New Tool for Recruiting Real Estate Agents to your Brokerage
Every Brokerage knows the importance of recruiting new agents. Over 90% of agents change their brokerage in their career, and it's important for any brokerage looking to grow their business to stay in constant contact with top agents in their area.
Key Statistics:
- 90% of Agents change their Brokerage in their Career
- 50% of Agents change their Brokerage in their career at least 3 times.
- 50% of Agents would consider changing their brokerage today
The bottom line is every brokerage needs to have a recruiting strategy. We all understand Real Estate is a relationship business. It's important not to lose sight how important it is to stay connected to top agents in your area (even if they are currently with a competitor) because eventually agents will think about switching brokerages, and they will ultimately reach out. So how do you "stay top of mind" with agents? Here is a tool you can use to do direct outreach and online marketing to ensure your brand stays in front of top agents - Agent Access.
How does Agent Access work?
First and most importantly Agent Access is a living database of all active Agents which includes information critical in deciding who to focus your efforts on recruiting including contact information, ratings, and estimated listing volume. In order to execute on any recruitment effort, it's important to track successful agents in your area, and ensure you maintain your marketing lists. Agent Access is a great tool for tracking this basic information, and building your marketing lists.
There are two primary ways to connect with Agents - 1) Direct Contact via Email or Phone and 2) Online Marketing. Depending on your strategy you may use one or both of these tactics.
Connecting with Agents Directly
If you are going to connect directly with agents it's important to have a clear and effective message on why they should respond or at least retain your pitch. Contacting Agents "cold" can have the potential of a negative reaction if your messaging isn't positioned correctly. For example, if you are hosting a recruiting event, or have a lead referral program - these could be a great way to make a first impression. Agent Access provides contact information that can be used to connect directly, but we also use this information to build custom audiences for Facebook and Google to target online ads as well.
Targeting Agents with Online Ads on Facebook and Google
The best way to ensure you brand is in front of agents that you want to recruit is through online advertising. You can build your custom audiences on Agent Access, and then import into Facebook and Google to deliver ads directly to Agents. Your ads need to highlight why they should connect with your brand, and have a strong call to action. The goal being that they click on your ad, fill out a form to learn more and you have a solid opt-in lead to pitch the value of your brokerage.
It's important to use a good combination of both direct and indirect marketing. Obviously every brokerage wants to be aggressive when recruiting agents, but you also need to make sure you are patient with your marketing. Once the agent sees your brand 20x times, you will have high retention and ultimately will being seeing more agents reaching out to learn more about your brokerage.
Agent Recrutiment Campaign Ideas
Here are some basic campaign ideas to use to engage agents to learn more about your brokerage
- Open House / Agent Recruitment Event - invite agents to come to an event at your office or another location as a meet & greet. You can import agents information into a service like EventBrite and host events throughout the year.
- Congratulations Email - Sending an email to agents that have recently listed or sold a property. It's always nice to receive a congratulations email (even from a competitor).
- Referral Lead - Obviously the best gift and way to open the door to an agent is a referral lead. It not only shows that you want to build a relationship but also your ability to be a great partner/broker.
- Testimonial Video - The best way to show someone what it is like for agents to be at your brokerage is a nice testimonial video from one of your existing agents. This can be used as content in the online ad as well as part of your overall branding emails.
- Success Announcements - Everyone is curious about how everyone else is doing in real estate. Announcing successful events of your current agents can show other agents what the experience is like working for you brokerage. It also makes your existing agents feel special too. Win-Win.
- Free Tools - Everyone like's "Free" stuff, especially if it is something that can help with their business. offrs.com Smart Apps is a great platform for launching / sharing apps for agents at no cost via their Smart Broker program.
To sign up for Agent Access go here: https://agentbyzip.com/landing_agentaccess.cfm and get the tour of the product. If you sign up, you choose which zip codes you want to access, and you immediately get access to agents in the area.
