A Seattle agent, tired of mainstream options, spent two years developing a software solution to help agents generate leads, manage contacts and market listings. And it has the potential to be a worthy competitor in its category.
Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
Zephyr Leads is a lead-generation, marketing and CRM solution for agents, brokers and teams.
Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: All size brokerages, teams, and agents
Top selling points
- Agent-developed and led
- Feature-to-dollar value
- Unique marketing efficiencies
- Range of included features
- Scalability
Top concerns
The company will likely go through some growing pains as it learns to execute services and scale support; but value and one-on-one attention might overcome those minor risks.
What you should know
I wish I was as motivated as Connie Ly, the Seattle-area mom-associate broker-software developer behind Zephyr Leads, a robust real estate marketing and sales solution.
Over two years, Ly worked with a team of developers to build her product, which like many today, combines lead generating IDX websites with a CRM and a parade of automated marketing tools.
Overall, it’s an impressive bit of engineering further along than I think even Ly realizes, because it’s just now officially open for business.
The feature list is long and not totally unique. However, there are some sharp little corners of innovation and feature execution that clearly demonstrate Ly is in touch with the of pains every-day agents. There’s value in that.
For example, Zephyr Leads provides helpful pop-up cards with a list of recommended headline options for your Facebook posts, single property website titles, home value pages and other marketing efforts. (Ask any writer how long she or he waffles on effective headline copy.)
BombBomb‘s video email is included with every account level, as are more than 400 automated marketing messaging templates to streamline new buyer registration follow-up, current lead touches, and long-term relationship management.
Zephyr Leads’s CRM comes with lead scoring, one-click “quick-action” from the dashboard, and a deep library of contact labels, or tag options to classify and categorize.
Diving into an individual contact page reminded me of a resume. It pulls in system-wide data points, from transactions to original lead source, related tasks, reminders, even the answers to the original lead capture questionnaire.
It uses a tabbed menu structure to review touch history by type (text, email, phone) to track what’s more effective and smartly silo every instance of communication.
Agents can check each contact’s relationship grade, based closely on Buffini & Company’s referral system.
A single on/off toggle lets you turn-off all notifications to ensure a contact isn’t continuing to be fed content once no longer worth pursuing. (As the number of contact channels grow in today’s proptech offerings, unwanted outreach can be damaging.)
Zephyr Leads comes with 30 different Action Plans based on contact type and status.
There’s a “mini transaction desk.” It’s not digital transaction management or back-office accounting, but provides a document library, record of commission structure, important dates, people, and workflow management. It monitors the pulse of the deal.
Agents can launch and edit one of seven mobile-ready website templates. I would expect them to grow.
The designs aren’t anything you haven’t seen before, but do come with an easy landing page builder, one-click single property websites, neighborhood-specific landing pages, property valuation lead captures, on-page tour scheduling, and payment calculators. Ly said she aims for every site to be able to load in under six seconds.
Buyers who register on an agent’s site can save listings through an account wishlist. They can share it, add comments, and its activity is tracked on the back-end.
What else is included?
- power dialer
- prewritten blog content
- Facebook’s Dynamic Ads for Real Estate (DARE)
- Open house sign-in forms
- Seller Suite for listing activity reports
- Behavioral messaging
Zephyr Leads is a value decision. There is almost nothing not thought of here, and a lot of what is is very well thought-out.
There’s even a 100-article Zendesk-based helpdesk and video guide.
Again, it’s been two years of late nights, busy weekends, and surely a lot of money spent by Ly to solve problems for her and her industry colleagues. That’s not to be taken lightly.
You’ll no doubt run into a few hiccups in Zephyr Leads. I found a couple of crowded interfaces, and I’m always concerned about support and onboarding. Feature bloat can’t be overlooked, either.
Then again, maybe systems like this, which all started with the onset of “CRMs,” have become the norm, and we need to find a new category label. (AOS: Agent Operating System?) (BBS: Brokerage Business Solution?)
Whatever you want to call them, systems like LionDesk, Chime, Brivity, Command, CINC, BoomTown, and their ilk have clearly influenced Ms. Ly.
Now she wants to do the same for your business.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
Are you ready for what the industry holds in 2020? Inman Connect New York is your key to unlocking opportunity in a changing market. At Connect you will gain insight into the future, discover new strategies and network with real estate’s best and brightest to accelerate your business. Create your 2020 success story at Inman Connect New York, January 28-31, 2020.
Agenda | Speakers | Past Connect Videos
Thinking of bringing your team? There are special onsite perks and discounts when you buy tickets together. Contact us to find out more.
Comments