Many years ago, the mission statement here at Delta Media Group® was "Helping people do more through technology to make their lives easier." It's a bit of a mouthful, so we eventually reworked our mission statement to "We Automate to Elevate Life." Our entire company is driven by the idea of optimizing tasks and finding ways to give real estate professionals the most valuable thing we can: time.

For more than 30 years, our passion has been figuring out ways to make tools simpler, easier to use, and more effective — and ultimately give agents more time back in their day to spend with their loved ones or to double down and get more business done. The root of this passion takes shape in our CRM, DeltaNET®. Any good CRM software should have task automation, detailed analytics and reporting, and a level of intelligence that makes answering "what should I do today" easy.

CRM Features That Give You Time Back in Your Day

With more than a decade of sales experience, I want to break down how you can leverage a CRM, like DeltaNET, to get more time back in your day and maximize productivity — whether you're at your desk or on the go with a mobile app.

1. Segmentation Capabilities

A good CRM lets you seamlessly load a list of contacts and automatically begin nurturing them, with notifications to bring the agent back into the loop once someone engages. That's why the first and most important thing you can do to maximize your marketing efforts is take an hour to set up your automated marketing engine fully. What I mean is validating that your contact list is accurate and that you have segmented your clients into lists that make sense. Some examples of these segments include former buyers, former sellers, and friends and family.

2. Automated Email Drip Campaigns

Once you have your database segmented, it's easy to find platforms that offer out-of-the-box email drip campaigns, also known as action plans. In DeltaNET, we have campaigns designed for customers of all types. They're fleshed out with relevant content that's automatically branded for the real estate professional, and automated notifications can be sent to the agent when their clients open or click through the emails they've sent.

3. An AI-Driven Newsletter

You'll want more than just generic content running; you'll want content relevant to the customers' interests, too. That's where an AI-driven Newsletter like My Customer For Life (MCFL) comes in handy. Having the ability to send fresh content (new articles are uploaded weekly) directly relevant to your buyers, sellers, and homeowners allows you to have not just email content, but also automated social media posts running to your socials, so that's one less thing you have to worry about in your day.

4. Customizable Templates

What else can help optimize your time? Having access to customizable email templates for materials, such as new listing and open house flyers, birthday and anniversary cards, and market reports. Most marketing engines these days let you select from dozens of prebuilt templates that automatically load your logo, colors, and MLS data into the designs, so you don't need to build marketing materials manually.

5. An Easy-to-Understand Customer Dashboard

Something else a good CRM should do is present the data to you in easy-to-understand dashboards and customer lists. You shouldn't have to go digging through a huge list of contacts and try to decipher who you should be spending your time prospecting with, but rather open your database and see a list of "Active Customers" who have already been engaging with your automated marketing efforts. Taking an hour every day to reach out to the clients who are already paying attention to the information you're sending out is critical.

A Structured Morning of Prospecting

When it comes to structuring a day that I've designated as a "prospecting day," I've often found the most effective structure to be as follows:

8:00-9:00 am — Catch up on industry news. Find something relevant, local, and typical that you can use as your primary reason for reaching out to prospects.

9:00-9:30 am — Build a hyper-qualified list of prospects to reach out to. This is where analyzing your prospect list and seeing who is interacting with your more automated marketing efforts comes in handy. Once you've segmented your list of prospects for the day, you're ready for a call blitz.

9:30-11:30 am — This is a time set aside for uninterrupted, focused work. Working methodically through the list of prospects you've segmented for the day, you'll conduct a personalized "3-point of contact" outreach strategy. This means you'll make a phone call to check in with your prospect first. If no contact is made there, you'll shoot a text message, and if you don't receive a response within 30-60 seconds, you'll send an email as well. By trying your best to get in touch with that person and leaving a quick note about what you're reaching out about, you cover all your bases. A good CRM will allow you to move quickly through these contacts, repeating the steps as you go.

11:30-12:00 pm — This is usually when you should pause and review all the emails that came in that morning. The call prospecting time is designed to be uninterrupted, so that you can diligently mark that task off your day without getting distracted by other inbound emails.

AI Offers You More Time For Relationship-Building

We are on the precipice of "Agentic-AI." This is artificial intelligence that can act on its own, without even being prompted. As AI continues to evolve, these types of automations will only improve, giving you even more time back in your day. That's why mastering the human element and not being afraid to pick up the phone is so important. The key is to find ways to get time back in your day so you can spend it primarily building relationships.