As a real estate broker/owner, you have a lot on your plate… from recruiting and retaining agents, to fielding countless vendor calls a day, to attending board and MLS meetings and more. It’s overwhelming. On top of all of that, technology advancements are creating new threats you may not even know exist.
1. Innovation is Outpacing Compliance Regulations
Your documents, data, and even private agent/client conversations live online now in a way they didn’t five years ago. With this new reality comes a variety of new compliance issues to keep on your radar.
Ada Compliant Website
Make your website easier to use for visually or hearing impaired visitors by implementing small tweaks, like adding alternative text for listing photos and transcripts for audiovisual content.
Do Not Call List
To avoid potential legal issues, ask your agents to scrub their prospect list monthly, removing people who are on the Do Not Call List .
Smart Home Surveillance
Educate your agents and consumers on what types of conversations should and shouldn’t be happening at homes to avoid situations where sellers may be using nanny and door bell cameras to easdrop on potential buyer conversations.
2. Integration Between Real Estate Apps Makes Agents Happy
The more you can integrate your brokerage’s technology with other apps your agents use, the easier it will be to recruit and retain agents.
Sticky Tool Retention
As a Broker/Owner, the more you can integrate your tools with your agents’ tools, the more the integrations become a sticky tool for retention.
Competitive Advantage
According to a recent dotloop customer survey, 79 percent of respondents said integrations were important, yet only 18 percent use them — meaning there’s a low-hanging fruit opportunity for you to tout integrations as a competitive advantage to agents.
Evaluating Integration Vendors
When evaluating integrations, some questions to ask vendors include: Is it a one way or two way? How frequently does it update? What security do you have to protect the data?
3. Good Online Reputations Earn Client and Agent Trust
Your brand used to live only where you put it: In a newspaper ad, on a billboard or bus bench, etc. Now it lives everywhere. Anybody who interacts with your brand can now leave a review online whether you know it or not.
Google Reviews
Ask your happy agents and clients for Google reviews. More positive reviews should net you more leads because your brand will appear higher in search results, and people trust reviews from strangers.
Realistic Reviews are Powerful
People trust 4.5 and 4 star reviews more than 5 star reviews, because they seem more believable. So don’t stress yourself out trying to get all perfect reviews.
Review Strategies
As you implement a reviews strategy, aim for: accuracy, consistency, a complete Google My Business Profile, persistence, and quickly respond to negative reviews.
4. Generate Leads from Your Website and Facebook Ads
Your website and Facebook Ads can form a powerful duo to drive awareness and leads — if you implement a smart strategy for both.
Drive Traffic to Your Website
When it comes to your website, if you have an advertising budget, and there are no advertising portals in your area with availability, you could put that money towards Search Engine Optimization, and drive traffic to your own website. But make sure your website is up to date and usable — otherwise visitors will leave and never return.
Capture Leads on Facebook
Far too often, brokers and agents just use Facebook Ads to get their names and logos in front of as many people as possible, but there’s no strong call to action. You should also use Facebook’s lead specific campaigns / objectives to let prospects submit leads without leaving the platform.
5. Use ROI as an Agent and Client Retention Tool
Offering tools that show your agents and clients the Return on Investment metrics that matter most to them, can lead to higher retention rates and repeat business.
Show Agents How They’re Doing
Give your agents access to tools that show them how they’re doing at any point throughout the month. They’ll appreciate seeing where they are and where they need to go to reach their financial goals. To take it a step further, consider implementing technology that makes it easy to launch selling contests between agents, thus “gamifying” challenges and creating friendly competition that drives up sales.
Increase Repeat Business
Help show buyers what the ROI is on the homes they purchased, and you’ll remain top of mind post sale, increasing the odds they’ll do business with you again in the future.
originally published on Dotloop.com.
