[Video] How to Find Your Best Listing Prospects

Want to lower your marketing budget while getting better leads? It may sound far-fetched, but thousands of agents are already doing this, thanks to the power of "big data."

The trick is in using data to narrow your marketing focus in order to target only those homeowners who are most likely to list their home in the near future. The result is that you're paying to advertise to fewer people, but that those people are more likely to convert into clients.

On Tuesday, we hosted a webinar to explore a solution that accomplishes this—and more. SmartZip is a predictive analytics solution that not only identifies the homeowners in your sphere and geographic farm that are most likely to sell, but also automates marketing activity directly to that group.

"They're taking what has been historically a pretty unscientific way of generating new business and attracting new customers, and making it much more targeted, making it much more localized and, frankly, just making it much more cost effective and predictable," says webinar moderator and RE Technology co-founder Marilyn Wilson.

Watch the webinar below to learn how SmartZip works and how it can improve your bottom line and boost your conversion rate:

Quick Guide to "On the verge of selling: How to find your best listing prospects"

Want a quick overview of the video above, or just want to revisit a certain topic? Check out the guide below for a glimpse into what the webinar offers. Use the minute bookmarks to jump to a particular clip.

3:00 - What is predictive analytics? Jonathan McGowan, SmartZip's Vice President of Sales, explains how SmartZip analyzes thousands of pieces of data to find who's most likely to list their home.

5:05 - Why use predictive analytics? Let's say you have a 2000 home area with a 5 percent turnover rate as your geographic farm. While you can farm the entire area with the same marketing messages and build your reputation over time and, yes, earn some business, predictive analytics offers a better way.

"But what we can do is use data to look at every single home within that territory," says McGowan. "And we will find the homes that are most likely to sell in the next 6 to 12 months. Instead of generically farming to all 2000 homes, we'll just have you focus all your efforts on the top 400 in this example. And these 400 homes will have double the turnover rate. In this case, it'd go from 5 percent to 10 percent. So every marketing dollar that you spend, every minute you invest in farming this area, you're gonna get more back from it."

6:10 - How does SmartZip know who's most likely to sell? When you pick a geographic farm, SmartZip analyzes the area and employs hundreds of different algorithms to look at 25 data sources and over 2,000 different attributes of each home and homeowner—like time in home, income, appreciation, credit status, LTV ratio, life stage, and more—to determine who is statistically most likely to list their home.

"This is very personalized not only to the neighborhood that you're looking at but also the property type and the characteristics of that particular home," says McGowan.

13:05 - Turn data into dollars. Once you know who to target, how do you turn this information into business? "We've evolved from a pure data company to a full marketing automation company," explains McGowan. From SmartZip's platform, agents can target specific prospects via online banner ads, Facebook ads, high end direct mail, digitally handwritten letters, and email nurture campaigns. All leads are driven towards landing pages branded to you.

27:08 - Outsource your cold calls! McGowan unveiled a brand new marketing automation feature that agents are sure to love: cold calling. SmartZip's new outreach campaigns target the top 20 percent of your farm with phone calls to gauge the interest of each homeowner's interest in selling. When SmartZip's outreach team finds a prospect that wants to sell, they will connect the lead directly to you in order to get you a listing appointment.

In pilot testing for this program, 75 percent of people got a listing within a two month time period. Thanks to smart targeting capabilities, it took the outreach team 55 percent fewer calls to connect with potential sellers and get a listing opportunity for an agent. But they've been seeing average of 18 call connects to get you listing opportunity.

38:35 - LIVE DEMO. Want to see SmartZip in action? Jump to this time to check out a demonstration. You'll see SmartZip's dashboard, how to filter and target your hot prospects, view the marketing history of each contact, manage prospects, set follow-ups, make notes, and more.

46:35 - How to target your database. SmartZip can analyze and target more than just your geographic farm. SmartZip SPHERE can also target your database and help you nurture them consistently. Use SmartZip SPHERE to discover who among your contacts is ready to sell and reach out to them.

50:18 - Special offer for RE Technology readers. Interested in seeing how your existing geographic farm stacks up? SmartZip is offering a free analysis of your farm area. Get a no-obligation performance prediction of your farm for 2017. Click here to get started!