Guides·27 Feb 2023·10 min read

Real Estate Texting Guide

The "Real Estate Texting Guide" will help you step up your marketing with channels like SMS, MMS and WhatsApp, run from Salesforce.

Real estate marketing runs through a lot of channels: yard signs, open house flyers, agent websites, and cold calls that go straight to voicemail. What has changed is where buyers actually pay attention. A listing photo on a phone screen gets seen the moment it lands, and a text about a price drop or a new open house reaches someone while they can still act on it, not three days later when a postcard shows up. That is the shift this guide is built around: using SMS and WhatsApp as a direct line to buyers and sellers, instead of routing everything through channels built for a slower decade.

In the Real Estate Texting Guide, we will cover everything that you need to know to make the most out of your texting experience.

Why Texting works for Real Estate

High open rate

Text messages tend to get read within minutes of arriving, while inbox emails pile up unread for hours or days. Almost everyone including you (dear reader) receives at least 5-10 newsletter emails a day which affects the email's credibility. Therefore we are all used to just ignoring them and moving them to spam.

However, your SMS inbox probably has 0 notifications right now, which means that when you get a text you are more likely to open it. That is why text messages usually get opened within the first 3 to 5 minutes. The same will happen to your real estate SMS marketing too.

Texting is preferred

Several studies over the years have revealed that the majority of people prefer SMS notifications over emails, usually because they are shorter, easier to read, and only deliver essential information. However, with emails you have only a few regulations on the type of content, you can send, which is why marketers tend to go a bit over the top and lose critical information amongst long-form texts and image fillers.

It is cost-effective

Setting up a text marketing campaign is much more affordable than email or mail marketing and has a much higher lead-generating rate. If a person sees your ad, they are more likely to text a simple word to a short code rather than composing an entire email to ask for more information. Additionally, when you receive the text message, you can easily add their phone number to your list of potential leads and use it for future campaigns. For this don't forget to check out the "Law Compliance" section of this blog.

It is more personal

SMS is a much friendlier way of communication, even for real estate marketing. Compared to emails that tend to be quite professional, which makes it very difficult to bond with your potential customers. If you think about it we often receive text messages from friends or family, and people to who we decide to give our phone number. That is why when you receive a text you have good expectations unless you got into a fight with your partner.

Apart from that, text messages are much easier to use as a direct communication method. People rarely reply to marketing emails but are more open to starting a conversation through text simply because of how easy it is.

Additionally, text messaging is much more natural compared to emails. When you have been communicating through text, it is much easier for both parties to search through the conversation and find important information. Emails, on the other hand, require a bit more effort.

Easy access to text history

People receive large numbers of emails daily, which makes it much easier for you to get lost in newsletters and ads. Apart from that, spam filters don't always work as they should, and important emails can end up being sent straight to the spam folder. They will either be forgotten forever or get deleted.

With text marketing, a message rarely gets lost, and you can ensure that important information gets to the client as fast as possible. Spam filters built into default messaging apps are also much more flexible. If someone doesn't want to receive messages from you, they can easily unsubscribe, which doesn't happen very often because our team at ValueText will help you and share their experience to reduce the risk of people unsubscribing or marking your text as spam.

Tips & Best Practices

Opt-in

This strategy included in our Real Estate Texting Guide is quite popular, low-effort, and among the simplest to implement. You can invite people to text a simple word and receive real estate information. Which will give you the chance to find new leads and even turn them into customers.

Choose different keywords for every property or neighborhood, and include them on the sale sign or in your ads, with an invitation to text the given word for more information. In the response text, you can include some information regarding your business or an offer and a link to your sales page. You can even include photos via MMS, especially for recently remodeled properties or with some exceptional details.

Salesforce Mobile App

If you are using Salesforce you can simply text your customers by using the Salesforce mobile app. This will enable you to text your customer and have access to their related record in the same window.

Automation

The next step beyond this, however, is being able to automatically send SMS from Salesforce according to your business processes. Luckily, this is a feature that apps like ValueText offer out-of-the-box using native Salesforce tools. Whether you are a programmatic developer (you use Apex), or you are a declarative developer (you use Flow), there is a method you can use to automate SMS text messaging from Salesforce.

You can send your clients reminders about important appointments. For example, if you discussed visiting a property and want to remind your client about it a little in advance, you can schedule an SMS to be sent to them a day or at least a few hours before the meeting.

This will also make it much easier for you as you don't have to constantly check and remind prospects about an appointment manually. You can sync the automated SMS service to your online calendar and schedule it to send messages when a meeting is approaching. This way, you will have more time to prepare for the planned visit instead of focusing on small, tedious tasks such as having an extensive back-and-forth with the client over a call.

Chatbots

Chatbots are famous for providing services, and support to your customers 24/7. There is no more need for them to wait for the next available agent. Also, they can handle the queries of thousands of customers instantly as well as simultaneously. Which will improve your average response time

You can set up a Chatbot, to ask as many questions as you need to gather all the information that is needed on your side. Additionally, based on the answers given by your customer you can assign the conversation to a live agent. Let's say that a person is interested in an apartment in New York, once the chatbot is done collecting all the information it can assign this conversation to a specific agent responsible for all the apartments in New York. Make sure to check out this VIDEO to see how chatbots can be of use to you. Also, ValueText can create cases, and manage them, and more only with the help of chatbots.

Bulk Texting

Every Real Estate Texting Guide should cover bulk texting. Also known as SMS marketing, which is a marketing strategy that involves sending promotional text messages to a large group of subscribers simultaneously. This marketing method has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the high open rates and response rates of text messages.

In the real estate industry, bulk texting can be an effective tool for generating leads, building relationships with clients, and promoting new listings. By collecting phone numbers from interested buyers and sellers, real estate agents can send text messages with links to new listings, special promotions, and other updates.

Here are some ways that bulk texting is used in real estate:

1. Lead generation: Real estate agents can use bulk texting to generate leads by sending out text messages with links to landing pages where prospects can provide their contact information in exchange for more information.
2. Appointment reminders: Real estate agents can use bulk texting to remind clients of appointments, open houses, and other important events.
3. Listing promotions: Real estate agents can use bulk texting to promote new listings to potential buyers and sellers, along with details about the property and a link to view the listing.
4. Follow-up messages: Real estate agents can use bulk texting to follow up with clients after a showing or a meeting, providing additional information and answering any questions.
5. Client relationship building: Real estate agents can use bulk texting to stay in touch with clients and build relationships over time, sending updates on market trends and other relevant information.

Setting up a Phone Number

Real estate agencies often ask whether every agent needs a separate phone number for texting, and it comes down to how the brokerage wants to show up to clients. A team of 50 agents can run 50 individual numbers, so an agent's texts feel like they are coming from that person rather than a shared inbox. On top of that, most brokerages also set up one additional number reserved for the front office, the line clients reach when they message support rather than a specific agent. Smaller teams sometimes skip the per-agent setup entirely and run every conversation through a single shared number instead. Either model works: it depends on how much of the relationship should feel personal to one agent versus the brokerage as a whole.

Fallback Channel

Channel fallback deserves its own section because it decides whether a message actually reaches your buyer or seller. During onboarding, you set a channel order, say WhatsApp first and SMS second, and the system checks that order before sending anything.

Here is why it matters for real estate specifically: a listing update sent to 100 contacts might only reach 50 of them on WhatsApp, because the rest never installed it or turned notifications off. Instead of leaving those 50 people out, the system drops down to SMS for them automatically. Each contact gets exactly one message on whichever channel actually works for them, not two separate pings on two different apps. For an agent juggling dozens of active buyers, that difference is what keeps a follow-up from getting missed entirely.

Real Estate Texting Guide: Law Compliance

An unsolicited text or call counts as a violation of the law, and the penalties are set per message, which is what makes them add up. Under the TCPA a violation carries statutory damages of $500 per message, rising to $1,500 per message where the violation is wilful or knowing, and there is a private right of action, so the claim comes from the recipient rather than from a regulator. On a bulk send to a purchased list, that arithmetic is the whole risk. There are many laws to be compliant with and they all depend on the country you want to send messages. Below you can find detailed articles about different countries and their laws and regulations.

• "US's Laws for SMS Opt-in and Opt-out"
• "Canada's Texting Laws & Regulations (CASL)"
• "WhatsApp Business Rules & Regulations"
• "EU's Texting Laws & Regulations (GDPR)"

Conclusion

The Real Estate Texting Guide will not be complete if we don't emphasize the importance of remembering that bulk texting should be used strategically and in compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Real estate agents should always obtain permission from recipients before sending text messages and should provide clear opt-out options.

Additionally, to maximize the effectiveness of bulk texting, agents should use targeted messaging, personalized content, and clear calls to action. By using bulk texting in combination with other marketing strategies, such as social media and email marketing, real estate agents can create a comprehensive marketing plan that reaches potential clients at every stage of the buying or selling process.

To expand on the Real Estate Texting Guide Book a DEMO with ValueText's team. They can show you exactly how to achieve all of your use cases and everything above.