In the age of hyper-personalization and digital sales experiences, solutions like CRM help businesses in every industry step up their game. Real Estate CRM not only aggregates information, but its data can also be used to generate leads, convert clients, and automate processes so agents can close more deals and reach more buyers.

In this post, we’ll discuss eight of the most important benefits of CRM for real estate and how they contribute to smoother sales processes, and more personalized buyer interactions. If you’re thinking about acquiring a real estate CRM, keep these benefits in mind as you evaluate your potential solutions.

#1 Boost Lead Generation Efforts

CRM was born to boost lead generation. The capabilities included in real estate CRM enhance lead generation by allowing agents to properly track leads, opportunities, and deals. Analysis of the leads through detailed reporting informs smarter decisions on future lead generation efforts.

When integrated with other solutions, these lead generation capabilities are amplified. Connect social media and website data to better understand each lead’s intent and interests based on their interactions with your company. Use the power of AI to anticipate behaviors of new leads based on the actions of those with similar buyer personas. Connect your CRM data to your marketing automation to track demographics, lead time, campaign ROI, and other factors contributing to your lead volume.

#2 Simplify Document Generation

Real estate requires a lot of documents – contracts, deeds, closing statements, etc. CRM for real estate not only stores these important documents for easy accessibility and reference, but it can also help you simplify the creation of these documents with the ability to pull crucial data from a CRM contact’s account information. With this ability, agents are no longer forced to manually enter information and risk the possibility of an error. Automated document generation tools with eSignature are also standard add-on components to many CRM solutions.

#3 Standardize Approval Workflows

One of the coolest things about CRM is the ways it aligns processes. Approval workflows, for example, are business processes within the CRM that require agents to sign off on specific required actions throughout set stages of a process. Administrators can create approval workflows for however many processes they like. Not only do workflows align agents to a specific process, but they also keep management informed of the progress and automate tasks associated to the process in the appropriate stage. Standardizing contract approvals for example, by requiring the agent to gather certain documents, enter certain pieces of information into the CRM, or wait for sign off from a specific manager are just a few of the aspects you can incorporate into your approval workflows. CRM across the board is becoming more process-centric, with many offering advanced workflow capabilities to fit every stage of your real estate sales, marketing, and service process.

#4 Automate Business Processes for Efficiency

The ability to automate is one of the biggest benefits of real estate CRM for agents and commercial real estate organizations. Automation removes redundant tasks that can slow down the progress of closing a deal. Automated business processes can include everything from data entry automation to auto-logging phone calls and email interactions.

If a lead status changes, automated processes can update that information in the CRM without manual work. If a form is submitted through your website, that contact can be automatically created in your CRM. CRM automation can even trigger personalized emails about new listings or congratulatory emails to new buyers. Eliminating unnecessary manual data entry and client follow-up is a powerful tool to free up agents’ time and focus on revenue producing tasks.

#5 Advanced Security Features

The real estate sector works with a lot of personal data, so naturally, you want to ensure your client information is safeguarded – especially when it’s hosted in the Cloud. Real estate CRM provides the digital security features necessary to give your organization peace of mind and help you comply with regulations like GDPR. When you think of CRM security, you must think of it in two ways: the security of your information internally, and the security of your information externally. For internal security, CRMs provide several levels:

• Role based security that sets privileges for specific types of users
• Record based security that restricts access to certain records by unauthorized CRM users
• Field level security that restricts access to specific fields or entities

CRM companies recognize the fear of hosting data in the Cloud, which is why Cloud providers today have added serious external security features. The Cloud servers are massive and are backed up multiple times, so you never lose your data. In addition, alerts on phishing and malware attempts can be easily put in place, as well as encryption options, field audit trails, and event monitoring. Firewalls safeguard mobile CRM users when they’re in offline mode, so agents on-the-go won’t have to think twice.

When it comes to GDPR compliance, nearly every major CRM provider today offers features and functions to aid in consent management, bulk updates, and more. Be sure you understand the data privacy and security features of a CRM before you purchase to ensure your solution meets your specific criteria.

#6 Customer Profiling

Customer profiling uses a customer’s purchase history, demographic data, and psychological profiles to reveal who your customers are and what they care about. Customer profiling helps you take information about your customers from the data you gather and your external sources to target your marketing very tightly. Understanding the factors that define and influence different segments of customers helps teams more effectively recognize the patterns and behaviors that drive their purchases.

One example of how you might use customer profiling with CRM data is with AI. Let’s say your AI indicates that customers in the health and science testing field are good candidates for industrial office space right now. You can use your profiles to segment those customers and target specific messages to them. CRM data provides a large scope of information about customers and accounts, like the number of employees at a business, SIC industry codes they use, annual revenue, etc. You can filter this type of information to pinpoint your customer profiles for more effective marketing.

#7 Facilitate Checklist Management

There are specific processes you must go through for certain real estate transactions. For example, after you close a sale, you must tell the new tenants the move in policies for the building. Checklist management makes sure you notify the customer of all the things they must do to move in. Or, perhaps you lease a space and must make sure certain forms are signed, etc. Real estate CRM enables checklist management to ensure all your t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted in every real estate transaction.

#8 Create Integrated Marketing Solutions

A CRM solution provides the foundational data for improved marketing. CRMs also offer some basic marketing capabilities for automation and email interactions. However, the real power of CRM is in full force when it’s combined with a compatible marketing solution. Integrating your marketing automation with your real estate CRM amplifies your marketing and sales potential in new ways.

The combined metrics from the two solutions builds more complete customer profiles – which means more targeted marketing and better customer profiling. Insights on social media interactions, Web activities, and email campaigns is fed back into the CRM, giving agents the opportunity to see which channels work best for their targeted accounts. Automated lead scoring helps sales prioritize the leads most likely to convert. Marketing successes are measured based on CRM conversions, helping organizations uncover what’s actually working and what isn’t.

These are just a few of the MANY benefits of integrating CRM and marketing automation together. The more data you have at your fingertips, and the more data you can source from diverse resources, the better your marketing and sales outcomes will be. An integrated marketing solution is the key to unlocking that power.