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We look at dozens of unique databases and CRMs every day. The system of categorisation that each database uses varies wildly from agent to agent. Categories can be a useful tool to segment your database when you’ve got hundreds or thousands of client contacts, to make sure you can target communication to specific groups of clients. Ensuring your categories are useful, scalable and don’t create more work for you in the long run, is crucial.
We’re going to discuss categories, why using too many are potentially harmful to your time and pocket, why a popular type of category is irrelevant, and then finally some category recommendations to make your database lean, mean and efficient.
Why too many categories are a bad thing
There is a philosophy shared among many agents, that the more categories you have the more organised you and your data can be. However, in most cases siphoning the data into tens of smaller niche databases, dilutes the data, and creates more opportunities for contacts to fall through the cracks towards database purgatory.
We have first-hand experience with databases that began with the best intention of keeping their data organised and sorted, only to have the upkeep become an afterthought amidst the agent’s busy day-to-day schedule. Having a high number of additional different categories requires a higher level of commitment to ensure clients don’t disappear through the cracks than if you use fewer, more specific category types.
Another thing that we see is the existence of useless, irrelevant or outdated categories. You might have some of these in your own database right now. Does ‘Christmas Card List’, or ‘Easter Colouring Competition’ sound familiar? To avoid these forever sitting in the database unused, any time you gain data from a competition or other, add it to a CSV and cross-check from there before entering it into the CRM. Once crosschecked, only add the owners in your CRM, they can go straight into your owner database. CRM filters can generate Christmas Card lists for you.
The suburb category fallacy
One of the biggest similarities we see from database to database is the use of suburb categories – categories designed to lump people from the same suburb together. Sometimes these categories are broken into smaller subcategories (“Brisbane – Owners”, “Brisbane – Investors” etc.). While this might seem like a rational way to sort your data on the outside, within a CRM there are very few reasons to do this without adding another layer of data obscurity. Your CRM has tools built in to sort by residency, postal address or both. If you make sure that these fields are filled and accurate, there is no reason to keep a category for the suburb.
In a few instances, agents like to further break down suburbs to communicate more relevantly to different pockets of owners. If you find it important to have a clear data pool based on area for whatever reason (perhaps a suburb has a highway running through it that you want to distinguish between clients that live on one side), check if your CRM has a ‘precinct’ tool to mark an area of focus, before turning to another category.
So what categories should I use?
We recommend keeping it strictly to the basics. The categories below are just about all of the information required to navigate your data.
- Property Owners (monitor core area sales and update ownership in the DB. Remember you’ve probably met the new owner at an open home!)
- Current Landlords (so you know who is looked after by your agency)
- Opposition Agent Landlords (BDM pipeline)
- Investor Buyers (BDM pipeline 2, Clients looking to buy an investment but haven’t bought yet)
- Pipeline: 0 – 3
- Pipeline: 3 – 6
- Pipeline: 6 – 12
- Pipeline: 12+ (must be moved to the other pipeline categories when relevant)
- Current Buyers*
*We recommend maintaining a strategy to communicate with Buyers to remove them or move them to Owners as soon as possible. Buyers are temporary, Potential Vendors are forever. Monitor unsubscribers as this likely means they’ve bought.
These nine categories are the most pertinent pieces of information you’ll need to separate by categories. Most other needs can be serviced through the functionality of your CRM. Each of these categories should have its own appropriate communication strategy that you approach them with. This small pool allows you to effectively manage them, and it is instantly clear who should be in each category with minimal upkeep.
Cleanliness is next to godliness
Databases and using the above-mentioned categories are robust ways to manage and track your data. However, no amount of categories will work if you don’t put the time in to maintain the data. Your primary goal with any piece of data should be to make sure all aspects are maintained and are done so in the same manner. This means keeping the same formatting for addresses (ST v Street, RD v Road), numbers (+614XX XXX XXX v 04XXXXXXXX etc) so your searches yield the relevant results. Tick and untick categories when they move through the pipeline. It is crucial that you remain vigilant in this regard or your database will fall into disarray and will begin to work against you.
If you’re using an open database…
If you’re using an open database, utilise the first point of contact (FPOC) or marketing contacts to identify who retains ‘ownership’ over the client. From there you can filter the contacts by their name, category, suburb or precinct as you see fit.
Just the important bits [TL;DR]
- Too many categories will dilute your data and make upkeep more difficult
- Suburb categories are too broad to be useful
- Your CRM already has the functionality to search for suburb-specific clients, provided your data is and remains clean
- The best minimum amount of categories to use in your database are:
- Property Owners (monitor core area sales and update ownership in the DB. Remember you’ve probably met the new owner at an open home!)
- Current Landlords (so you know who is looked after by your agency)
- Opposition Agent Landlords (BDM pipeline)
- Investor Buyers (BDM pipeline 2, Clients looking to buy an investment but haven’t bought yet)
- Pipeline: 0 – 3
- Pipeline: 3 – 6
- Pipeline: 6 – 12
- Pipeline: 12+ (must be moved to the other pipeline categories when relevant)
- Current Buyers (with a strategy to convert them into the Property Owners category when applicable)
- Property Owners (monitor core area sales and update ownership in the DB. Remember you’ve probably met the new owner at an open home!)
- Utilise your FPOC and marketing contact CRM functions to segregate your data to whoever owns it
We hope this has helped to explain some of the hiccups database categories creates and how to avoid facing them yourself. If there is something that this blog didn’t explore, and you’d like to receive further training for your team. Get in contact with us today!
