Harcourts Grenadier is the leading Harcourts franchise in the South Island. But like most real estate agencies, their busy agents are constantly challenged by the need to generate more listings to meet buyer demand and build healthy sales pipelines.
Tactical telemarketing
Anna Penny Moore, Grenadier’s Business Operations Officer, says that rather than task individual agents to cold call their catchment area, the business decided to take a more strategic approach. “While some of our offices had considered running their own outsourced telemarketing campaigns, we felt that it made more sense to undertake lead generation from a company perspective. That way, we could make sure our scripting, processes, and database protocols were consistent, compliant and well-coordinated.”
Doing a company-wide lead generation project using telemarketing was a new tactic for Grenadier. Over time, they had used radio and Google AdWords, digital advertising, and participated in collaborative franchise campaigns with varying levels of success.
A hot partner
Anna checked out several telemarketing companies as potential partners for their lead generation project, but until she met Hot Leads, she says she was singularly unimpressed. One company pre-invoiced her for just asking about their processes, before even taking the time to call her back. Anna was relieved to find that Hot Leads had a highly professional approach as well as real estate industry experience. And they could access and manage legally compliant databases, as well as understanding the restrictions they needed to work under to avoid encroaching on other franchise territories.
“Hot Leads has been great to deal with,” says Anna. “Their price structure is reasonable, and they knew how to accommodate our exacting database requirements.”
Results that count
When she compares the success of telemarketing to their other marketing tactics, Anna says it has generated much better results for Grenadier. “In the last three months, Hot Leads has made 98 appointments for our agents. The meetings have resulted in two sales, and we’ve secured five new listings. Even if a prospect isn’t ready to list their property, we know they are going to and can nurture the relationship until they’re ready to commit. These are opportunities we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Our management teams are all very pleased with how the campaign is tracking, and Hot Leads has most definitely exceeded our expectations.”