Lead flow 2.0: How to adjust your follow-up sequences for each lead type

Managing a high volume of leads is a special kind of problem for real estate team leaders. With every new lead source you add, the harder it gets to track agent activity and ROI.

To keep your lead strategy profitable, you need a centralized system for capturing and converting incoming leads, while holding agents accountable. 

In this article, we’ll share real strategies for converting a high volume of leads at scale. Ready? Let’s get started.

How to scale follow-up across a range of lead types

In the words of Robert Slack, founder of Robert Slack Fine Homes, “People complain about online leads all the time. They buy them but they have no system for converting them. That’s like buying a Mercedes and not having enough for gas.”

To succeed in increasing conversion rates, you need a clear roadmap for winning with every type of lead. The following 5 strategies can help.

1. Centralize your lead sources

As a growing real estate team, it’s easy to give into the pressure of having to generate more and more leads to feed your agents. But do you have a clearly defined plan for how you’ll manage every incoming lead?

Start with the following:

• A single source of truth: All lead data, communication, and follow-up actions in one place—for example, your real estate CRM—means being able to  respond more quickly to incoming leads.
• Accountability and visibility: Track agent response times, engagement, and conversions.
• Lead routing and smart lists: Automate lead assignments and prioritization for better follow-up execution.

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2. Understand lead types and segmentation

Once you’ve got all your leads flowing into your CRM, the next step is to segment your database to make sure each individual is getting the follow-up they need when they need it.

We’ll be honest, when it comes to lead segmentation, there are endless approaches you can use based on your sources, market, and the way that you want to distribute your leads to the agents on your team.

Don’t already have a lead segmentation strategy? Here are 3 effective ways to get started.

• Segment by Cold, Warm, and Hot Leads: This simple breakdown can help you define and tag leads based on behavior and source.
• Set Lead Source Impacts: Adjust your follow-up based on whether leads come in via pay-per-click (PPC), 3rd party provider, referral, etc. to ensure a relevant experience.
• Smart Lists and Tags: If you’re already a Follow Up Boss user, use Smart Lists to automate lead segmentation so agents can keep their focus on the leads most likely to convert.

The way you segment your leads will always depend on your lead gen strategy. In Follow Up Boss, users have the option to use Lead Flow rules to automatically connect with new leads or Automations to keep in touch with existing leads.

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3. Customize follow-up sequences

Leads at different stages have different needs, but with an increase in volume comes greater demand for value-led follow up for every individual in your client database.

Let’s take a closer look at ways to adjust your follow-up sequences to assist with  better conversions for each lead type.

Cold leads

When it comes to converting leads at the very start of their real estate journey, it’s all about multi-touch nurturing using a combination of email, text, and phone. Making sure all leads are in your CRM along with accurate and accessible contact information. Creating a repeatable system for tracking the number of calls, follow-up tasks, and lead interactions with the goal of staying consistent.

Already a FUB user? Take advantage of Action Plans in FUB to automate long-term follow-up without overwhelming your agents.

Warm leads

With warm leads, it’s less about persistence and more about personalization. For real estate leads at this stage of the journey, use your drip campaigns to provide personalized emails and texts offering value—for example, by including tailored market updates or home search insights.

“Too many times in this business, we start talking about leads and we start getting so excited about the new people, not realizing that we’ve got 200, 500, or 1000 people that would actually take our calls… A lot of times, people think it sounds too simple. They want some magic bullet… but if you aren’t following up with the people that already like you, none of that other stuff will work,” says Christian Ross, Managing Broker at Engel & Völkers in Atlanta.

Leaders like Christian use Smart Lists to prioritize the highest-value prospects, so they can focus time and energy on the right people at the right time. And they don’t stop there.

Using Assigned Agent Handoff in Follow Up Boss, team leaders can make sure leads connect with a specific agent for better conversion—for example, by connecting leads from certain zip codes to agents who specialize in those areas.

Hot leads

Last but not least are everyone’s favorite: hot leads. With hot incoming leads, immediate response is everything. Make sure that any and all systems designed to support lightning-fast speed to lead are completely dialed in.

For example, you can set your lead flow rules to quickly dial and automate texts for ultra-fast connections with hot leads.

“Continued follow up has made the difference on all of our lead sources. Calling them once is not going to cut it. Calling them twice is not going to cut it either—but a continued follow-up is going to,” says Lauren Bowen, COO at Robert Slack Real Estate. With 16 lead sources and nearly 800 agents, experts like Lauren rely on FUB’s Instant Action Plans to connect with hot leads at scale.

4. Drive agent accountability

For successful real estate teams, agent accountability is where the rubber meets the road. To make sure you’re holding agents accountable for the actions that will take them forward, start by creating automated accountability checks directly in your CRM. 

For example, Albert Vasquez, Team Leader for AV Home Experts at Keller Williams Realty, uses lead routing based on prospects’ interest level—Hot, Warm or Cold—which helps determine the timeframe for the team’s follow-up cadence.

Here’s how it works:

• Agents gauge intent during their calls with prospects.
• Those that don’t show intent within the next 2-3 years are assigned to a long-term nurture cadence. 
• The team uses the Follow Up Boss Pixel to signal interest from leads based on website visits. 

With this pixel in place, agents can easily keep track of their “Watch list,” and make sure that even “Unresponsive” leads aren’t forgotten.

In Follow Up Boss, you can take advantage of several high-performance features for agent accountability, including:

• Response time tracking: Monitor how quickly agents respond to new leads.
• Activity reporting: Use FUB’s agent performance dashboard to identify gaps.
• Lead handoffs and reassignments: Ensure active follow-ups by reassigning stale leads when necessary.

5. Automate and scale follow-ups

Whissel Realty is a San Diego based team that sees up to 42 transactions in one day. With a large volume of leads, the leadership team at Whissel Realty uses bulk texting + dialer automations to follow up with hundreds of leads in hours. 

With the right automations and accountability frameworks in place, the team has everything they need to scale their lead strategies across dozens of agents and lead sources.

Here are just a few of the strategies to help you get there:

• Drip sequences vs. manual outreach: Create a clear process for knowing when to automate versus when to personalize.
• Automations in FUB: Use open systems to create workflows that scale, but still feel personal.
• Power dialer and bulk actions: With a super fast dialer and customizable bulk actions, large-scale teams can speed up outbound lead engagement as needed.

"We love Follow Up Boss because they play nice with virtually everybody out there...they'll integrate with everybody. Follow Up Boss is the hub of everything for us and then we add spokes from there," says Kyle Whissel, Owner at Whissel Realty.

Using the powerful combination of automation and personal touch, leaders like Kyle are consistently reaching $200MM and beyond.

Use Follow Up Boss to stay top-of-mind with every lead 

With the right automated sequences, you can stay in touch with buyers that have a longer timeline, help pinpoint engaged leads faster, and provide relevant check-ins to your past clients and sphere.

Keep your lead strategy profitable. Use the Smart Lists, Action Plans, and Automation Rules inside Follow Up Boss to help convert a high volume of leads at scale.

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