I have always wondered how it can be that 90+% of agents can’t make the Internet work for them at delivering buyers when almost 90% of all home buyers search for their homes online.

After years of helping agents sell homes to Internet buyers, I have realized that (once you do the work to actually get Internet leads that are worth the name “lead”) it’s proper lead follow up technique that can make a huge difference to the agent’s success rate.

I’m convinced that many agents accidentally kill their leads. The thing of it is that brokers and agents kill their leads and don’t even realize they are doing so. While almost every broker and agent thinks they know how to follow up an Internet lead, many really don’t. Before explaining this, however, we need to set the ground rules:

What constitutes a real Internet lead? A real Internet lead is a customer-initiated contact from a real person who has seen something of interest on YOUR branded site and who submits their name, email address and/or phone number (often with a specific comment of what they want) to you for your response. It is these leads only that are worthy of the name, “real Internet leads.” All ‘leads’ are not created equal

Compare the preceding explanation of what constitutes a real Internet lead to this actual disclaimer of where some companies get ‘leads’ and sell them to you: “Consumers enter their information directly into our website and request to be contacted by a licensed agent; Consumers receive home valuations; satellite views of the neighborhood; research on schools, crime rates, and demographic information; and much, much more.” Oh, you bet there’s “much, much more:” in some cases, consumers may be sold to four different “licensed agents.”

Most consumers are not amused to find four agents trying to contact them or four agents flooding their inbox with flyers and junk mail auto-responders. With all due respect, a consumer looking for a “satellite view of the neighborhood,” “crime rates” and the like are far removed from a consumer asking you for a list of homes meeting their criteria, wouldn’t you say?

Also, (and this is one of the biggest things that should send you running in another direction) if you see something like this: “We reserve the right to sell each ‘lead’ up to four times” (or anything of that ilk) you should not expect much from any “lead” provided by such a service. Any real Internet lead belongs to you and only to you and is never shared or sold to anyone.

We are assuming that you are receiving real Internet leads for the purposes of this article. Here, then, are a few of the things my clients have taught me—the most successful ones—about how to successfully follow-up Internet leads without killing them.

The basics of proper Internet lead follow-up NAR tells us that 50% of all Internet leads are followed up in 54 hours; the other 50% are never followed up. Neither alternative is going to get the job done, today. Internet leads are vastly different than other kinds of leads for one essential reason: People using the Internet expect immediate answers. That’s why Google returns an answer in under one second. Think about it: does it make any sense that a person accustomed to receiving an answer from Google in one second will cheerfully wait a few days until you get around to calling them back?

1. The first factor in proper Internet lead follow-up is speed. Unfortunately no agent can control the transmission speed of leads from corporate or lead aggregators. If lead routing takes more than 15 minutes, the value of the lead declines more than 50%, according to an MIT study. If it takes a day to get a lead to you, it’s hardly worth the personal effort to follow-up; if the inquirer doesn’t hear back from you in a day or more, they are likely to forget why they signed in with you. Many buyers will actually be offended if not contacted promptly.

In order to be certain that you respond with maximum speed, be sure all your leads come directly to you from the Internet buyer; that they don’t get routed through a bureaucracy. Make sure they come to your phone (via SMS texting) and to your email. The moment you receive the lead—at the first opportunity—call the buyer and introduce yourself (if they want to be called). Gather information and schedule a time to talk later, if you are otherwise occupied. Your prospect will be gratified at your immediate response and you will have already out performed the vast majority of agents.

2. The second factor in proper Internet lead follow-up is personal contact. An auto responder email is not a personal contact and it should never be your first communication. Always try to make that first response by telephone unless they specifically instruct you otherwise. As to the phone, if they don’t pick up, leave a short message telling them that you are responding to their inquiry and mention what they specifically asked for. Ask them to call you so that you can provide whatever information they have asked for. Do not make one call and quit. Call them at least three times over the next 24 hours, after leaving your message. Be friendly, not pushy or irritated. If you don’t raise them, send them an email that says something like this:

Subject line of email: “Do you still want foreclosures in your CITY?”

Body of email: “Please let me know. I’m happy to help you.”

Your Name

Your email address

Your phone number

3. Never put an Internet lead into any drip email program without speaking to the prospect, first. In the routine monitoring of clients sites that we do, it came to our attention that one particular client had received 94 real Internet leads (some as direct as this: “What I want: raised ranch / at least 3 bedrooms up, 2 baths, heights area, $140000-$180000”) yet no one from the firm had directly contacted that lead. We made a follow-up call to find that instead of contacting these kinds of leads, the client was simply dumping them into their drip email system, where they would receive an email every week or so. No one was in charge of contacting each lead. The office manager just wanted them automated and off her desk. Legitimate buyers seeking specific properties were not being called back. We’d seldom seen such an efficient lead killer.

4. Never allow an untrained person to be in charge of lead follow-up. In their zeal to control all facets of the sale, some brokers do not allow agents access to leads, doling them out instead. Sometimes the broker charges for the lead, sometimes the broker extracts a larger portion of the commission if the lead comes to fruition; but almost always, the broker has a clerical person “holding on to the leads” until the broker decides which agent is to receive them (please see; Item 1 on this list). Worse, that person changes frequently and there is no continuity of response. This kills leads more efficiently than any other blanket practice. With a real Internet lead potentially representing a full commission, you’d think that they would be treated with more care, but most often they are not. Real Internet leads are customer-initiated contacts and a very valuable commodity. They’ve seen YOUR personal branded site, they’ve found something there that they want more information about, and they are requesting that information from you. The only thing better than such a lead is a direct client referral.

If your client called you with news of their friend looking for that ‘$180,000 home in the heights,’ you’d drop everything to contact them, wouldn’t you? Treat real Internet leads the same way and you’ll find yourself selling homes to them on a regular basis. If you accidentally kill your real Internet leads, however, someone else will be selling to them because they are real interested buyers and they want to talk to a real estate professional.

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Mike Parker has been writing about Internet marketing services and helping agents and brokers sell more homes for six years. You can reach him at mparker@theblackwatercg.com