Tech Know
Using tech to make money, be more efficient, and build relationships.
By Tracey C. Velt
Featuring Angela Ham, PMN, 2019 Women's Council Metro South President
In January 2019, Angela Ham, team leader of Ham & Co., Keller Williams Atlanta Classic, Atlanta, had a listing. She used a program called Listings to Leads to send an autogenerated letter to homeowners around the listing. “The letter says, ‘Hey, I have 123 Main Street listed and, once it’s sold, it’s going to affect your home value,’” says Ham. “The letter includes a link to a free home evaluation. I also door knock when I do an open house. Just the other day, someone from that neighborhood who saw the open house and got the letter called me to list their home.”
For Ham, Listings to Leads is “the best way to grow your business. Even if you don’t have any listings, you can ask other agents if they’ll allow you to market their listing.” Here are three ways she uses the program:
- Create a Marketing Plan. "As soon as I get the listing, I enter it into Listing to Leads, and it automatically pulls the information from the IDX feed. From there, it creates a task list of things to do to market the home," she says. "It saves you time and money because everything from the marketing plan to other marketing is automatically generated once you enter your listing in the system.”
- Create Social Media Posts. Ham loves that the program will automatically create Facebook and Instagram posts for her. “It also creates a social media link that I can share with the seller. I explain that the more we get the property out there, the faster it will sell. They love that it’s all done for them,” she says. “It also creates a single property website that I can use to market the property as well.”
- Texting and Lead Capture. The program also has a texting function. Ham includes the text code on her signs and marketing information. “When someone texts that code to me for more photos or information about the property, it captures that person’s number. I’ve gotten so many leads that way,” she says.
Ham pays $40 per month for ten listings. "There is a fee for packages of five listings once you hit 10. It's the best $40 I've ever spent."
A System for Engagement
While Ham uses Facebook for a lot of her relationship building, she uses Instagram just as much. She says her system for posting helped her double her followers to 1,000 since Jan. 2019. “I’m getting between 20 to 30 new followers a day.” Here’s how she does it.
- Maintain a Schedule. Ham posts three things each day. “I post an inspirational quote, an interior design photo and something personal,” she says. Ham uses Instagram Business so she can see analytics.
- Know Your Audience. “Because I can see the analytics of the people following me, I know that most of my followers are African-American females between the ages of 35 and 55. So, I make sure that most of my content is targeted to them.”
- Engage. Ham says she “makes sure I engage with my followers, such as respond to comments and posts. I get a lot of inbox messages from people who want to become a real estate agent or are interested in home buying seminars. I always respond, and I've gotten business that way."
- Post Video. Ham has a series called Real Estate in One Minute where she will post a one-minute video of herself answering a question about buying or selling a home.
Creating Branded Marketing Fliers
Ham hears it all the time from other real estate professionals, “Where do you get your marketing materials? I love them.” They’re always surprised when she says she designs them herself using Canva, a platform that offers design templates that allow you to make emails and fliers that you can email, post to social media or print. She pays $14 a month, but there is a free version. "I use it to build relationships and just recently closed a deal with someone that I helped learn Canva. That person was in Denver!” She says she loves Canva because it allows her to be creative but also be efficient with her time.
Here are some ways she uses Canva:
- Create Open House Fliers. “I have a color scheme of Tiffany blue, black and grey. So, 90 percent of my marketing items are branded with my colors. Canva allows me to choose a template with my colors and drag and drop elements in it to build an open house flier.” Ham then prints them in her office and has them available for people viewing the home. “It’s super easy.”
- Email newsletters. Canva has an option for a newsletter where you can pick and choose your design and enter your content into it. “You can email the newsletter to your database and also post it to social media,” she says.
- Create presentation materials. Ham is careful to brand all of her marketing items, so people know by the look and feel exactly where it came from. She can use Canva to build pages for her listing presentation.
- Share on Social Media. “The best part is that anything I create can be shared on social media. I’ve done invitations, fliers, emails, and more.” She says you can use it from a phone or a desktop, but she prefers the larger screen of the desktop when designing.
Overall, says Ham, these three technology programs are vital to her success. “If someone can only pick one, as I said before, go with Listing to Leads. It will hands-down help you build your business.”
About the Contributor
Tracey C. Velt is an Orlando-based freelance writer with more than 20 years of experience writing about the real estate industry.