In our previous blog, we discussed what a real estate pipeline is and how a strong pipeline can help agents organize their workflow. This time, we’ll discuss how crucial it is to stay organized using technology to streamline your pipeline.

Using the right tools, you can simplify lead generation, lead management, and transaction management, allowing you to focus on what matters most: closing deals.

What Do Statistics Tell Us?

The rising trend of real estate shoppers, where 47% of buyers choose to look at online properties first, has prompted real estate agents to pivot their strategies. In 2021, 23% of realtors have allocated over $500 monthly to technology to leverage their business. At the same time, technology has given them quality leads, with 52% from social media and 31% from customer relationship management (CRM), respectively.

How to Leverage Technology

Having the right software in your hands can transform you from a good agent into a great agent or from barely getting by to making millions of dollars per year.

Let’s take a closer look at how technology can assist you in each of these stages:

1. Lead Generation

The front end of any real estate pipeline involves generating leads. An agent who wants to thrive in the real estate industry must constantly generate new leads. Traditionally, real estate agents use methods such as cold calling, attending networking events, putting up yard signs, and conventional advertising. While these methods can still work, technology has made it easier for realtors to generate leads. 

Nowadays, real estate agents can generate leads using online advertising methods like search engine ads, real estate websites, landing pages, forms and surveys, and social media platforms. These tools also allow you to target a specific demographic, easily connect with potential clients, and reach a wider audience.

You can advertise your listings or services on Google Ads, Facebook Ads (including IG ads), and real estate platforms like Zillow and Realtor.com. You can build your own website with platforms like Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, Squarespace, and more. 

Many website builders allow you to create landing pages, funnels, and surveys. Nevertheless, if your builder doesn’t offer that, there are dedicated software platforms for that, such as ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, ClickFunnels, Instapage, Hubspot, and more. 

You can mix and match various services, subscriptions, and logins to build a custom lead generation package or just choose Kaptiva Pro. We have removed all the guessing work and stress from having so many subscriptions and replaced it with state-of-the-art software that offers all those tools in one convenient place. 

Just pay one price and access a suite of software solutions for your websites, landing pages, forms and surveys, and also connect your social media accounts, all your Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and TikTok Ads inside your Kaptiva Pro account. 

Email marketing is also a cost-effective way to reach potential leads by sending mass email campaigns (often referred to as cold emails) to various lists of prospects.

2. Lead Management

Once you have generated leads, it’s essential to manage them efficiently. This process involves understanding your potential client’s preferences and needs, tracking their behavior and history, nurturing relationships, and moving them through your pipeline. You can customize your pipeline to have as many or as few steps or stages as possible. 

Some of the main stages of an effective lead management pipeline include nurturing colder leads via constant communication using email campaigns (automated would be ideal), weekly online newsletters, and engaging social media content. This is important because it keeps those prospects who might not be ready to transact with you right away, to still keep you in mind. 

For leads that are “hot” a.k.a., more motivated and likely to close a deal rather soon, your lead management pipeline should allow you to easily communicate with them via calls, texts, and emails, and easily schedule showings with ready buyers. These are essential tools because they allow you to provide a very hands-on and personalized experience to your leads. 

If you’re looking for tools that can help you with email marketing, you can look at some effective solutions like MailChimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, and several others. If you are looking to also send text messages, there are solutions like Twilio, TextMagic, Salesmsg, EZTexting, and many more. Besides emails and text messages, having a professional business phone number can help you keep your personal number private (which is very important in today’s cyber security world). Many providers offer great phone services that are budget-friendly. We’ve looked at companies like RingCentral, PhoneBurner, Salesforce, Convirza, True Phone, and Simple Dialer. We recommend that you choose an option that also provides a mobile app, so you can use it on the go. 

For brokers and team leaders, it is important to analyze and track metrics and data of your marketing efforts. Many companies offer call tracking and reporting to see who was called, when they answered, if a voicemail was left, and some even offer automated voicemail drops features. CallTracking, Salesforce, Falcon, and Zendesk are some good options for you to look into.  

As you can see, there are multiple options available to you as a real estate agent. In our industry, the word CRM (customer relationship management) is often used to describe any software or technology that offers some or all of these features. But instead of just telling you to go ahead and get a “CRM”, we wanted you to understand that you can customize your business and simplify it to what you need. 

At Kaptiva Pro, we believe that technology should help you and not get in the way. This is why we’ve simplified the tech process while offering all the features an agent would ever need. All of them are in one single place. We want to see your business succeed. Unless you want to have multiple subscriptions and payments, choosing an all-in-one platform is the right solution for you. You can try Kaptiva Pro FREE for 14 days and see if it’s the right solution for you. 

3. Transaction Management

The last stage of the pipeline involves closing deals and managing the legal paperwork associated with buying or selling a property. For new agents, transaction management can become overwhelming and difficult to handle. Fortunately, there are also tools that agents can use to manage contracts and documents, obtain signatures, track deadlines, and keep everyone well-informed during the transaction phase.

Getting signatures from all involved parties can become a headache for agents. Fortunately, the emergence of electronic signature software has made it easier and more convenient to process legal paperwork. Tools such as DocuSign, Dotloop, Zoho, eSignly, Foxit, eSign, and Glide allow agents to quickly secure signed documents, saving time and energy for everyone involved in closing deals. 

Other transaction management software also offers valuable features such as commission tracking, document management, task management, form filling, compliance tracking, invoicing, auditing, and real-time document signing. Brands like BrokerSumo, Skyslope, Qualia, RynohLive, Ramquest One, Endpoint Closing, and Visual Lease are excellent choices for realtors to use when managing tasks under transaction management.

Once a transaction has been successfully done, we encourage you to ask for reviews from your clients to boost your credibility and increase your conversion rate. As we stated earlier, a large portion of today's consumers does their research online prior to contacting an agent. So, having reviews and positive testimonials online would give more confidence to a prospect when they're thinking about working with you.

Integrating these reviews into your website, landing pages, and social media accounts, enables potential leads to see what past clients say about you as a real estate agent. Tools like Trustpilot, Nicejob, Birdeye, Yext, Zillow, Reviews.io, and Google Reviews are great tools that can help you collect reviews more easily.

Technology can be a valuable tool for real estate agents who want to streamline their pipeline and make the process more efficient. With the right tools and strategies, you can generate more leads consistently, manage them effectively, and close more deals successfully.

Whether you’re a new agent or a seasoned pro, investing in technology is a great strategy to grow your real estate business and achieve your goals.