We hear it all the time in the real estate industry: the best business comes from referrals and past clients.

People want to use professionals that their friends and family recommend, and as a result of that, it's incredibly important to maintain a solid relationship with clients that you've worked with in the past.

Similarly, it's important to contact new leads right away in order to gauge whether or not they have immediate interest in buying or selling a home.

Our industry is all about how well you relate with other people. So when you build a rapport with a client or real estate lead, help them with their transaction, or give some information and then suddenly disappear, you're ultimately losing that relationship in the long run.

This means that you may not be getting as many referrals or as much new business as you could be.

That's where real estate contact management comes in. It sounds incredibly time-consuming, but if you know how to do it efficiently, then you'll be maintaining a relationship with past clients and getting more referrals.

Click through to the next page for four ways that you can manage your contacts in an organized and well thought-out manner.

1. Use a real estate contact management system

Sign up for a real estate contact management system so you can have all of your real estate leads and clients easily accessible to you. With the system, you can create drip email marketing campaigns and have emails automatically scheduled to go out throughout the year.

You can also automate any leads that come to your website to show up in your real estate contact management system, so you can easily add new leads to an appropriate email campaign.

The more you keep in touch with others, the more likely they are to think of you when they have real estate needs.

2. Get organized

If you have every single lead, client, and contact all piled up in one or more places without any categorization, it's going to take you a long time to sort out who is who, particularly when it comes to email marketing campaigns.

The solution? Create groups. Your contacts should be divided into groups like "2012 Leads," "Past Clients," "Buyer Clients," "Active Clients," "Seller Clients," "Sphere of Influence," and other relevant categories.

When the client's "status" changes, i.e. if they go from being an "Active Client" to a "Past Client," then you will have to move them to another group. This allows you to keep track of who is who and will ensure that any and all communication you send is going to the right group of people.

It's easy to group and categorize contacts with a real estate contact management system like IXACT Contact.

3. Gather as much information as possible about your contacts

You should have more information on each of your contacts than simply first name, last name and email address.

Record in your real estate contact management system their interest, hobbies, spouse and children information, and pets. This information will enable you to build deep relationships with your contacts over time and give you "talking points" next time you meet with or phone up your contacts.

4. Keep it personal

Each piece of correspondence that you send out to your contacts should be appropriate for them. This is why it's important to group and categorize your contacts so you can send different emails or letters, for instance, to different groups.

If you can keep yourself organized and make use of key technology, such as your real estate contact management system, then managing your contacts will be a breeze and referrals and repeat business will flow your way. Good luck!

To view the original article, visit the IXACT Contact blog.