Managing an advertising inventory in the real estate industry is anything but easy. The online, print and out of home ads that realtors must publish need to be highly targeted for the right market and the right moment. Without hitting the right note, it’s easy for advertising to fall flat.
While many different industries rely on cross-platform advertising, real estate, in particular, is highly fragmented and must deal with sales teams permanently on the road and a housing market with prices going up and down all the time, especially online. This can lead to last-minute issues for whoever is in charge of order management, whether they work in programmatic or direct sales.
Without an appropriate structure, training, automation and a right workflow, it’s easy to lose focus of overall objectives, effectively losing ad sales opportunities. With the proper setup in their order management software, it’s possible to stay on top of ad trading for realtors while simultaneously maintaining a flawless ad sales process.
1. Targeted and Customized Integration for Your Real Estate CRM
No matter your preferred approach to ad sales and the number of benefits programmatic ad exchanges have brought to online realtors, customers need human interactions. They not only need to put a face with a name and to feel a connection to an actual person but a one-to-one orientation that the publishing package is the right fit for their company and not just data on a screen. However, accomplishing this in the current state of the market isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds.
For many realtors, the industry is more global now than it once was. With the rise in advertising technology, it’s possible to partner with top programmatic providers and cloud-based CRM and ERPs to handle business anywhere. The downside to this? An erosion of the human element in transactions and contracts. A good connection to a client relationship management software can empower human connections, creating a personal experience throughout the ad sales cycle.
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2. Smooth Connection to Billing and Accounting Applications
The housing market needs to balance dynamic pricing conditions and significant agency earnings and third-party commissions to realtors linked on their sales goals and the way customers found them online. On the other hand, programmatic ads can have different rates depending on the location, the frequency, and the method of targeting, creating a shifting landscape that’s consistently subject to change.
While this offers advantages for both ad buyers and sellers, it can be a challenge to keep track of different numbers and figures, both when making purchases and later, when reporting to customers, advertisers and agencies. A smooth billing and accounting connection needs not only to import and export a spreadsheet but makes it easy to track commissions and payments, providing must-have information at the push of a button.
3. High-Powered Ad Sales Management Software for Realtors
Working with multiple listings simultaneously requires aligning different ad servers and information sources, but with programmatic advertising, this is far more straightforward than ever before. Programmatic exchanges can deliver real-time data from multiple parties involved in the home-search process, helping advertisers to modify campaigns based on the most updated data.
However, one programmatic server may not be enough to create the integrated media packages buyers want to see – particularly when working against the clock out of different media packages. With an order management system that can keep up with multiple programmatic exchanges, numerous listings, and desired advertising fill rates, it’s possible to make sure no stone goes unturned.
4. Comprehensive Sales Performance Dashboard
The only way to revise whether or not a real estate advertising campaign is working or if it needs adjustments is through data. Metrics mean a lot to realtors as it is a highly performance-based industry. As such, the average agent is susceptible to monitoring performance across many different channels. Tech-savvy agents need to track their goals on the road using standard, online, and programmatic channels as they are publishing ads and targeting numerous different demographics, and they need a dashboard that can keep up with easy-to-read information.
With access to actionable intelligence, it’s possible to manage, create and share reports and organize data in telling ways, providing critical insight into best choosing which publisher to choose and how to make adjustments to the advertising campaign.
5. Easy-to-Learn Application
The real estate ecosystem is large and diverse: there are large and small sales representatives and agencies serving each individual location and market, each with a different approach to technology. This means that a good ad-agency relationship is critical, and it’s often the key to quickly and easily getting users on board. With programs that are easy to use and simple to share with a good track record, it’s possible to recruit quality sales reps and keep them engaged.
According to Outbound Engine’s 2017 Real Estate Marketing Benchmark Report:
- 22.5% of agents don’t consider themselves marketing experts and aren’t sure where to put their energy.
- 14.9% say they aren’t tech savvy and need help managing the digital side.
With software that’s user-friendly for agents and agencies and with a good community of users and learners, it’s possible to focus energy and effort in the right direction.
6. Seamless Campaign Creation and Ad Scheduling
Gone are the days of clunky, hard-to-use systems; instead real estate agents are embracing modern solutions that are specialized, interconnected, and extremely user-friendly, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The ad sales management software selected should both fit sales funnels and keep pace with the ERP systems used to keep track of their real estate management and advertising campaigns. With solutions that are simple to use and can accomplish goals in just a few clicks or taps, agents can accelerate the process of locating the right inventory and streamlining the workflow in the different regions they operate. And mobile access? That’s just icing on the cake, catering to the road-heavy lifestyle most agents enjoy.
7. Tools to Facilitate Upselling
Online real estate listings and syndication websites work in a competitive landscape where, if the ad campaign hasn’t worked out, realtors can easily choose an alternative and review your site negatively. The right lead generation strategy out of the right CRM is often vital in not only finding new customers but creating a good relationship with your current ones.
When your entire sales workforce is connected, the customer experience is significantly improved, creating positive interactions from quoting a media package to billing your different line items in a way that they understand the return on investment. And, of course, this also means the opportunity to upsell throughout the process with an increased likelihood of hearing “yes.”
