How to Automate Marketing for Your Real Estate Business

The real estate market ranks as one of the most effort-consuming industries worldwide. Real estate agents must fulfill numerous processes to excel in this saturated market. These realty-themed tasks range from documentation and lead generation to client follow-ups and property management.

You can reduce the brunt of these activities by hiring a personal assistant or team of real estate professionals. But as your real estate business grows, you'll realize that the "do-it-all manually" path becomes unsustainable. 

To streamline your operations, marketing automation real estate software comes to the rescue! According to a recent survey, 61% of real estate firms have incorporated one or more technological add-ons in their operations. So, it's clear the real estate industry is embracing the "automation" agenda with open arms. 

This article examines real estate marketing automation, top-notch tools vital to its success, and significant benefits to note.

Ready? Let's dive in!

Real Estate Marketing Automation Defined

Real estate marketing automation entails scheduling and monitoring your marketing efforts using automated procedures that aid lead contact. 

Marketing automation software saves you the hassle of manually executing your real estate business's marketing efforts by curating, organizing, and sending marketing campaigns (i.e., emails and text messages) to their intended audience. That way, real estate agents can still reach leads while closing realty deals or conducting open houses. 

Real estate automation removes manual work, saving crucial time in the process. Note that adopting real estate automation techniques doesn't translate into firing your employees. Instead, it's all about making their jobs convenient and efficient in every ramification possible. 

With real estate automation, you can go slow or all out — it's your choice! However, your goal when using related systems for the first time should revolve around simplifying existing processes. So, if you're working with an email or CRM tool, automate integrated features to streamline your operations.

4 Critical Real Estate Marketing Automation Tools

Real estate marketing automation tools aid trust between buyers and sellers. It also comes in handy for real estate businesses looking to uncover properties and acquire new leads.

Realty investors and agents can utilize these four real estate automation tools to ensure efficient marketing efforts. 

Notable marketing automation real estate tools include:

1. Real Estate CRM

Big and small RE businesses use real estate CRM (Customer Relationship Management). This tool manages relationships between clients and realty companies. A study reported that 60% of real estate agents with a $100,000 annual income adopt CRM software. Also, reports confirm that each dollar spent on a CRM solution yields an $8.71 return. 

CRM automates different marketing processes, including:

Marketing Channels

Marketing channels refer to social media platforms a real estate business uses to communicate with prospective clients. Before choosing a marketing channel, your realty business must ascertain its target audience alongside their specific demands. 

By combining real estate CRM with your website forms and landing pages, you can decipher your target audience's select preferences. 

This integration also works as a single unit that executes these tasks:

• Saves clients' information in a unique database
• Segment data received into different categories: location and spending timeline, social media activities on popular channels (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), and decision-making timeframe upon requests.

Follow Up Boss, Steak CRM, Agile CRM, and HubSpot are notable examples of real estate automation software with these attributes.

Email Marketing

Businesses still use emails for their marketing efforts. With email marketing, you can seamlessly advertise listings and value-added services offered by your real estate business to clients on your email list. 

According to a NAR report, 93% of real estate agents use emails to communicate with clients. This preference isn't far-fetched, as a Litmus study projects a $36 return for every $1 spent on the right email marketing campaign.

Automated email real estate marketing systems can:

• Create scheduled marketing emails
• Refine mailing subscription lists to cater adequately to distinct lead sections and preferences 
• Curate and send personalized emails to leads

Numerous lead-generation marketing tools on the market take things further by sending personalized voicemails, texts, and email campaigns directly to your realty business's leads. 

The best real estate marketing automation tools for these features include IXACT Contact and SeoSamba.

Lead Warm-Ups

If you own a real estate firm, your primary goal might be getting leads. Albeit applaudable, there's an obstacle most RE firms face — converting leads into actual clients. 

However, this endeavor is achievable by automating your entity's marketing with a CRM. 

For context, a CRM system can execute lead warm-ups via automated welcome letters, listings, and file sharing. Consider tools like Homesnap and Happy Grasshopper to transform new leads into paying patrons.

Customer Response

A HubSpot research states that 82% of customers seek immediate responses (within 10 minutes) once they direct queries to their preferred brands. 

By automating your company's marketing efforts, you can respond to leads before their interests veer to a competing entity. With marketing automation, consumers will get quick replies once they click on an ad banner. 

Utilizing CRM software that creates and sends pre-scheduled customer messages results in quicker sales. 

Lead Management and Segmentation

Keeping tabs on data from numerous prospects is daunting if done manually. As such, automation is advised to segment and sort potential clients according to unique criteria. 

This endeavor has become relevant in the real estate industry; 71% of agencies in this vertical used a lead management system for their processes.

You can manage and distribute leads using a lead management and segmentation marketing tool. It also analyses and issues reports on your marketing activities in real time. CRM tools aiding these processes include LeadsBridge and Clarity Soft. 

Lead Engagement

As we've established, finding leads is never enough, and you'll need to engage them until they can facilitate a real estate deal. Lead engagement is a critical link between a real estate firm's marketing endeavors and actual sales. 

A 2020 PWC study shows that the number of companies using lead engagement marketing automation software rose from 20% to over 80%. In 2023, one of the top ways to keep prospects engaged enough to make real estate transactions is through AI chatbots. 

Using chatbots, real estate agents can save time engaging clients and concentrate on other activities. You can find chatbots on your CRM software and embed them on your real estate website or landing page.

Funnel Tracking

You can get a birds-eye view of your sales funnel using a funnel tracking tool. Identifying appointments, lead transformations, email campaigns, and conversations is possible with one.

Due to the versatility of modern CRM software, you can evaluate prospects without wasting time. As such, they're a great addition and will aid your realty business's sales team in monitoring funnel transactions and making deals. 

Follow-Ups on Past Clients

Most businesses lose out on repeat patronage due to their inability to properly follow up on previous customers. You can keep tabs on these clients by embracing marketing automation for your real estate company. That way, the chances of them leaving stellar reviews and requesting a new listing increase. 

A real estate CRM has in-built attributes that can draft and send scheduled letters to past clients based on select filters.

Reporting

Reporting is a vital part of real estate transactions. Some years ago, real estate agency owners utilized Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets to get robust reports on their business models. 

However, these routes were difficult to use, leading to inaccurate reports and vast operational gaps. 

With automated real estate CRM marketing systems leading the charge, you can access these intricate areas:

• Performance and productivity of individual agents
• Demand and future income
• Customer feedback 
• Sales report
• And lots more

By getting a 360° view of your business, you can make time-sensitive decisions without facing repercussions in the long run. 

Furthermore, an analytical tool helps real estate agents and firms analyze real-time reviews from customers via social media alternatives like Facebook and Instagram. Thus, you can modify operations to suit your target audience. 

Access to reports also helps to streamline activities within your real estate team. By getting a hold of each team member's productivity and performance metrics, you can decipher who needs coaching for better results and those requiring certain upgrades to execute tasks seamlessly.

2. Ad Management Software

We management involves monitoring multiple marketing activities and individuals responsible for each to ensure all campaigns are effective and reach their target audience. 

Depending on your business's model, advertising management might focus on values critical to campaign success (i.e., ROIs and conversions).

Ad management requires monitoring different variables. Therefore, it'll be best to utilize ad management software to automate advertising aspects, such as structuring, partnership, execution, dissemination, tracking, and analysis. 

When selecting an ad management software for your real estate business, ensure it features these add-ons:

• Targeting Lists: This functionality automatically uncovers leads and audiences to be targeted. 
• Leads and ROI Analysis: Your choice ad management tool should be able to track leads and returns garnered from different social media channels showcasing your business's adverts.
• Leads Behavior Monitoring: This feature analyzes contacts' actions after interacting with adverts. 

Using modern ad management software is straightforward. Related tools can sync seamlessly with your CRM, granting you an in-depth overview of your entity's lead generation, marketing, and advertising efforts. 

Examples of top-notch ad management tools include HubSpot (Ads Software), AdRoll, RollWorks, 6Sense, and StackAdapt. Using these applications, realty businesses can:

• Improve efficiency and productivity
• Simplify collaborations
• Execute cross-channel campaigns
• Optimize campaign plans
• Create customized and comprehensive reports using top-tier analytical and reporting tools
• Visualize ad data in a understandable manner
• Increase the chances of successful ads among prospects

3. Customer Experience Software

According to a report, 73% of customers stated that customer experience (CX) significantly impacted their purchase decisions. With a firm's success reliant on the customer experience it projects, most realty firms are investing in an automated customer experience system to analyze their marketing activities. 

This software provides answers for queries such as:

• Why are specific leads dissatisfied?
• What stops leads from encountering a positive customer experience?
• How can we aid leads and promote sales?

Customer experience marketing software aims to increase a realty business's conversion rates. Key attributes of this system include event statistics, event tracking, and retention tables. 

Lead Satisfaction and Experience Marketing

A rock-solid lead satisfaction and experience marketing system fosters seamless collaboration within marketing teams.  

A real estate agent or company can utilize this system to create private notes, assign lead tasks to specific marketing team members, and develop unique canned responses. This program integrates an SSL protocol to encrypt data, ensuring security during the bulk of these processes. 

Customer experience marketing tools wield lead management functionalities and can improve onboarding on an easy-to-use layout. Some notable examples include SmartLook, Custody, TeamSupport, and SurveyLegend.

4. Lead Nurturing Software

Lead nurturing means building a solid relationship with your leads during their customer journey. This process moves leads down your business's sales funnel.

Manually practicing lead nurturing, albeit possible, could result in missing out on ROI-generating activities. To save time, lead nurturing software creeps into the picture. Since related tools work alongside CRMs and other marketing software, realtors and realty companies can turn leads into customers via drip email marketing campaigns and automated marketing workflows. 

Beyond Marketing: How Automation Can Aid Real Estate Business Processes

Real estate business automation means transferring tasks performed by experts to automated systems. With automation at the fore, your real estate business can go "paperless." As such, you don't have to worry about manually creating and issuing invoices, handling property management, and executing sales. 

Here are some processes your real estate business can automate to ensure efficient and streamlined operations: 

• Contract Management

An automated contract management system saves you the hassle of experiencing numerous "back and forths" between agents and customers. 

Besides effortlessly formulating contracts and closing deals, excellent contract management software lets you store related documents in a centralized data storage system that's accessible 24/7.

Using these tools, the chances of losing an essential real estate system agreement are almost nonexistent. Dotloop, Skyslope, and iBroker are examples of contract management tools that'll aid your real estate firm's contract management activities. 

• Accounting and Finance

The Stone Age was centuries ago. In today's world, you don't need to saddle yourself with countless financial paperwork or head to the mailing office to post payments. Manually organizing your entity's finances is draining and can result in ignoring more pertinent tasks. 

Automating your real estate company's accounting and financial processes grants you access to a centralized system that reviews, manages, and streamlines every payment-related endeavor. Financial automation allows you to monitor purchase orders and pay vendors without hassles. 

As your real estate business expands, invoices errors are bound to occur. Automated real estate systems relegate this scenario to the background, ensuring everyone receives appropriate invoices when due. Top accounting and finance tools usable by realty firms include Xero, BrokerSumo, Buildium, and Beaver.

• Field Inspections and Appraisals

Realtors are saddled with executing field inspections to ensure their listings are in excellent shape. Conversely, appraisals are required so that real estate agents can determine the best price for properties. If customers encounter subpar quality checks, they'd most likely back out of the deal. 

Nonetheless, you can simplify the process for your firm and client by automating several procedures, from generating reports and formulating checklists and templates to scheduling appraisals and inspection requests. Your automated process should also ensure that intending patrons can virtually consult your business.

• Property Management

The average real estate company has several properties in its portfolio. Although this is a good thing, checking their progress, assessing maintenance schedules, communicating with interested clients, and engaging other project managers can prove overwhelming in the long run. 

Investing in collaborative real estate automation software targeting new and renovated structures for all stakeholders is recommended to avoid the stress embedded in these tasks. A centralized, automated system ensures seamless property management by combining documentation and communication processes in a timesaving and cost-effective manner.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in property management is becoming the norm. Using AI chatbots, residents can settle rent, extend their leases, and report property defects 24/7. These chatbots transmit this information to their relevant quarters, ensuring quick resolutions. 

• Internal Team Workflows

The average real estate agent spends the day signing, filling, and submitting realty documents. Realtors are also responsible for conducting open houses, formulating contracts, and managing communications.

Although these repetitive tasks can be challenging for humans, they're perfect for automation. Rather than spending hours on end executing these stale endeavors, assigning them to an automated system ensures you focus your efforts on profitable activities. 

Real estate workflow automation software comes in handy to auto-schedule open house events based on a property's availability, forward follow-up emails to clients, and build budgets. Utilizing related tools, realtors will be able to handle pressure with aplomb.

Significant Benefits of Automating Real Estate Marketing Processes

The automation era is here. According to a Trafft report, 51% of companies utilize marketing automation to achieve efficiency. Quickly, let's examine the benefits attached to real estate marketing automation.

Notable advantages include:

• Speed

With real estate marketing automation, realtors and realty businesses can receive feedback critical in reducing the time required to generate leads and nurturing them to facilitate real estate transactions.

• Accuracy

Handling loads of data manually often results in natural errors that can prove detrimental to your real estate business. 

Marketing automation relegates mistakes to the background during the data entry process. Additionally, an automated marketing system directs client queries to appropriate team members for quick and efficient resolutions. 

• Less Paperwork

Going through a mountain of paperwork hovering around marketing contracts, budgets, meetings, and communication schedules is challenging. Realtors and real estate firms can make paperwork practically nonexistent with automated processes. 

Proposal management systems, for example, streamline document flow, simplifying contract sharing with clients. Associated tools usually have an eSignature functionality to eliminate time-consuming activities like document printing and scanning. 

When selecting a marketing automation tool, consider a variant that automatically syncs with your clientele database and can pre-fill contract fields with relevant business information. 

• Increased Scope

Statista reports that 99% of individuals between the ages of 23 and 56 use the internet when searching for homes. With marketing automation, realtors can take advantage of this vast market, catering to more leads and relevant process requests.

This system also allows real estate agents and businesses to rekindle relations with past clients via social media cookies, creating an opportunity for increased ROI growth as time progresses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Parting Shot

The introduction of modern technology has seen the rise of automation in numerous sectors, real estate inclusive, in the last few years. By automating your realty business's sales and marketing processes, you won't deal with excessive paperwork and the nagging fear of losing deals due to glaring errors. 

Using CRM, ad management, customer experience, lead nurturing, and property management tools, you can automate time-consuming processes and boost productivity within your team.