Affordable AI Apps that won’t Break the Bank

In today’s competitive real estate landscape, harnessing the power of artificial intelligencecan be a game-changer for agents looking to streamline their processes, engage with clients, and create captivating content. Fortunately, there are budget-friendly AI tools available that cater to various aspects of your real estate business, so no matter whether you are new to the business or in the multi-million dollar club, there is something for you!

ChatGPT: AI Chatbot for Website Engagement

Pricing: ChatGPT offers a free plan with basic features, and premium plans start at $20 per month.

How Agents Can Use It: Real estate agents can integrate ChatGPT’s AI chatbot into their website to engage with visitors, answer questions, and capture leads in real-time. It provides 24/7 customer support and lead generation capabilities.

Zapier: Automation Hub for Real Estate Workflows

Pricing: Zapier offers a free plan with limited features and premium plans starting at $19.99 per month.

How Agents Can Use It: Zapier serves as your personal automation assistant, helping you save time, reduce manual data entry, and ensure that leads are nurtured and followed up on consistently. Automate lead management by creating “Zaps” that connect your lead generation tools, CRM, and email marketing platforms. For example, when a new lead is captured, Zapier can automatically add their information to your CRM and trigger a follow-up email sequence.

Lumen5: AI-Powered Video Creation

Pricing: Lumen5 offers a free plan with basic features, and paid plans start at $29 per month.

How Agents Can Use It: Lumen5 uses AI to transform text-based content into engaging videos. Agents can use it to create property listing videos, market updates, or informative video content for social media.

And the Best Tool of All…

That Captivating Agent: Marketing Done for You

Pricing: That Captivating Agent plans start at $29 per month, with savings on semi-annual and annual plans. 

Get your first month for just $10 with code FIRST10.

How Agents Can Use It: That Captivating Agent provides thousands of marketing templates that you can customize in Canva saving you hours every week. TCA also provides the Marketing Blueprint which lays out your entire marketing plan for the year.

You’ve sold your listing! YAY!

Now, hold up, before you just move onto the next thing, and let’s do a little more lead generation work with this property. 

Social Media AGAIN

I mentioned it before in both the just listed and the open house activities, but make sure that you put a social media template together for your Just Sold. If you can, opt for a picture of your clients, a story about how you made a dream come true, or an example of a problem you overcame in the transaction. Stories are much more interesting than a simple “Just Sold.” Make it interesting. 

( And don’t forget to ask, “Are you thinking about buying or selling?” And offer a free guide.)

Just Sold Postcard

Now it’s time to follow up with those nosy neighbors. Make sure you send these to the exact same people that your Just Listed cards went to. We are going for multiple touches here. Don’t forget to tell them exactly what you did to get that property sold and how you went above and beyond. Make it stand out.

CMA Packets

Prepare CMAs for the neighbors! Now I’m not talking about all the neighbors –  that’s a lot of work. But pick the ones that are closest, maybe pick neighbors that have lived there over 5 years and prepare quick CMA for each of those homes. If they weren’t thinking of selling, this may change their mind. 

Make sure that you’re following up with everyone you have gotten contact information for. Put them on a drip campaign, set up automatic MLS searches for them, and connect with them on social media. It’s time to start turning these leads into clients. 

Yes, I said it. OPEN HOUSE.

I know if you like m,  you don’t necessarily love doing open houses. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of them. I was always told they are great for lead generation, but I never understood that until I put the right practices into place to turn it into such. So let’s talk about how to do that.

Post on Social Media

Use the Social Media Templates to announce your open house. Again ask, “Are you thinking of selling?” and offer a free download of the Seller’s Guide or offer more listings for buyers. 

The Open House Kit

Make sure to use the open house kit template at ThatCaptivatingSocial. (If you don’t have access to ThatCaptivatingSocial, you should.) The Open House Kit includes signs that you can put up at your open houses. 

As a buyer, I don’t really like talking to people when I’m going to open house, but I’m much more willing to take a picture of a QR code and sign up for information. Create a list of listings similar to the one you are holding open. (You should have already done this when you created your flyer.) Use a Flodesk, Mailchimp, etc form to collect information in exchange for this listing of other properties. Make a QR code for this form website and place it on your sign. This way buyers can scan the code and get more listings, and you can get their contact information to follow up. 

You can use this same idea with a simple sign in sheet, home review, or a download of the seller’s guide, etc.

Buyer’s and Seller’s Guides

Instead of hanging out cards at an open house, hand out buyer’s and seller’s guides to visitors. This is a great way to give them something valuable with your contact information that they are less likely to lose. 

Congratulations! You have a new listing! Now let’s talk about the three things that you should be doing RIGHT NOW to start building up that pipeline. 

Post on Social Media

First, use a social media template showcase your just listed on social media. Everyone likes to be nosy at look at houses, even if they aren’t planning to buy, so this can strike up some real conversation. Bonus points – ask ,”Are you thinking about selling?” and then offer a sellers guide in exchange for their information.

The Flyer

Number two is the flyer. Yes, I know this doesn’t seem like a lead generation idea, but stick with me. First of all, those flyers are your first presentation to any potential seller or buyer. It tells them a lot about how you handle your business.  Next, add a QR code to the bottom of your flyer. Maybe this isn’t the home that they are looking for, but you have prepped a whole list of other active homes just like it that you can give them – in exchange for their contact information! 

Just Sold Postcard

Finally – Just Listed postcards. You don’t necessarily need to send these out to the entire neighborhood, but you want to hit those nosy neighbors that are keeping a close watch and might be considering selling their home too. (And don’t worry, we’re gonna follow up after its sold too). 

Let’s talk about how to make your listings a lead generation magnet!

I was told once that as soon as you close a deal as a real estate agent you are once again unemployed. So it should stand to reason that we should take every opportunity to generate leads to keep us employed, right?

However, I think so many of us agents focus on the paycheck at the end of a listing and forget all the things we could be doing throughout.

I am part of a Facebook group called LabCoat Agents. This group is real estate agents from literally all over the world and is kind of a place for them to come together, ask questions, get advice, and sometimes just vent. 

Well, the other day an agent posted, and he was complaining about a client. The client was purchasing a multi million dollar property with him, and he asked his agent to sell one of his $125,000 properties for 1%. We can all do the math on that – $1250.

Now, I get it that’s not a lot of money, and he was hesitant to do it. He wanted others to help him justify a “NO” answer to his client. (Now we aren’t going to go into the argument that he would be making bank on the flip side of this deal, but that is a valid argument). Instead, I actually want to come at this from a marketing perspective, and talk about why he should say “yes”. Because at the end of the day, you can actually taken a listing and turn it into lead generation basically for free!

We’re gonna break this down into three different segments – your just listed activities, your open house activities, and your just sold activities – and in each of these segments, I am going to give you you three different activities that you could be doing to generate leads. Are you ready for this?