Success, landlords and winning secondary instructions

SUCCESS, LANDLORDS AND WINNING SECONDARY INSTRUCTIONS

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working with a number of agents who are looking to make the most of their local knowledge and success metrics to generate more business. They specifically wanted to look at how they could combine their regional market insights and our on-market data to generate valuations, attract more landlords and win more instructions.

As ever, below are my top three examples and key takeaways from recent campaigns that I’ve seen sent from agents this week.

Firstly, for me, it’s important to get a clear understanding of what agents want to achieve from their send plan each month. They usually fall into four distinct areas, with these overarching objectives usually forming the basis for their strategy and expected Return on Investment:

ON-MARKET PROSPECTING

Do they want to use on-market data to view all agent activity and property movement in their area and canvass for secondary instruction opportunities?

Once the agents we work with have a got a clear strategy formulated, we can then begin to look at how their campaigning might look. As promised, here are my top three from this week.

IN THE SHOES OF THE CUSTOMER…

It’s no secret that the more relevant, engaging and educational your messages are, the more likely you are to elicit the desired response.

Property marketing is unlike any other marketing. I work with agents that have got over 60% of their local population in their database but have no idea of what to send to this captive audience. Now, i’ll admit, it’s a balancing act. Unless you are actively looking to buy, sell, rent or let (or get some financial assistance), there has to be a pretty good reason to hit someone’s inbox each week and keep them engaged.

Segmenting your database down to postcode area gives you the advantage of being able to show specific property information that’s relevant to a small group of individuals. Once you’ve got segmentation taken care of, sending non-obtrusive regional market reports and fun property insights become a great way to nurture people for future moves.

For me, this example pushes all the benefits of moving in the CO10 area; it’s got price increases over a five year period and average savings on stamp duty. I would have like to have seen what the average time on market is too. Campaigns like this showcase to potential vendors that now is a great time to think about selling their property. It’s also great information for non-movers at the moment; great conversation starters – keeping this agent front of mind for when the time comes for a client in their database to start the process of moving again.

LANDLORDS, INVESTMENTS, AND HOBBIES

Whether you’re an accidental landlord or serial investor, property for landlords is – in most cases – a hobby. What better way to attract landlords to your business than by being the local property hub for rental information and investment opportunities. Many letting agents are already doing this really well, but some aren’t, which is a shame.

The data is out there and it’s never been easier to engage with landlords about investment opportunities, yield rates and updates in legislation. I loved this example from an agent operating in the NG1 area – it looks awesome on mobile too!

HEDGING YOUR BETS OR GOING ALL IN

Last year, reports suggested that around 60% of properties ended up being sold by a second agent. With all the activity on-market at the moment (Let’s not forget that our Index showed that new properties coming to market hit record highs last week), there are going to be some very restless sellers out there in the very near future that will need the help of a second agent.

Canvassing is not for every agent. For those that are interested, you’ve got two routes with how you approach it:

1. Do nothing.
2. Communicate with every potential instruction on the market in your area right now.

Agents doing this take different routes. One may favour a soft nurturing approach and contact the seller at key points, e.g. just on the market, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, twelve weeks, price reduced, fallen through, moved agent, SSTC and withdrawn, all offering non-instrusive and helpful information.

However, I loved this example sent at fourteen-weeks. Simple message: “Here is the mean selling time in our region, we sell 40 days quicker”. For any struggling or frustrated seller, it’s bound to get their attention.