In the previous blogs under this series, I have shared several methods to generate real estate leads online even if you opt out of the IDX listing. Generating good real estate leads is one aspect of the job. And handling the leads is another and equally important. The last thing you want is to waste the leads that you generated using the best real estate lead generation methods. You may start losing them if you don’t handle them professionally. You need Tools and Talent, Men and Machine to work on your real estate leads. First in the segment is lead segmentation.

Lead Segmentation

Lead segmentation is a process of subdividing the generated leads into groups with similar traits, demographics, interests, lifestyle, and needs. To identify ideal segmentation parameters, start by collecting data. The data may come from an online form submission, website traffic, past customer profiles, and customer surveys. Then look for the similar patterns, which later on become segmentation parameters. The entries under such segmented data will look like

  1. The real estate leads who have viewed a particular listing page twice or thrice a day. They might be interested in the property. Now, you know it. It’s your time to make the move.
  2. The real estate leads who have booked a property on your event to get a discount are ready to buy it anytime soon. It’s a hot real estate lead.
  3. The real estate leads that have filled a form to get latest tips to sell a home in Vancouver might be planning to put their home on a listing. Approach them and ask them if you can help them anyway in the selling process.
  4. The real estate leads who have called you for a free consultation after viewing your advertisement
  5. The real estate leads who live in Canada and invest in real estate as a passive income

All these and much more like these go into your segmented contact list. Segmentation is another word for generalization. You know it is not easy to generalize people based on the decision they make. You can create the contact lists under the following categories.

Potential Home Buyers

You have to make an email contact list of the real estate leads who have enquired about the properties. They come under ‘Potential Home Buyers’. Further, you can subdivide them based on their place in the cycle as ‘First Stage Buyer’, ‘Second Stage Buyer’, and so on.

  1. A first stage buyer would be someone who is currently enquiring about the properties. He is looking for the available options he has as per his budget.
  2. A second stage buyer would be someone who is done with the enquiring and has shortlisted the properties. He has shortlisted a few properties as per his budget and now considering the other options that will separate the best property for him out of the rest.
  3. A third stage buyer would be someone who is ready to buy. He is just negotiating to get the best price. He is mentally and financially prepared to buy
  4. A third stage potential home buyer would also be someone who has the money and looking for a property for investment purpose. Any property that can get him good ROI is a good option for him.

By subdividing the real estate leads into these stages, you can precisely prepare a customized message for them and increase the chances of them getting converted in your favour.

Potential Home Sellers

Regular real estate investors for whom it is a passive income, people who have responded to your home selling tips ads and posts and those who contacted you to get a price quote of their property are all potential home sellers. Hence they come under ‘Potential Home Seller’s list’.

Geographical

Here, you make a list of people from a similar region. You can even create a subdivision of rural, urban, local, foreigner.

Demographical

Leads that have similar gender, occupation (government or private), pay-scale, education, relationship status are listed. Basically, people with similar demographics come under this list. And, similarly, you can create a list of their buying behaviours, interests, and their loyalty towards their favourite company and so on.

Segmentation of your contact list should be in a way that it directly relates to your business goals, sales goals and marketing goals. Whether you are selling products or offering services, contact list in each segment must define the goal.

There can be a segmented list of contacts for

  1. The uninitiated ones who don’t know about your business at all. Focus here is to spread awareness about your business, product, and services for the people in this list.
  2. The people who can become your potential clients, but often go to your competitors. Give these people a reason why they should contact you for better products and services.
  3. The people who often visit a particular listing page twice or thrice might be inclined towards that property more if you pitch an enticing offer to them.

Still haven’t made up your mind about lead segmentation? This will break the ice. Here are the stats from MailChimp comparing email campaigns results of the segmented campaigns and non-segmented email campaigns.

The first table shows global results from all segmented campaigns when compared to non-segmented campaigns. The Table speaks for itself.

source

The second table is the comparison result of the campaigns run under the list segmented on the basis of interest and the general non-segmented campaigns

In the beginning, I mentioned that you need tools and talent, men and machine to accomplish this task. Here’s how the tasks are divided.

Your marketing Automation Software such as InfusionSoft takes care of telling you that from which platform or campaign a particular lead is generated. You can even add UTM source to your links to track the leads. The software can give you the analytical data once the campaign is finished.

Tracking, reporting, and time-consuming tasks for humans must be automated in the software. Tasks such as customizing email messages, customizing campaigns for optimal results, manual segmentation of contact lists are for the man on the job.

If you are not that tech-savvy and don’t do email marketing, then I assume you go the traditional way of cold-calling of the prospects picked for the data.

Customization

**If you are not customizing your messages, there’s no point segmenting your contact list. **

  1. By not customizing your message, you might be sending a sales pitch message to the client who is just researching in the market. You will be a pushy guy for him without any value.
  2. By not customizing your message, you might send an information message to a client who is ready to buy and just needs a quotation. You would lose a great opportunity there too.

A decade ago, people used to use one script for all their prospects, and that worked well at that time, but not anymore. Sales and marketing methods have changed because customer behaviour has changed. Their buying habits have changed and any sales or marketing process that doesn’t comply with the new buyer methods isn’t recommended at all.

Just as customized message in the email campaigns, you need customized script for each contact in a particular contact list that you segmented. By knowing your prospect’s position in the sales cycle, you pitch the right message at the right time which ultimately increases your chances of closing that lead.

In a nutshell

  1. Lead segmentation is a way to divide your contacts in the database into groups based on similarities that reflect your business goals, marketing goals, and sales goals.
  2. The segmented lists give you the information about the contacts using which you can send them customized messages. This increases the chances of conversion. Segmentation also tells that the lead generated is sales qualified lead or marketing qualified lead or disqualified lead. It helps in deciding which department has to work on it.
  3. Use CRM and marketing automation tools to automate the tasks, but the message customization needs a human touch.

So, this was all about lead segmentation, why to use it, and how to make full of it. I will be covering the further steps to make your lead management stronger. Subscribe and stay tuned.

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