Real estate agents should do their best to stay at the forefront of their client’s minds. This is because you’re only paid when you have sold a property and you need to do everything possible to ensure you do not lose clients after they have travelled along your sales funnel. For this reason, you have to rely on different marketing strategies while giving clients different ways of reaching you easily. This is how real estate SMS marketing comes in handy but before we dig into the concept of SMS marketing for real estate we need to look at bulk SMS and how to send them. You can learn more about this from Boldsms.com.
What is Bulk SMS
As a real estate agent, you want to employ bulk SMS, a service that would enable you to send a large number of SMS messages to your audience at a go. Boldsms.com offers a super powerful service for use in your business so that you can deliver SMS messages quickly, safely, and directly to your customers. If you intend to run competitions, marketing campaigns, notify employees or do promotions or events, bulk mass messaging is among the best platform to use for sending out higher volumes of messages at once.
Bulk SMS is split into
- Retail SMS messages generated and sent from the end customers such as Google, Facebook, etc
- Wholesale SMS- messages sent from reseller companies
SMS messages are often bought and sent in bulk, hence Bulk SMS is the best because it describes the service immediately. Additionally, messages bought in bulk are much cheaper compared to regular text messages individuals use on their mobile phones for personal communication. Thus, bulk SMS is cheaper and more effective if you compare them with e-mail or even email marketing.
How to Send Bulk SMS using Phone
You can use your mobile phone to send bulk SMS messages to any number of people in any country. This is very easy to do with Bold SMS. It allows you to send text messages to multiple numbers in one go. Bold SMS has many features on what you will be able to do with the system including but not limited to:-
- Sending bulk messages-This is where you use CSV or Excel files containing numbers to send bulk messages.
- Sending bulk MMS-It supports sending MMS too. You can send normal text messages as MMS or you can also attach image files with your messages. It also provides an API, so you can send MMS messages programmatically.
- Supporting sending USSD requests– It supports sending USSD requests. You will be able to send it using a web panel or API. All the responses resulting from USSD requests will be visible in the web panel. You can read responses using the API, or you can also subscribe to webhook to read them as soon as they arrive. This feature requires a device with Android 8.0 or above.
Other features that make Bold SMS the best include being resource friendly and scalable, working in the background, API, supporting very long messages, supporting delay between messages, supporting traditional and QR Code signs in, tracking message status, autoresponder, multi-language support, and supporting SMS delivery reports.
In real estate, you have to rely on various marketing strategies that would give clients ways they can reach you easily. SMS marketing for real estate now becomes critical. The use of SMS marketing for real estate as an agent ensures you can make the most from your real estate lead generation. Further, SMS marketing for real estate nurtures the leads and subsequently turns them into satisfied clients.
How SMS FOR REAL ESTATE MARKETING WORKS
Like any other form of SMS marketing, real estate text message marketing is about the use of SMS when sending news, campaigns, updates, promotions, and any other relevant communications to prospects, clients, and leads. One of the most important things to know about SMS marketing is that it enables you to send only short messages but these messages ought to be direct to the point. SMS technically supports 160 characters only and does not support multimedia such as images. However, through MMS or multimedia message services, you can effectively send messages with videos and pictures. The majority of services do support MMS and SMS. Additionally, you should note that SMS marketing is about sending messages in bulk. This means if real estate agents embrace the service offered by Boldsms.com, they can easily send the same message to hundreds and thousands of clients. Also, it’s possible to involve an element of customization and automation.
As a real estate agent, you can use text marketing when announcing your new properties for sale, open houses, changes of policies, and special deals. Use a real estate SMS template to share information about your property with interested leads. The strategy is good for agents to create a conversation or establish a connection with clients. Either of the goals assists in ensuring that clients do not change agents.
What is a Shortcode
In SMS marketing for real estate agents, a shortcode means a number with 5 or 6 digits. This shortcode would appear in the “sender” or “from” section rather than an agent’s number. Mostly, real estate agents use a vanity number for the shortcode which is easier for their clients to remember. There are some benefits in using a shortcode rather than a method to display including being brief and easy to remember. It then makes them easy to use in marketing campaigns, for instance, when your request potential buyers to a particular keyword to opt-in to gain new leads. Obviously, shortcodes are business numbers that make your messages appear more professional. Essentially, messages can be trusted if they come from a shortcode with a business name. Again, shortcodes can send messages quickly considering you can send at least 100 messages in one second. It contrasts with standard phone numbers or long code messages that can typically send one message per second.
Collecting Data through SMS
Apart from one of the important aspects of SMS which is marketing, SMSs can be used in gathering your client’s data. For instance, different automation can assist you to collect information about your clients or potential clients. Depending on your needs and the service you use, it’s possible to gather information such as client names, contact information, and even the real estate they would want. This kind of data collection is automated but it’s possible to make it an interactive conversation if it fits well into your needs. It’s possible to use such data in gaining insights, particularly in your client base. Further, such data can be used in collecting details for more segmented or targeted marketing. Adding more personalization to text messages makes your marketing efforts better and more effective. The other option is the use of texts as a way of reminding clients to fill out a survey, an indirect method of using SMS in gathering data.
SMS Marketing vs. One-on-one Text Messaging
One of the most significant differences between real estate text message marketing and one-on-one text messaging remains the scale of doing each. For one-on-one messaging, you have to text a person at a time. In contrast, using SMS marketing easily texts thousands of leads and clients at once. As such, SMS marketing is always nearly automated while one-on-one messaging could be manual or automated. As indicated earlier, mass texts use shortcodes rather than typical phone numbers, while one-on-one messages use traditional numbers. Consequently, the differences in the number of people receiving the messages affect the personalization level of the messages. For instance, SMS real estate marketing involves sending mass text concerning a promotion. Again, you may want to use it in promoting your listings, particularly new listings that lack enough interest. On the other hand, a one-on-one text highlights new properties that specific clients could be interested in.
Therefore, you require the right balance between these two text marketing styles. You should note that mass texting is one of the greatest ways of sharing news and promotions with your customer segments. However, there’s a risk of your messages coming off as impersonal or it may appear as if you’re sending spam, something that might injure your client experience. Further, one-on-one messages offer a more personalized experience and could be more effective in boosting your customer satisfaction. Although one-on-one marketing takes longer, both have a place in your real estate marketing.
Key Benefits of Real Estate SMS Marketing
By taking advantage of real estate text marketing, you stand to gain a long list of benefits, particularly to your real estate business. The most important benefits include:-
- Reach clients in real-time
The biggest advantage attached to SMS is its ability to reach clients in real-time. It is more important when it comes to urgent and time-sensitive information. For instance, it’s possible to send appointment updates or reminders and you are sure your clients will receive them almost immediately.
- Increase response rates
You can notice an increased response rate if you incorporate SMS in your real estate marketing because almost 98 percent of your text messages are opened and 75 percent of clients prefer receiving offers through text messages as of 2021. Additionally, it’s excellent considered customer service to always use communication channels that are preferred by homebuyers. In essence, the SMS open rate is higher compared to emails with clients responding better to your campaigns through SMS marketing.
- Streamlining Internal Operations
You realize that text messages can effectively streamline your internal operations because of their ability to automate messages and send them en masse. Such a combination is what ensures the processes are more effective.
- Save time
It shouldn’t surprise you that streamlining the internal processes saves you and your team valuable time. The time saved can then be used to focus on gaining prospects, nurturing leads, and growing business.
- Reduces Costs
Real estate SMS marketing can quickly reduce costs. This is a direct result of time savings. Additionally, each text message sends costs a fraction of the cost of other available marketing methods. It’s also the same case for bulk messages.
Apart from the benefits mentioned above, real estate SMS marketing will also offer you the following advantages as a real estate agent.
- Personalization
Text messages are personalized easily and help you in establishing a connection with your clients. This is what increases their chances of purchasing a property from you.
- Less spam risk
There is a lower risk of your message ending up in the spam folder compared to email marketing.
- Fewer no-shows
The use of texts in reminding clients of showings and other appointments helps you reduce time wasted on no-shows.
- Automation
It’s possible to automate different aspects of text messaging. This includes auto-reply which saves you a significant amount of time and helps you meet the expectations of your clients concerning the response time.
- Information is easily accessible
Information in form of text can be accessed in the future, a great method for links to listings and appointment reminders.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier you can access the procedure, best practices, and tips about bulk SMS marketing on Boldsms.com so that you can the most out of your efforts. You have gained a better understanding of the help you can get from real estate messaging marketing and with Boldsms.com you are good to go. Ideally, a real estate messaging service is as crucial as your property management software. Again, it’s important to pay attention to features and rates even as you look for a service provider. There’s a need to use a service that would help you get opt-ins through other interactions with your customers. Moreover, you want to engage in a service that ensures communications with your clients are personal and human-like while giving you immediate insights. Another crucial point is to evaluate and update your real estate SMS marketing campaign over time. The Boldsms.com website has the best services and offers you additional features such as articles. Through this solution, you will be seeing your SMS marketing efforts soon paying off.