A lot of REALTORS® aren't aware of important best practices when it comes to real estate contact management. Agents who excel in effective contact management forge strong relationships with their sphere and get the vast majority of their business from past clients in the form of repeat business and referrals. In this blog post we'll outline three keys to success when it comes to contact management for real estate agents and actionable insights you can start applying to your business right away.

1. Create a multi-channel keep in touch plan

You can't overestimate the value of a good, multi-channel keep in touch strategy. According to The Referral & Repeat Marketing Book, the three components to a successful referral and repeat marketing program are the right people, the right message, and the right frequency. When you create your keep in touch plan, you need to take these three components into consideration. Also remember that you should be in contact with the homeowners in your community at least 17 times per year. You can do this through phone calls, community events, direct mail, and email, as well as many other methods.

Implement a multi-channel approach by first segmenting your contacts into different groups, such as A-List, B-List, and C-List. Your A-List is your current and past clients, hot prospects, and those who have the potential to bring you the most referrals and repeat business. Your B-List is all the rest of the prospects in your database, and your C-List would be everyone else.

Communication channels like direct mail can be a bit more costly than other channels, while email, for instance, can be very inexpensive and isn't particularly time consuming. So you'll want to decide on the methods you're going to use to communicate with each group and the frequency, based on their value to you and cost/time considerations.