What Are Real Estate CRMs?
Real estate is full of wonderful technology built to help us grow our business and improve our pipelines. From Virtual Reality tours to automated email and sms marketing campaigns and even drones, there’s no limit to the different tools and tech we can leverage.
But at the core of our business, we rely on a piece of database management technology known as a CRM. But what are real estate CRMs and how do they help us day to day?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and it’s a major tool for companies to manage customer base. CRM is known as a Software as a Service (SaaS) tool in the tech world. Salesforce is one of the largest and most notable companies focused on building CRMs. These are companies that entirely focus on interacting with different types of customers. This includes marketing, registering customers, sales, support, and even follow-up. CRM companies help with every aspect, allowing the business to focus on what they should.
Modern real estate CRM software suites are always cloud-based, so can be accessed from anywhere. It also means most companies have a version for whatever mobile device you are using. They are also real-time, so any information that you see presented is current.
CRM companies break their tools into a few different categories. These are marketing automation, sales force automation, and contact center automation. Most of these tools center on sales and support for customers, but many of those apply to real estate as well.
Why should you care? CRM software is yet another tool that can help you shorten your time between new customers! Potential leads are automatically placed into buckets depending on the lead source and even score. These can be based on location, search history, and other analytic tools that help with targeted marketing.
Modern real estate CRMs can:
- Automatically import and score leads from your marketing campaigns including ZIllow
- Integrate with popular tools like Zapier and Gmail
- Keep your marketing tools in a single spot
- Keep track of notes, call records, and documents between leads and lenders
- Offer team management tools and analytics
One great tool is utilizing the GPS of a potential customers phone. This offers specific advertising based on their location. For agents looking to expand in a new market, this can be a great tool for SMS marketing and text drip campaigns.
Automated emails and marketing tools are also at your disposal with most CRMs. This allows you to schedule campaigns and get results on how many of your emails were opened, how your leads engaged with your emails, and how many clicks occurred.
When shopping for your next real estate CRM, make sure it can integrate with the tools you are currently using. For example, if you have all your contacts saved in Dropbox, you’re going to want to import them rather than re-add everything. In addition, focus on your needs and find a CRM that provides solutions, which means to keep it simple at first. Most CRMs offer a huge range of products and customization options. It’s easy to get lost in things you won’t use, so start slow.
If you haven’t heard about CRMs before, definitely check out a CRM and schedule a free demo today!