When Kristopher Larson created Best Utah Real Estate, an amalgamation of some of the top teams across Utah and beyond, his goal was to create a bullet proof tech stack that would bring in leads for his realtors no matter what the market conditions were.
“My main goal is to generate real estate leads for realtors on the the teams I work with. I show homes, but now I am mostly in the background using our tech stack like our HomeStack real estate app to make the phone ring as much as I can for my realtors.”
We sat down with Kristopher to dig into his formula that includes real estate tech, digital marketing and online advertising that has allowed his teams to stand out from their competitors, sell homes faster and help get top dollar for their clients.
What real estate technology has allowed you and your real estate to stay profitable in a market shift?
“At the start of 2023 we realized it was a weird time to be in real estate – but our growth over the last couple of years has still been outstanding. Last year alone we were at 32 million in sales volume and in 2023 we are already on track for 8 million and counting and most of our lead generation is from our website and our mobile real estate app.”
Your website and you mobile app…how do the two come together for consistent lead generation?
“I have a website, bestutahrealestate.com, which is the main lead source for my mobile app. We have a video about our real estate app (also on YouTube) and direct links to download.I have a different approach than most realtors, my strategy is to get people engaged however I possibly can. A lot of real estate agents use their website to“trap”, for example they can’t view a home unless they “sign up” or “log in” with their personal information. I take the opposite approach. I just try to get as many people on my website. This has worked well, so I took the same approach with my mobile real estate app. I don’t force people to sign up, I have browse mode on. This allows people to stay on my systems and keep using them. I make it as free and as easy as possible, so they are not bombarded by ads, calls or “tricking” them into getting their information.”
Best follow up methods, after someone downloads your real estate app?
“Many people still do choose to “sign up” for our real estate app, which is great, because those are. very warm leads. We also have several automated systems in place for our follow up. We have Follow Up Boss as our CRM, which is integrated with our Home Stack app. I also use another company called Higher Ava which immediately put them on a text drip and asks them pre-automated questions about their real estate interests. If they respond to a question, someone live takes over and will try to convert the lead for us.”
“Once the lead is converted it gets handed off to one of our real estate agents. We do this because we get so many real estate leads. If we only got 1-2 a day it would be manageable, but with 5-10 real estate leads per day it gets overwhelming to follow up.”
How do you gain users on your real estate app?
“Our website play a big role, but we created a cool YouTube video that has quite a few views on it. We also do Apple, Google and Facebook/Instagram ads… also outsource my design and video to a site called Fivver.com. I’ll record quick videos of my app on my phone, send it off to a designer from Fiverr that specializes in creating ads with video and it is very inexpensive. Go to my website bestutahrealestate.com and view my app video, I spent $150 dollars and it looks like I spent $1,000.”
How much is your ad spend and which of your channels performs the best?
“Facebook ads are about $10 per day, Apple ads range, but about $200-$500 per month, and then the majority of our spend goes towards Google ads which is about $1000 per month. A mixture of all of these is the best formula. For instance, if someone sees a Facebook ad, it sets a cookie, then Google takes over and starts showing your app ads and then if they are on the Apple App Store and searching for a home search app in your area my custom real estate app pops up for them. I try to hit avenue possible to stay in front of them.”
How does your Follow Up Boss CRM integrate and work with your real estate app?
“We picked Follow Up Boss for our real estate CRM because of the ease of use and the fact that it integrates so well with other software, especially our HomeStack real estate app. Once we integrated our app it was great to track a clients app activity, like what properties they viewed, favorited or saved right in our Follow Up Boss dashboard.”
We also set up automated Follow Up Boss campaigns. If a prospect views a homes in our mobile app, Follow Up Boss grabs that home, and automatically emails them the address and says “hey, do you want to set up a showing on this?” We set up lots of cool little drips to keep prospects engaged.”
Advice to a non-tech savvy realtor who wants to start to build a real estate tech stack for lead generation?
“Luckily with a HomeStack app and Follow up Boss integration it is easy to set up automated campaigns with templates in the Follow Up Boss community. Realtors share different campaigns and I go in, grab one and modify it for example “hey thanks for downloading my app”, instead of “thanks for signing up for my website”. You don’t have to be “techy” because Follow Up Boss and HomeStack make it so easy anyone can set it up.”
Some realtors hear $1000/month on ads and run scared. Talk to me about ROI and what yields the biggest results?
“The amount of money we spend compared to how many real estate transactions we do, is very small. In small business, they tell you, to set aside 10% for your marketing budget and we don’t even remotely spend that. You can start small, go on Facebook and spend $5 per day prompting your real estate app. This will get you app downloads and people will also start to follow your Facebook Business page. If start small and see some results, you feel good about spending money when you start to get a return on it and build from there.”
Advice to help people gain users on their real estate app?
“Don’t be scared to spend money on marketing. The that last thing you want is to build a mobile app that just sits there. Start small, spend a little money and take it form there. Also, don’t be invasive. I want people to use the app, I like allowing people to browse properties and when they are ready they can sign up or reach out to me -it is a much warmer lead. My picture and contact info are right there on their phone, reminding them I am their agent for when they are ready to make a move.”
