How good are you at staying in touch with your past clients?  The ones that closed an escrow with you.  The ones that would gladly tell their friends how awesome you are…if only they could remember your name…

We often fall victim to our own successes.  You know what I mean, when we close an escrow we really do want to stay in touch over the long haul, but life and new business often get in the way, and pretty soon that closing gets pushed back in our minds.

Lots of companies have come on the scene with the promise of “buy our calendars, magnets, newsletters and your worries will be over”.  Maybe so, but I lost count of the number of listings that I took that had other agent’s refrigerator magnets and calendars proudly posted.  Why was I chosen and not the provider of the bling?  My theory is that, while those products DO bring your name to mind when they are first received, after time they just become part of the background noise of everyday life for the homeowner.

So what about newsletters?  Sure, many of them have useful information, and as long as they make it past the recycle bin on the way in from the mailbox, they have a chance of being read.  Email newsletters often suffer the fate of landing in spam folders.  The ones that make it past spam folders may sit in inboxes without being opened.  Admit it, you probably have things in your inbox that you haven’t opened and read! And even if they do get read, how useful is the information?  Is it good enough to cause the reader to remember you?  Or to refer you?

But, we MUST stay in touch with our past clients.  The National Association of REALTORS® tells us the following facts in their most recent Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers:

Eighty-eight percent of buyers would use their agent again or recommend to others and 63 percent of buyers who purchased their home in the last year have recommended their agent to other buyers. (Emphasis added)

But here is the reality:

Forty percent of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend or family member and 12 percent used an agent they had used before to buy or sell a home (Emphasis added)

Thirty-eight percent of sellers who used a real estate agent found their agents through a referral by friends or family, and 22 percent used the agent they worked with previously to buy or sell a home. (Emphasis added)

So why the disparity?  The business is our to lose, and so lose it we did.  The methods that we use (If we even do use any) simply are not effective. 

Recently I heard about an interesting startup out of Florida who may have the silver bullet.  They have a monthly email that goes out to your past closings starting at close of escrow.  You set it up and provide some data that they use to estimate the home’s current value as well as the homeowner’s current estimated equity, on a monthly basis.

Given that nearly everyone is interested in the value of their home, I think that these emails would get opened and may even be ones that the homeowner would eagerly look forward to receiving.

Please go to http://www.getkeep.net/ and see what you think.  The cost is absolutely reasonable at $5.00 per transaction.  There are no setup fees or recurring fees.

You can request a sample email to see if you like what is being sent and you can talk with them to make sure that you are comfortable in what they do on your behalf.

I haven’t seen anything else like this on the market, and I believe that for the agents that jump on this right away, that you’ll have raving fans among your past clients…you know, the ones that will be happy to refer YOU to their family and friends!