“All my leads have bad phone numbers!” Stop right there! I hear this all too often within my Inside Sales Agent (ISA) training sessions. My immediate response? Don’t throw them in the trash just yet. My goal is to change your perspective—from “bad leads” to massive opportunities!
In this article, I’ll share my highly effective Bad Phone Number Email Campaign. Use it to encourage your “bad leads” to respond with a good phone number and hopefully provide you with an explanation of where they are in their process.
Step 1: Be Quick to Confirm a Bad Phone Number
Fact: 30% of your leads are going to the wrong phone numbers.
Think about it. If ALL agents react by trashing these leads, there is virtually NO competition for them. Are you with me? As a result, these leads are actually highly valuable.
I continue to work multiple sources of leads in the most common customer relationship managers (CRMs) within the real estate industry, and the percentage of bad phone numbers across the board hasn’t changed since I started.
When I train dialing leads, my main focus is on efficiency. Working more leads in less time. Think of every dial being 23 seconds for each lead. That adds up to approximately four rings. If you are not eliminating the bad phone numbers from your call list, how much time are you wasting?
For every 100 dials, 30 will be a bad number. That is approximately 11 minutes of wasted time calling leads that you’ll never reach if you’re not eliminating them from your call lists.
How to Verify Bad Phone Numbers
Your very first dial will be longer than the 23 seconds because you are looking for a few things on that first initial attempt. These are:
- Does the dialer disconnect? (Attempt a manual call from a phone)
- Does the dialer ring through and NOT go to a voicemail? (Attempt a manual call)
- Does a voicemail pick up with the lead’s name as the message?
- Is it an automated voice message?
- Is it a landline? (i.e., “You have reached the Smith residence.”)
Taking the extra time with the first dial saves you a tremendous amount of time when dialing through the entire database.
Third-party dialers do not detect most bad phone numbers; it will just continue to ring or simply disconnect immediately. When this happens, have your ISA make a manual dial from an actual phone to verify if it is genuinely a bad number.
Step 2: Separate the Bad Phone Leads
Use your CRM tools to remove bad phone leads from your call list. I have compiled a list of ways to do this, depending on your system.
- Utilize a tagging system: If you don’t already have a tag, create a “Bad Phone” tag to apply after confirmation and make a note as to why the number is bad.
- Mark the number as a wrong number: In some CRMs, when a lead revisits their website, the lead is asked to reconfirm their phone number, increasing your chances of getting a good phone number.
- When building your call filters, remove bad phone leads by eliminating all leads tagged or marked as bad: Doing so will ensure a more efficient dialing experience, and you’ll be reaching out to leads who might just answer their phone.
- Build an automated bad phone number campaign.
My Highly Effective “Bad Phone Number” Email Campaign
Here it is—the campaign you have been waiting for! Remember, not every lead is going to respond. However, when ONE does, the quality of this lead is valuable because they have agreed to communicate by offering their correct phone number or explaining their situation.
This campaign is only my suggestion—copy it, use it, or tweak it to make it work with your personality. My style is setting my communication apart from other traditional emails. I want to be remembered and stand out for being different.
Notice square brackets in the action areas of the email. Review your CRM’s FAQ section to determine how your database automatically adds these fields to personalize or customize emails for mass action.
SEND IMMEDIATELY
Subject: Oops—I think we got something wrong!
Hello [First Name],
Is [CELLPHONE] your correct number?
We want to make sure we are sending suitable properties for you to review.
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
DAY 1
Subject: Where is your favorite location?
Hello [First Name],
I am just checking in one more time. Is [CELLPHONE] your correct number?
We still wanted to make sure of your property search and the area you are looking in. Do you have plans to purchase a property?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
DAY 3
Subject: Just wondering…?
Hello [First Name],
I’m just wondering what your situation is, and when you might be interested in looking at homes?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
DAY 7
Subject: We keep missing you!
Hello [First Name],
We/I don’t want to be a pain. We are just trying to get in touch with you, so we know what your situation is.
Call or text us AT [AGENT CELLPHONE]. We/I just want to be a helpful resource. When would you like to make a move? Next month? Next year?
Are we sending you the right properties?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
DAY 11
Subject: Another quick check-in
Hello [First Name],
You may just be looking, and that is great. We just want to make sure we are sending you properties that appeal to you.
Happy to have a conversation. Is your phone number [CELLPHONE]?
It is important to us that while you are just looking, we are sending the proper information.
Have a great day!
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
Day 16
Subject: Still viewing homes in [FAVORITE CITY]?
Hello [First Name],
This might be a stretch, and I may be sticking my neck out, but are you ready to look at homes? Looking forward to hearing from you!
Are you still viewing homes in [FAVORITE CITY]?
Have you checked out our Facebook page yet?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
Have fun with this! This sequence reflects how you may want to set up your email campaign, beginning with the first outreach, and followed by five more emails sent over the course of 16 days.
Step 3: Review the Bad Phone Lead’s Activity
I have to laugh when I hear agents complaining about THAT ONE LEAD who is always looking at properties but who never seems to reply.
It’s OK, really. You are offering a service to help them look at homes on the market. This is nothing more than a restaurant offering their menu online. Do you think restaurant owners get upset when you view their menu and go somewhere else to eat?
Action tip: What home did they last view? Send them an email with the listing included in the email and say:
Hello [First Name],
I saw this home on the market, and based on your criteria, I thought you might be interested in this one. If you are interested in seeing it, I can schedule a tour at your convenience. What do you think?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
Step 4: Be Consistent
Like fine wine, it becomes more valuable over time. So do your leads. Being consistent with communication is the key to increasing communication. Simply activating the email campaign and forgetting about your lead is not going to get the job done.
I like to know what is going on in my database. If you rely on campaigns, you aren’t paying close attention to your leads. You should have a filter to log in to your database and quickly access the bad phone leads.
If your CRM allows, sort by most recently active leads. You can see who has been viewing homes most recently—this is the easiest and best way to communicate and have control over responding. So, let’s take it a step further.
Send a Mass Email
Hey [First Name],
I see you have been looking at some great homes. When would you like to schedule a tour?
[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]
The idea of a quick, easy, single question is to get them to raise their hand. The more often you do this, the more often you are positioning yourself to get lucky. It is all about the timing and catching leads when they are ready. You have no idea of their time frame, and it is a numbers game.
If you never do it, you have zero chance of making contact. It literally takes minutes and costs you nothing. What is the harm in making this a process that you build into your system on a weekly basis?
Over to You
The funny thing is, we often think we have a great lead when we have a good phone number—but in reality, how many “good leads” fail to answer the phone? Pursue the “bad leads” with my email campaign. If you would like help organizing your CRM, setting up basic systems for your own ISAs, and my ISA scripts, you can download it all here.
Have a great tip for working with bad phone leads? Having trouble with bad phone leads? Let me know in the comments or call me for a private coaching session.
Tell us about you so we know what to send.
Beverly Ruffner owned a Mega Agent Keller Williams office where she and her team were in the top 5% of their market. Beverly trains agents on improving their lead conversion.
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