Powerful Prospecting in two easy steps!
Don’t let low housing inventory get you down! We’ve got a tool available to you with powerful prospecting capabilities—and the best part is that it’s already included with your MLS or association membership dues.
That’s right, we’re talking about your MLS’s public records/property data system. Did you know that you can use the rich information it contains to precisely target potential leads?
Frank Goswitz, a Realtor from Knoxville, Tennessee, definitely knows. He recently told us how he uses his property data system to target potential leads in his area. In this post we’ll share Frank’s prospecting tips and offer six campaign ideas you can execute with your own property data system.
6 Prospecting Ideas for Low Inventory Markets
Utilizing our MLS Tax Suite, Frank says the platform has all the information he needs from “finding what the owner originally paid to review pictures of the property plat map, lot size, and school zones. The possibilities are endless and make it possible to service my clients beyond their initial expectations.”
When it comes to lead generation, however, he primarily targets homeowners near listings that have just sold using our built-in Prospecting tool. “I target approximately 500 prospects at a time, depending on the size of the subdivision.”
Frank’s “just sold” campaign is one of many ways you can use your property data system. Here are six more ideas you can leverage to your advantage:
1. Rising home values campaign – Record-high home prices go hand-in-hand with record-low housing inventory. Nudge reluctant sellers off the fence by reminding them how much profit they can make off their home if they sell now. Send out mailers that list how much home prices have risen in the area you’re targeting. Be sure to include a call-to-action to contact you for a free home valuation, or to visit a dedicated landing page for a free online valuation (e.g., What’s your home worth? Find out here!).
2. Sold listing campaign – Let’s revisit Frank’s favorite type of campaign for a moment to break down how it works: when you sell a home, you then send out a mailer to homes nearby that shows what the home sold for. In today’s market, that’s usually a big number, so make that information prominent. If the home sold over the asking price or very quickly, mention that success point. You want your prospects to associate you with a potentially lucrative opportunity to sell their home. As with the above idea, include your contact information and a call-to-action.
3. New listing campaign – One thing you can count on with homeowners: they’re curious about other homes in their neighborhood. What do they look like? How much are they worth compared to my home? Tap into this curiosity by sending a postcard or flyer that announces your new listing and all its details: price, bed/bath, square footage, school district, etc. Your goal here is to build awareness of you as the go-to Realtor for selling homes in the area.
4. Expired listings campaign – If there’s one thing expired listings have going for them, it’s this: they want to sell their home. Something went wrong with their last attempt at a sale—the price was too high, repairs were needed, or maybe their previous agent wasn’t the greatest. Whatever the case, they are prime targets for prospecting. Send them or physically drop off a packet touting your experience and successes to encourage them to list their home with you.
5. Likely mover campaign – How long do residents in your area stay in their homes? If you know this piece of information, you can use it to target owners who have been in their home for around that amount of time—and statistically may be likely to move soon. A postcard or other mailer from you may help nudge them into listing. Just be sure to use your public records tool to remove active “for sale” homes from your list, as they obviously don’t need your services—and you don’t need to waste your marketing budget.
6. Renters/new buyers campaign – Do you enjoy working with first-time buyers? Consider targeting renters in affluent neighborhoods. Finding them in your property data system is a little less straightforward than finding current homeowners, however. Fortunately, your property data platform’s “owner type” filter can help. For example, with the MLS Tax Suite, you can filter results by absentee owner, out-of-state owner, in-state owner, and owner-occupied properties. All options except owner-occupied can help you target properties with renters. Bonus: You can also use this filter to unearth vacation properties or second homes.
Creating Your Prospecting Campaign
So you know what kind of prospecting campaign you want to send out. Now, how do you execute that campaign? Our very own Sara Cooper, director of the MLS Market, shared the process in two easy steps.
Step 1: Narrow down your targets
You know what you want to send, but to whom should you send it? Tap into the property data system’s filters to narrow it down.
Users of CRS Data’s Prospecting tool can “target exactly who you want to prospect to,” says Sara. “It could be a street, a subdivision, or even an entire ZIP code. There are a variety of filters that can be enabled to narrow down the list—from the type of home and length of time it’s been owned to how old the current mortgage is and acreage size.”
Step 2: Create your mailing list
Once you’ve identified your prospects, it’s time to create your mailing list.
“You can export the data to use in your CRM,” says Sara. Our MLS Tax Suite lets you download your prospect data as a CSV file so that you can easily import it into your CRM for prospecting strategies.
Alternatively, “you can skip the export and create mailing labels instead.”
Our intuitive platform lets users print mailing labels from within the program itself. Just select how you want to address recipients (by name or ‘Current Resident’), and your preferred label size. Next, simply print your labels and send off your campaign!
“I use the mailing labels feature of the Prospecting tool consistently. It makes the process of creating labels so quick and easy,” says Frank. “Creating mailers through CRS Data’s MLS Tax Suite has benefited my business tremendously.”