4 Tips to Get More Leads to Respond to Your Texts

The world is more mobile than ever. Consumers are engaging with real estate in new ways, thanks to their mobile phones. According to the 2014 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, nearly half of buyers said it was important to them that their agent sends property information and communicates via text message.

TigerLead's Senior Performance Product Manager, Hugo Cortes, recently analyzed over 20,000 text messages to find out which types of texts got the best response. The internal study found that TigerLead clients that start texting their leads typically see 1 out of 5 leads respond to their texts. However, the best performing text messages get responses from 1 out of every 2 leads!

Here are 4 tips to get more leads to respond to your text messages:

1. Always start with the lead's name: "Hi Nancy,"

Consumers are rightfully suspicious whenever they receive a text message from an unknown number. Using their name as either the first or second word in your message immediately adds credibility and keeps them reading the rest of the message.

2. Identify yourself: "this is Hugo Cortes with TigerLead."

Consumers are still trying to figure out who they're receiving this message from and how you know their name. Some clients prefer to give their name and company at the end of the message, but we've found that texts get more responses when you mention it up front.

3. End with a short, impactful question

There's a temptation to start sharing information about the search site, how you got their info or how you can help them in their home search. Resist the temptation! We found that nothing works better to start a conversation than a simple, engaging question. We expected that open-ended questions would be critical for positive results, but that's not always the case. We suggest any of the following:

4. Keep it as close to 160 characters as possible

All of the texts with the poorest response rates share one trait: they're really, really long. You're doing fantastic if your text is under 160 characters, and OK if you're under 200. Your response rates will suffer if you're going over 200 and you start getting completely ignored if you're over 250.

By following these simple best practices, you can increase your text response rate with new leads. Not seeing the results you expected? Conduct some A/B testing that your team can track and report on results. These tips will likely help most agents and get you started on the right path, but through your testing you might find an approach that is even better!

About TigerLead

TigerLead provides a premium, fully integrated marketing platform for real estate professionals. TigerLead clients receive high-quality local buyer and seller leads, and are able to qualify and cultivate the hottest leads while incubating the warm ones through an intuitive lead management platform, Paws. In 2015, TigerLead added the ability to send and receive texts directly from Paws. To learn more about TigerLead, visit www.TigerLead.com.