"VA Views" Blog, Email Marketing, Featured, Tools & Technology, WordPress

Turn Your Real Estate WordPress Website or Blog into a CRM Powerhouse

Have you thought about using WordPress as your main real estate website or blog? Are you concerned about not having the lead capture forms and automated contact management system built in? Well, I might have a solution for you!

I recently moved my real estate virtual assistant website from a standard site, and jumped in and got my own WordPress blog/website combo. I don’t have the need for as many lead capture points on my site, but I decided that I DID need to do a better job at collecting visitor information, needs, wants, and I wanted a way to streamline the process, build my relationships, as well as build in some email marketing capabilities which I hope to add into my action plans as well. I’m no web designer/guru and I didn’t want to spend a ton more money on another CRM solution.

In looking over my options I quickly made the realization that there aren’t an outstanding number of real estate CRM systems that are quite equipped to handle many of the things traditional real estate websites do, it takes some extra additions. For example the challenges might be:

1. Adding lead capture forms to your blog that include What’s Your Home’s Value, Dream Home Finder, Market Stat Reports, or your Company newsletter/new listing alerts
2. Converting seller/buyer leads from your website to add to Top Producer or Outlook (requires manual input)
3. Based on contact type you have to input the contact info to your drip campaign, e-newsletter etc.

Before you know it, you are managing multiple accounts for your website and blog etc. That is not streamlining! So, here is the most affordable solution I have found so far, and will be adding it to my online business management systems. By using the user-friendly system Batchbook I can create a customizable CRM powerhouse for my business.

For $9.95 per month I have the ability to:

• Create customizable lead capture forms that AUTOMATICALLY are added to my contact management list for that form. (no need to add it to another system).
• Automatically create and send email marketing campaigns through my Mail Chimp account (Mail Chimp is free up to 5000 emails a month, with upgradable accounts).
• Track communications of my contacts and create TO DO lists.
• Import and Export my Outlook and Gmail contacts.
• Enter information such as Twitter usernames, Twitter feeds, blog feeds and LinkedIn profile URLs (plus many others!) on a contact record.
• Log emails, phone call notes, or any other communications with your contacts.
• Use a list to easily generate mailing labels, export, or back up your data or create customized, printable reports from your contact data. Use these reports to generate call lists, add to presentations or to take notes when you’re traveling, in the field, or working off-line.
• Super-Tag your contact types so you can easily sort them by birthday month, anniversary, buyer, seller, past client etc.
• Have your emails delivered to your mobile iphone, Blackberry or smartphone with the email forwarding so you never miss an email from a lead.

If you are thinking about your current CRM system, or need something to enhance your WordPress blog or website, (or another web platform) and need a great way to streamline, I definitely recommend taking a look at Batchbook. (and check out my sleek capture form below as an example..its easier than adding a widget!)