interaction with a lead 
• Respond to prospect and customer messages 
• Collect and store information on every lead 
• Manage the sales or rental pipeline all the way through to closing 
• Automate follow-ups and reminders to stay on top of client communications

With a real estate CRM, agents are better able to guide their clients throughout the home buying, selling, and even renting journey. 

How real estate CRM supports lead generation

From contact management to marketing automation, there are a number of benefits to using a real estate CRM software. For lead generation in particular, this type of tool can help agents stay top of mind with potential clients while addressing and reaching out to existing customers when it’s time to re-engage them. 

When it comes to lead generation specifically, real estate CRM software can help agents nurture and convert leads through several ways: 

Keep your contacts organized

Regardless of how big or small your business is, a CRM software ensures agents never lose track of their leads no matter what stage they’re in in the buying, selling, or renting process. CRM tools make it easy for agents to organize all of their leads, monitor the status of any deals in progress, and even gain a bird's-eye view of their sales pipeline. 

Streamline client communication

Many CRM solutions will integrate with the communication platform of your choice, simplifying and streamlining follow-ups and outreach. With an integrated CRM, agents can easily send emails and other messages to their leads and simultaneously capture any additional information about a lead in one dashboard. 

Personalize outreach for stronger relationships

One of the biggest advantages of using CRM software is it contains all contextual information about a prospect or client that an agent can use to personalize their interactions. For example, agents can store significant milestones like move-in dates or birthdays in a CRM so they know when to send a custom message to their leads. Providing these personal touches are especially important when strengthening relationships with clients, and can help prospects remember an agent when they decide the time is right to work with one. 

Targeted marketing efforts

With a CRM, agents can keep track of where their clients and prospects are in their home journey and can tailor their outreach to reflect the various stages in the sales funnel. A prospect looking for a rental, for example, is going to have specific needs and challenges that are different from a client who’s ready to buy a home. A CRM tool can help agents ensure they’re sending the appropriate materials to clients at the right stages of their journey, increasing the chance to convert that lead into a deal. 

Service after the deal

Another benefit of working with a CRM is it can help agents stay in contact with clients even after the deal is closed. For example, an agent might reach out when a client’s lease is nearing its end, to provide educational materials about changes to housing rules in their area, or even when new properties that meet their specifications hit the market. By providing ongoing service even after the deal is closed, agents can demonstrate they care about their clients and leave a lasting impression. 

What to look for in a real estate CRM software

Real estate CRM and lead generation go hand in hand, but selecting the right software starts with determining an agent’s exact needs. When evaluating different solutions, look for CRM that offer the following features: 

• A view of the entire pipeline from one centralized dashboard
• Customizable client profiles 
• API integration across productivity tools
• Sales engagement tools
• Marketing and sales automation
• Performance analytics and reporting 

No two solutions are the same, and will largely depend on an agent’s needs as well as their lead generation goals. In addition to some of the features listed above, agents should evaluate CRM tools based on their flexibility, level of customer support, as well as price point. 

Scale your business with a real estate CRM

Finding new clients, nurturing existing customer relationships, and closing more deals doesn’t have to be as manual or time-consuming as agents may think. With a robust real estate CRM software, agents can grow their business with confidence by standing out from the crowded real estate landscape and staying top of mind for prospects and clients. 

When agents have a complete understanding of every one of their leads, they stand a better chance of converting that prospect into a client. Whether that’s finding a new home for a client or helping a renter on the path to home ownership, agents need a complete real estate CRM to successfully scale their business and generate leads that last.