It’s a great day when someone finds you or your listings online and begins an interaction. So often, though, a person is not on your website when they discover you. They’re driving past one of your properties, or seeing a print ad somewhere, or doing something other than browsing the internet.
In the olden days, we would send out a message to these people: “Call us at 1-800-555-1212 today!” That worked when everyone picked up the phone and called. Those days are gone. So we tried the internet alternative: “Visit our website at www.JimsManagement.com and click the Available Rentals button then find this unit from the list and click it!” That worked when it was novel, but again, those days are gone.
So how do we cross the channel from a yard sign to an engaged prospect? Text marketing comes to the rescue.
With text marketing, your yard sign, or offline ad, contains a message like “Text ‘Rental ABC’ to 555-1212”. The prospect whips out their phone, and although they might never have dialed your number, they’re happy to text you. You’ve just learned the secret of engaging the non-boomers of the world.
How does this work in Harmony? There are 4 different ways to engage prospects with text marketing, in 2 groups:
- Group 1: Engagement with a single unit
- Rental: The rental keyword provides the prospect your listing preface text/instructions and a link to the listing.
- Showing: The showing keyword provides the prospect with your showing preface text/instructions and a link to the listing.
- Group 2: Engagement with your company
- List: The list keyword provides the prospect with your list preface text and a link to all of your currently available listings.
- About: The about keyword provides the prospect with your about preface text, your custom About our Company content, and an optional link to a URL, typically a landing page optimized for converting prospects to clients.
Let’s dive a little deeper.
Your Company Short ID
Text marketing uses your company short ID as the basis for all text marketing. The short ID is a 4-5 character code that represents your company. You are automatically assigned a random short ID when you establish your Harmony account. If you’d like a more appealing one that better represents your company, you can order a custom code for a one-time charge of $50. For example, if your company is Jim’s Management, you might want the short ID “JIMS”. Before you engage with text marketing and publish any texting instructions, consider that changing your short ID would require that you reprint any resources.
Engagement with a Single Unit
When you publish the code to engage with a single unit (Rental or Showing), you have the option to use the unit’s individual ID, or recyclable codes.
Recyclable Codes
Pros of recyclable codes:
- They are shorter than unit IDs, and easier to enter.
- They are alphabetic, so the prospect doesn’t have to enter combinations of letters and numbers.
- They can be permanently printed on signs/riders and other printed materials, and reassigned to another unit when that one is off the market.
Cons of recyclable codes:
- You have to assign a recyclable code to a specific unit while it’s actively marketed.
- You have 75 codes, so if you have more than 75 units on the market at a time, you could run out of codes.
When you use recyclable codes, they consist of your company short ID plus 2 unique letters. In Harmony, select your unit, then select Media, then select use recyclable codes. You’ll see a list of all available codes, simply select one.
Instructions to Publish
Whether you use permanent (unit ID) or recyclable codes, the Media view will provide the information to publish for both rentals and showings, with the code to use and the 10DLC (texting number) to send to.
The Inquiry or Showing Request
When a prospect texts the keyword and code to the number, a few things happen:
- The prospect receives the text/instructions as you’ve configured in settings (Settings > My Account > Preferences), and the link to the specific listing. From this listing they can see videos and photos, inquire with more details, complete an application, and other options as configured in the unit listing.
- When the prospect texts the Rental keyword, you receive a prospect inquiry with their phone number, the unit they’re interested in, and the message that was automatically sent to them.
- When the prospect texts the Showing keyword, you’ll receive a prospect showing request with their phone number, the unit they’re interested in, and the message that was automatically sent to them.
Managing Inquiries and Showings
You don’t need to do anything with a text rental or showing inquiry. You can simply provide instructions for the prospect to self-manage the interaction. For example, your Rental preface could say, “Thanks for your interest. Please view the rental at the link below. If you are interested in proceeding, please complete an application online.” Your Showing preface could say, “Before scheduling a showing, we require that prospects drive by the unit and explore the neighborhood. View the rental at the link below for a map. After you have viewed the exterior in person, and the photos and video online, let us know.”
However, some people like to be more hands-on and interactive. For example, your Rental preface could say, “Here is a link to full details online. We will contact you shortly to see if you might be our next tenant!” Then, from the inquiry in Harmony, follow up by sending a text to the prospect to begin the discussion about renting to them.
Prospect Replies
When a prospect replies to the automated response, it will update their inquiry in your Harmony system. You’ll get an alert, and can view the updated information. For example, you might have a Showing preface that says, “Thanks for requesting a showing. Please reply with your full name and when you would like to see the unit.” When the prospect replies, this information updates the showing inquiry in Harmony.
CRM and Showings
Two of Harmony’s features, CRM and Showings, pair well with text inquiries on units. With CRM, you can send individual templated messages or put the prospect into a drip system that texts them periodically with different messages including your current rental list and reasons to rent from you. With Showings, you can schedule a showing activity with an agent, showing representative, or virtual system, add it to your calendar, share and receive appointment confirmations, track time spent, and much more. The full CRM and Showings systems are available in Harmony packages with management functions enabled.
Engagement with Your Company
When you publish the code to engage with your company (List or About), you always use your company’s short ID.
When a prospect texts your List code, they’ll receive your List preface, and a link to all of your currently available unit listings. This is typically used for prospective occupants/tenants.
When a prospect texts your About code, they’ll receive your About preface, your custom About our Company content, and an optional link to a URL. This URL is typically a specially constructed landing page on your website that is optimized for communicating to and capturing the interest of text marketing prospects. With Harmony Websites, you can make this landing page on your own, or request a project to have our team help you with it. This is typically used for prospective accounts/owners.
In either case, you’ll also have a new message in your Messages view that includes the number of the prospect, and the information that was automatically sent to them.
CRM
Once you have this prospect, you can add them to your prospects list and use the CRM system to follow up with custom templated messages, or put them into a prospect drip to periodically send texts that increase their engagement. This is available in all Harmony packages with management functions enabled. If you need help setting up campaigns, just let us know!
When the prospect eventually starts doing business with you, it’s easy to stop their drip (and, optionally, put them on a new client drip campaign), convert their prospect profile to an active profile and retain the history of all communications since day 1.
An Automated Employee to Build Your Business
At this point, you’re probably wondering how much it costs to add this new AI employee called text marketing. If you hired a person, it might cost $30k or more. However, this computerized system comes cheap. Each new text marketing inquiry is just 10 cents, and regular text messages are just a penny each, with your first 500 regular text messages free and included with your account (except with a pay-as-you-go account). For just a few dollars, you’ll be able to engage a segment of the market you might otherwise completely miss, and you’ll be able to increase automation and reduce the time your people spend manually drumming up interest and managing inquiries.