Many real estate agents spend a lot of time and money marketing new prospects, while completely overlooking the best ones they have; old ones. We all realize the importance of acquiring new clients, but how many of us truly grasp the importance of not only retaining old ones, but actually expanding on those relationships?

The cost of acquiring new customers is escalating, no matter the industry; real estate, mortgage financing, land development, etc. On the other hand, marketing to past customers is less expensive and is at least as profitable.

Consider this; the average home owner is likely to purchase and/or sell 4-5 houses in their life time. So, if you sell them one property why not establish them as life time customers and assist in the buying and selling of the others. For the most part each time they buy or sell they step up in price range and affordability, excepting of course perhaps their last and final transaction – a retirement home.

So, why are former clients so overlooked? Personally, it was because I was driven to close on the next deal and knew that it would be years before a closed client would be ready to sell. However, my rational was very short sighted!

Typically, closed clients are happy with you and your services, so there is a greater chance that they will come back to you for future transactions – if you give them reasons to. Also, they are usually eager to refer colleagues, relatives, co-workers, and friends to you. There’s almost no end to the number of referrals a satisfied customer will give.

So, a mind shift to building long term relationships with “closed” buyers/sellers is in order. Instead of abandoning clients after a sale continue nurturing the relationships by maintaining routine and ongoing contact with them, which will help you to protect them from your competitors. Remember, if you’re not taking care of them somebody else is.

Keeping in contact and maintaining relationships with “closed clients” is really kind of easy. You could call just to say “hi” every other month and drop them something in the mail in the off months. It could be as simple as a post card, an anniversary card celebrating the date of their closing on their house, a letter recognizing the graduation of their son from high school, or daughter moving on to the first grade.

It doesn’t have to be expensive, just personal!

Safeguard your relationships with past clients by continuing to nurture relations with them. When you continue to show them love and how much you appreciate them they’ll continue to show you the same.

Have you had the unpleasant experience yet of a past client transacting a real estate deal with another agent? I have and it hurts! I felt abandoned and betrayed – yep, it was that personal. However, in truth it was I who had abandoned them. That’s when I smartened up and made the mind shift to building long term relationships with my “closed” and existing clients.

When was the last time you followed up with your sphere of influence? Successful real estate agents not only send regular (e.g. monthly) newsletters, but also make personal contact with their best referral partners and past clients. It’s a tough real estate market right now. There’s no better time to position yourself as a specialist in your local market by helping your family, friends and colleagues navigate through these murky waters. Here are six ways to get back in touch with your sphere of influence.

1. Publish a monthly newsletter – If you don’t offer a monthly newsletter, commit to starting one. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes – what would they be interested in reading about? Mortgage rates? Securing a loan? Major construction in your neighborhood? New zoning laws? Problems with pests? Ways to increase the value of their home? Promotional offers from local businesses? There are so many ideas you can use, but you have to commit to getting started and taking action.

2. Invite one past client for lunch or coffee each week – NAR statistics show that 83% of clients say they would use their real estate agent again but only 11% do. Why? Because agents aren’t keeping in touch.

3. Determine who your best referral sources are – who has sent you the most referrals? Have you thanked them and shown your appreciation recently?

4. Establish business referral partners – Who in your sphere of influence is in a position to send you referrals but hasn’t yet? Look for people who aren’t direct competitors (e.g. other agents) like movers, appraisers, mortgage brokers, attorneys, etc. Now, how can you start building relationships with them so they do refer you business? Can you invite them to golf? Monitor the local paper for articles about their company? Send them a “saw this and thought of you” gift/article?

5. Hold an event – You don’t need to wait until the holidays to hold a VIP party for your best clients and referral partners. If you talk with your sphere of influence and find many have similar questions, can you create a conference or tele-seminar event to answer their questions?

6. Connect with inactive prospects – Check back in with all those people who dropped off your radar. Send them an email or leave voice mail. Are they still interested in buying or selling? Have they moved yet? Do they have any real estate questions?

One platform that has led to a ton of new leads and business for our real estate marketing firm is Facebook pages. As you probably know, Facebook is one of the top most visited websites around the world, and it has become a central hub for networking with clients and other professionals.

However, it is important to keep in mind that most people using it are doing so at their own leisure, and typically aren’t looking for a product or service to buy. Therefore, there are certain key strategies that you must follow in order to grab a prospect’s attention and capture their contact information for future follow-up.

When using Facebook as a part of your real estate marketing plan, it is important to create a page that provides basic information on who you are, what you provide, and how people can access your free content in the least amount of steps possible.

Unfortunately, many agents and brokers will slap together a page, and include 4 or 5 different tabs of offers or IDX property search functionality to the point of complete distraction. Instead, it is crucial that your landing page provides a very enticing and clear-cut offer that people can access instantly.

Typically, you will want to have visitors “like” your page first in order to obtain your “something of value.” This could be a weekly list of foreclosure properties, updated weekly search results, a free report on improving credit, etc. In addition, some people also prefer to include some type of email lead capture form so that they can obtain contact information right off the bat.

Although the latter real estate marketing strategy may produce some higher quality leads, chances are that you will have less people opt in if you decide to implement this tactic as well. Plus, once somebody “likes” your page, you will then have them in your database for future contact anyways, so this may not be necessary.

Here’s how this concept works. One thing that we recommend for real estate professionals to do is include an RSS feed from their main blog that uploads new material anytime an update is made. By doing so, this information will post to your page’s wall and users will be updated within their news feeds.

In turn, this will direct prospects back to your main real estate marketing blog where you can start to build a relationship and offer other pieces of free content. Within that content or sidebar offer, you will then be able to include links or opt in forms to capture their information after trust and rapport have been established.

Additionally, please remember that many people are not ready to buy or sell right now. So many business opportunities can be lost by trying to go after the hottest leads only. Though these should certainly be given priority, there is a lot of money left on the table if you decide to neglect those who will contact you 6 months, 1 year, or even more down the road.

Therefore, learn the art of providing high quality and long-term value to each person that visits your Facebook page and you will begin to realize a drastic increase in your traffic and conversions for your real estate marketing efforts.