Lately, I've been focusing a lot on playing the "long game." To me, that means doing the prep work and putting in the extra effort to do things right, as opposed to throwing a quick solution at a problem just for the sake of doing something. I remember a football season a few years back where the Cleveland Browns were actually sneaking out some wins. By the numbers, it looked like a good season. They even almost found their way to the playoffs for the second time in many decades. However, if you looked a little closer, you could see it was a fluke. These wins weren't coming from a well-structured team with its plays and strategies in order. They were coming from one guy that was a master of the kickoff return (we miss you, Josh Cribbs) and some clever, trick plays here and there. Plays like that will make for a few wins and some really good-looking highlights, but they won't get you to the Super Bowl. To get there, you need a solid strategy. 

The same principle applies almost everywhere. In software development, there's often a quick answer that will technically solve the problem. However, if we follow the fast and easy path, we'll end up spending twice the time we saved up front trying to track down problems with it down the road. If we ever want to expand that functionality, and we almost always will eventually, it will take us longer sometimes. We may even need to rewrite what we did the first time around. But if we take our time and really think through what we're building, we end up with a better product on day one and something that's easier to expand and troubleshoot down the road.  

When it comes to running your real estate business, you can only return so many kickoffs by helping your cousin or your spouse's friend buy or sell a house so many times before you have to start writing the plays. Let's just say that putting in the time upfront to develop a marketing and customer retention strategy may not pay off right away, but it's the way that work pays off down the road that gets you to the top. 

I've laid out a little prep work to help get you started. Here are some strategies you need to start playing the long game. 

• Get a Domain Name

Not only does your website look more professional at something like harleysrealestate.com (instead of harleywolfarth.companyrealestate.com), but it can improve your website's search engine ranking, further promote your brand, and tends to be easier for customers to remember as well. Don't stop with the website though. You'll also want to set up hosted email through your domain. This extends that professional look to your email marketing by allowing you to send emails from an address like harley@harleysrealestate.com. The additional control you have over your email domain can even allow you to make more technical changes that can improve deliverability if you're into the technical side of things. You'll have to put in a little effort to get the domain and email configured, but maybe less than you'd think, and it's all a part of that strategy that will pay off in the long run.  

• Organize Customers Into Groups

Make sure to get your customers logically organized into groups, and keep them organized. Email marketing works best when it's sent to those that will be most receptive to it. Holiday emails can generally go to just about everyone, but you're not going to send an 'advice for buyers' email to customers that are only interested in selling their home. Why not extend that principle to everything you send? In addition to separating your customer database by buyers, sellers, those actively looking, and those looking in the next six months, organize your customers into groups based on whether or not they have young kids (interested in school districts), what zip codes they're interested in, what their budget ranges are, whether or not they're interested in lake houses, and so on. Putting the time into having your customers organized by as many criteria as possible really helps you target the messaging you send out to make sure it's going to those that are the most likely to be interested in it.  

• Set Up Automations

Automations are your best friend, and the perfect example of things that will take a little time to set up at first but will pay dividends later on. Once you have all of your customers set up for My Customer for Life emails, Saved Searches, and you're having an eCard go out to the appropriate clients whenever you get a new listing or schedule an open house, you will be surprised by the leads that come to you out of the blue. You'll start getting questions and replies on these emails you didn't even think about sending.  

In addition to the mostly buyer-centric automations, DeltaNET® offers some options for sellers as well. Along with the My Customer For Life emails being good for just about anyone (and dynamically updating their content on a per-customer basis based on their activity so they're targeting get right people with the right content all on their own), sellers will likely be interested in Market Watch Reports, a monthly report showing statistics for the market they're selling in, and will definitely be interested in Seller Reports as they show traffic information for their own listing.  

• Reach Out to Customers at the Right Time

This suggestion isn't about prep work ahead of time but definitely speaks to playing the long game. You might have a customer that's been in your database and was essentially inactive for years, but they start browsing your website out of nowhere because they're finally in the market for a new home. Those are the customers you want to keep an eye on and make sure you reach out to when the time is right. You could go into DeltaNET and run some searches for customers that have viewed properties in certain areas, or just look over your 'new customer' list, and that's not a bad idea. However, fortunately, there are some automations in DeltaNET to make this a bit easier for you. First, make sure your daily and monthly agent digest emails are turned on. These will periodically inform you of customer activity on your website so you know who to reach out to. There are additional automations that can reach out to the customer automatically when they perform certain actions on your website, like viewing the same property multiple times or visiting your site five times in one week. Those are great to trigger some initial engagement, but actually reaching out to them and having a real discussion is what leads to closings.  

In It For The Long Haul

You can get some closings in the short term by going through people you know without doing much of this legwork. But if you're really looking to grow your business, it's about maintaining your customer relationships for the long haul. Most people choose their real estate agent because it's someone they remember from having done business with them before. Providing a good experience throughout every transaction, then staying in touch (without going overboard) while they're not in the market, is what will keep them coming back to you and suggesting you to their friends and family. That's how you turn your real estate business into a business instead of a side hustle.