1. Send an iMessage to their Email Address (iPhone only)
A nifty trick to get a response from a lead that is ghosting you, is by trying to iMessage their email address. This is a great way to try and engage a non-responsive lead or to try and engage an email only lead. What you want to do is open a new iMessage and copy and paste the leads email address into the to: section, see screenshot below. If it turns blue, then you know that they used that email address to sign up for Apple Messages. If you message their email address on iMessage and it is blue, it will show up on their phone as a text message!
2. Find them on Facebook Messenger
If you have been contacting a new lead and are not getting any traction. Try adding them on Facebook and sending them a message. It’s important when doing this to try and create as much familiarity as possible! i.e. if they are from X lead source, make sure to reference that source in your message. Same goes if they requested information on specific property or if they are a seller and requested a CMA, send the CMA via Facebook!
3. Find them on Instagram
You can do the same thing here as you did above with Facebook. However, in my experience, Instagram is more personal and you may not get the response you were looking for (or you just might get blocked). What I do on Instagram, to engage with leads, is to follow their accounts and become an active follower. Start small by liking their posts and stories. Eventually working up to commenting on posts or responding to their stories. Ideally they will end up following you and consuming the real estate content you post! When the time is right, you can slide into the DM’s to try and convert them from a lead to a client!
4. Send them a video text/email
If you have tried all traditional methods and contacting them on social. You can send them a video text and/or email, often times this will let them know you are a real person and your follow up is not automated. If you aren’t afraid of the camera, sending a selfie video to every new lead, when trying to contact them or even after having a call with them, is a great way to build rapport, quickly! DUBB is a great free tool you can use to film text and email videos and send them quickly to clients. BombBomb is also a good, paid alternative.
5. Drop a familiar voicemail
Voicemail’s don’t have the highest response rate. Which makes sense if you think about it. Your client sees a notification for a voicemail, they open their phone and see its 45 seconds long from a number they don’t recognize. It’s no wonder they often get ignored. A great tool we have utilized over the years, is leaving a voicemail that says, “Hey (client name), it’s Freddie, give me a shout when you’re free”. If you sound confident and familiar, they may think they’re supposed to remember you and call back!
We are professionals, but don’t need to take ourselves too seriously. Don’t forget, our clients are just people too.
One thing I have learned over the years, people like humor and humor can be a great prospecting tool! If you’re on your last ditch effort to get in contact with a non-responsive lead and you are trying one of these methods above, add some humor in. If I am texting or creating a video to send, I often times ask my clients if they are ghosting me (and I use the ghost emoji ?). I can’t tell you how often that simple text gets a response like, “LOL sorry, I have been swamped at work. I am free at X time to talk, I appreciate your follow up”. Worst case, they just still keep ghosting you and you go on with your life!
If you are looking for more ways to optimize your business systems, OSIRS is here to help.