The top marketing goal for most agents’ is to generate more leads. 

But, once you’ve achieved your goal and started generating more leads through your marketing, what is the best way to approach those leads to open up conversations and convert them to loyal clients?

The key thing is not to rely on just one approach. Shift your approach to new leads depending on what type of lead they are.

Today we’ll focus on shifting your approach to your leads depending on lead ‘temperature’. 

Before we start, let’s define what lead temperature is.

What do we mean by lead temperature

Put simply, classifying a contact as cool, warm or hot, places them on a clear spectrum of interest in the market. More importantly, it helps you determine who you should prioritise. A cool lead is low priority, a hot lead is high priority. 

Categorising your leads in this way is a fundamental process in converting those leads into clients.

An example of a potential seller at the cool, warm and hot stages would look something like this:

Cool: I am thinking of selling in a year after my kids move out, but have no set timeline. I am currently in a researching phase, but am not yet communicating with real estate agents.

Warm: I am thinking of selling within 3 to 6 months. I have a set date and am organising improvements etc. to the home in preparation for selling. I am regularly requesting market reports and enquiring about sales results in my area.

Hot: I am ready to sell within a month. I have requested an appraisal and am speaking to multiple local agents to determine who is the best match for me.

Let’s talk first about approaching your cool leads

If your digital marketing software is set up to track activity, there are some fairly clear signs of a ‘cool’ lead.

For instance, a contact re-engaging with your email content after a significant period of not interacting at all, is a great early indicator of renewed market interest. Generally, a recently reactivated contact is someone who has just begun researching again and is interacting with your content as a low pressure way to learn about the market.

The beauty of having your digital marketing software and automation systems in place, is that you don’t necessarily have to approach a cool lead like a re-engaged contact directly, but you can still offer these leads value and build a rapport with them.

The first step would be to automatically survey these contacts to determine what exactly their interest is in the market. Are they potential buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants? Once you have this information you can build automated email campaigns to suit their interests.

Let’s say your re-engaged contact is a potential buyer.

Often, your coolest buyer leads aren’t at the stage where they’re regularly viewing new properties to hit the market. If they’re planning to buy in a year’s time, there’s no point checking up on new properties in the area.

The best thing you can do is prioritise information over listings in your marketing to these contacts. 

Anything from buying guides to market reports to local news can help you to provide potential new buyers with information that builds your ethos as a credible, trustworthy agent. This will help you in future conversations when these cool buying leads turn warm and then hot.

Through regularly surveying your leads and tracking their continued interactions with your marketing you can determine as they begin to ‘warm’ and start adding more automated property alerts to the mix.

Let’s say your re-engaged contact is a potential seller

Take a similar approach to your cool seller leads. Information is key at this stage, because these leads are just beginning to research their options in the market and not yet ready to make a move. 

In the same vein as your buyer email campaigns above, send through free and relevant selling information. Selling process guides, marketing information and local market reports. When your leads are cool, your communication with those leads should be all about benefiting them. A good rule of thumb is that 4 of 5 pieces of content you send should be ‘giving’ (giving those contacts information that is beneficial to them, with no obligations), 1 of 5 can be ‘fishing’ (requesting some level of information from a contact for a return to them).

‘Fishing’ content like continued surveys and landing pages for your contacts to request more information on certain topics, is a great way to determine when your lead temperature is warming.

Once your cool leads are hot how do you shift your approach?

The approach to hot leads is a lot clearer. Whether they’re buying or selling, renting or looking to make the property management switch, if it’s a hot lead you need to be more direct.

Our advice is to make contact as quickly as possible. If you reach out as soon as you see a new hot lead, you can ensure you’re one of (if not the) first person to get in touch. 

Once a buyer has made an enquiry on a property, call or even text them straight away with information at the ready. Make sure you have a list of key questions you can ask to determine their level of interest and to discover other potential interests in the market (remember, current buyers are often future sellers).

A fantastic thing about approaching your hot leads, is that your approach can be made much easier and more effective simply through using the information you gather when these contacts are in ‘cool’ stages. Take a look at what properties and information your contact is regularly interacting with in your previous campaigns and use this background information to guide the conversation. 

If a contact requests an appraisal we, of course, don’t need to tell you how important it is to reach out to them quickly. And we probably don’t need to tell you much about how to approach them either. The priority in this case, as you know, should be to book in time to meet in person as soon as possible.

But, you can make a fantastic impression by asking the right questions of these contacts before you meet in person to appraise their home. If you show genuine curiosity about their individual situation, or provide information based on the background information you’ve tracked about them without them having to ask, you’re again building up your credibility and rapport before even interacting with a contact in person.

The right approach during your first call with a lead can set you up perfectly for your appraisal and listing presentation.

Want to start approaching your leads straight away? Download our free call scripts today.