The idea of using automation to improve business dates back more than one hundred years to the Industrial Revolution and emerged in popular consciousness through Henry Ford’s famous moving assembly line for the mass production of the Model T.
Today, automation is an ever-popular tech buzzword that delivers many incredible benefits. But when I think of automation, one thought always comes to mind: scale. For real estate brokerage and agents, automation helps scale marketing, a critical need to finding, winning, and closing more business.
While automation may get lost in the noise, it is still fruitful to take time to consider how your business can benefit from this hundred-plus-year-old idea.
As a marketing leader, four immediate benefits results from automation, whether for technology or real estate marketing.
Better efficiency and productivity
- By automating tasks such as email campaigns, social media posting, and lead follow-ups, businesses save an average of 6+ hours per week.
- Businesses can reduce marketing labor costs by 10-20% by automating repetitive tasks and applying the time to more productive tasks.
Improved lead management
- Businesses using automation report a 14.5% increase in lead generation on average.
- Automation can improve lead scoring and segmentation, resulting in more than 50% higher-quality leads.
Richer customer engagement
- Personalized and automated email campaigns can boost open rates by 29% compared to non-automated campaigns.
- Targeted automation campaigns see a 50-100% increase in click-through rates due to better audience segmentation.
Higher conversion rates
- Automated lead nurturing increases the conversion rate by 20% or more.
- Businesses report a reduction in the sales cycle length by 25-30% due to better nurturing and engagement.
Five Essential Marketing Automation Actions
As technology and tools have become increasingly sophisticated, the use cases for marketing automation have become endless. However, as I have learned more about the real estate industry, I see five essential actions to automate marketing tasks across the funnel.
Find More Deals
In today’s supply-constrained housing environment, finding sellers (and buyers) has become a numbers game. In real estate, being first really matters. According to the NAR 2023 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers Highlights report,
- 43% of buyers used an agent that a friend, neighbor, or relative referred to them,
- 71% of buyers who used an agent only interviewed one agent,
- 65% of sellers find their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor, or relative or used an agent they had worked with to buy or sell a home,
- And 81% percent of recent sellers contacted only one agent before finding the best one to sell their home.
While quality matters, brokers and agents should apply automation to increase their odds of winning listings or buyers through greater volume of interactions.
Essential Action #1: Automate lead generation using email marketing
While agents may want to handcraft emails to their best contacts, automated email marketing campaigns targeting the rest of their sphere increase the odds of finding the Glengarry Glen Ross leads.
The upfront effort to set up email campaigns for different occasions pays off in spades.
- Keep your brand at the forefront: an email campaign that consistently educates and informs your database is a great way to remind your database of your presence and value. MoxiWorks further automates the process with its Neighborhood News, a monthly market email drip campaign that provides localized housing market statistics and information by zip code or location that a broker or agent can set and forget.
- Trigger campaigns: Inserting a contact into a campaign based on an action they took, such as attending an open house or clicking on a website link, results in better engagement, as the email is sent in context.
- Date-sensitive campaigns: Another way to create relevant and engaging emails is to use the calendar to provide a reason to contact you. Campaigns built around seasonal changes, holidays, and birthdays are particularly effective. Once built, year-to-year maintenance is minimal.
- New contact introduction: When a new contact submits a form on your website or at your open house, drop it into an automated campaign. Add opportunities for your new clients to update their housing preferences and contact information right in the welcome email to make sure you know exactly what they are looking for.
- Surveys: Email campaigns can also gather information as an alternative means of engaging contacts. Use data discovery campaigns to ask about your contacts’ interests and intentions, update their contact data, and even request an appraisal or valuation.
Essential Action #2: Automate digital advertising to capture new leads
A critical marketing task is to update and grow your database consistently, as it can decay 20-30% annually. Common reasons for decay include contact information becoming out-of-date (moves, marriage, phone number or email changes, etc.) or a contact recently purchased or sold a home, taking them off the market for years.
Promoting your brand and services using digital advertising networks like Google or Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) can be fruitful but overwhelming. Modern digital advertising platforms built for real estate simplify tasks such as launching personalized campaigns to the right audience and managing advertising spend so you stay within a defined budget. With compelling branding campaigns that are always on, agents can quickly establish their local presence and attract more clients.
Win More Deals
Once you have captured a prospective seller’s or buyer’s attention, the next critical step is to win the business. Demonstrating an agent’s value and expertise in a quality, interactive manner is paramount.
Essential Action #3: Automate CMAs and seller / buyer presentations creation
Pre-building seller and buyer presentations templates with software tools that ensure that the content is automatically updated saves time and provides consistency and professional appearance. A little bit of upfront work allows you to develop interactive presentations for each new contact in less than ten minutes. The ideal template includes the following items:
- Your personal value proposition, including a description of your target buyer, the unique benefits you provide, and what differentiates you from other realtors.
- Testimonials from previous clients from sites like Zillow or Testimonial Tree. Your presentation should link to review sites, so the content is always up-to-date automatically.
- An overview of the selling or buying process, including the agent’s role.
- Links to forms, documents, and videos. As you update the content, make sure you use the same links, so the presentation templates automatically include the latest versions.
Make sure you use the CMAs and presentations you create as part of your broader marketing efforts – link to them in email campaigns, websites, texts, and QR codes.
Lastly, make sure your presentation builder is connected to the MLS so listing information is automatically updated in your CMAs, buyer tours, and pricing analyses that you have shared with clients.
Close More Details
Once you have secured a listing or buyers, the final priority is having the shortest path to closing a deal. While old-fashioned hustle will always be key, augment that hustle with digital automation.
Essential Action #4: Automate the promotion of new listings
Promoting a new listing is where an agent’s investment in learning how to use email automation and digital advertising software can further pay off.
A smart digital advertising platform can automate the promotion of a listing at key points in the selling journey, such as just listed, open houses, and just sold. Dynamic templates ensure a consistent brand presence and updated copy, saving agents time while maximizing exposure for their listings. The platform should also be able to hyper-localize advertising to specific cities and neighborhoods.
Similarly, a new listing can trigger an automated email campaign to promote it throughout the selling journey in your area. The campaign has the dual benefit of identifying additional potential sellers in your area.
Essential Action #5: Automate the creation of marketing collateral
Promoting a listing is hard work and time intensive. Automating the creation of all the collateral that can best promote your listings is game-changing in the life of an agent.
Brokers and agents should take advantage of marketing technology that connects to your listing data and automatically generates marketing materials, such as flyers, digital property tours, postcards, and social media posts, that are needed when a listing goes live.
You should never forget an update anytime the listing changes — all assets should be automatically updated. Leverage automation that delivers new materials automatically at key listing events: new listing, price change, open house, and just sold. Lastly, a brokerage can also automate sending a marketing guide to an agent that includes automated assets and recommended actions.
In 2025, automation will remain a powerful tool for brokerages and agents to scale their businesses. In addition to improving their gross commission income, MoxiWorks estimates that agents using its tools to find, win, and close more deals can save more than two weeks a year, time they can spend on what matters most to them.
To learn more about how MoxiWorks can help you automate your marketing and sales funnel, please talk to one of our experts.
