A Case Study : Broker Lead Generation and All-in-One Systems

Case Study

kunversion

Brokerage: Russell Real Estate Services

Market: Northern Ohio

Size: 9 offices and 625 sales associates

Website: russellrealty.com

Product: Kunversion (now kvCore—Inside Real Estate + Kunversion)

Jeff Russell is the broker/owner of Russell Real Estate Services in Strongville, Ohio – one of the largest regional, independent brokers in the State.

Russell had successfully led his brokerage for years, but about five years ago, he began running into more limitations with his technology. They began to notice their business changing, with prospective clients were coming to them much earlier in the sales process. “We needed stronger, smarter solutions,” said Russell.

“We needed something with behavioral marketing, prospecting tools, Facebook ads and squeeze pages—something that generates and captures leads, provides auto responses and cultivates to get them warm, so we can pass them along to the agents.” He knew he needed a solution that not only helped generate leads, but helped his sales associates with long-term follow up.

Three years ago, Russell searched the solutions available to solve these needs, and landed on the lead-gen platform Kunversion as the best choice. The task of transitioning his brokerage to a whole new system was overwhelming at first, but Jeff worked with the Kunversion team on training and onboarding until his entire company was up and running. His results have been impressive.

With the changes to his marketing program, Russell has seen seller leads increase. “We’ve probably generated 25 to 30 listings just from the seller lead section,” he said. Additionally, before Kunversion, he was paying $24 to $40 per lead. Since Kunversion, he’s seen that drop to $3 to $5 per lead, and the lead quality has improved.

Handling leads is part of the responsibility of his brokerage’s internet lead department. They have about 75 agents as part of that team. “If we get a lead on a listing, that lead goes to the listing agent; then we divide them by zip code and area,” he said. In real estate, long response times are always an issue. But with Kunversion, he said, if no agents answer via telephone, an email immediately goes out so the potential buyer or seller gets answers immediately.

What’s key, he said, is that “we can stay in touch and maintain relationships that may have otherwise fallen through the cracks. Right now, we have low inventory, so we adapted a ‘What’s My Home Worth,’ automated valuation model (AVM). Through Kunversion, we’re running ads to higher-end income brackets looking for people who may want to sell. We’ve generated a lot of listings above our averages sales price that way.”

Russell is also teaching agents about the importance of using the CRM. “I want them to make notes in the CRM every time they talk to a prospect. They need to call their top five people every day. The CRM notifies them who those people are,” said Russell.

Recently, Russell has been working with his agents to build squeeze pages, web pages that are segmented by interest, such as urban areas, lakefront homes, golf course communities and more. “Users register to get the information, and we blast out those pages on Facebook user groups that relate to the page’s interest. We’ve had a lot of engagement by doing that [plus our] normal Facebook ads,” he says.

Transition to kvCORE Platform

kunversion

Inside Real Estate recently released the new kvCORE Platform, which has been a beautiful result of the merger between Inside Real Estate and Kunversion over a year ago. Russell, like many other brokers in the industry, are excited for the enhanced and extended capabilities of the new platform.

With the transition to kvCORE, Russell will have even more tools at his disposal to drive higher lead volume and quality, stronger adoption with the smart CRM, and a more robust toolset to power his entire business. The best part is how all of these transition to kvCORE Platform:

  • An even wider set of solutions to run his entire business, including transaction management, billing, and other third-party solutions—all under one roof;
  • More mobile empowerment to this agents with a mobile dialer, and new mobile notifications;
  • An even smarter CRM that puts lead follow-up on autopilot not just for leads, but for SOI, helping agents maintain long-terms relationships with more prospects;
  • Ability to scale the solution to serve teams better; and
  • A Marketplace where other popular tools can be easily integrated, so the whole brokerage can be running off of one system.

“We’ve found success with the Kunversion product and can’t wait to transition over to the kvCORE Platform.”

Said Russell, who is converting to the new platform in the early Spring of 2018.

Contact:

Jeff Russell, broker/co-owner, Russell Real Estate Services, 9 offices; 625 agents, Strongsville, Ohio