Frequently Asked Questions

Email automation for real estate is software that sends pre-written, personalized follow-up emails to your leads and past clients on a schedule, so you don't have to remember who to write to or start from a blank screen. Keystone goes a step further: the same sequence can include texts, call prompts, printed letters and handwritten cards.

Most agents fail at follow-up because it depends on memory and willpower, and both break down once you have more than a couple dozen people to keep track of. A system that tells you who to contact today and drafts the message removes most of the friction.

There's no magic number, and no one has a clean, trustworthy figure for it. What holds up in practice is that most leads aren't ready on the first or second touch, and most agents stop before the lead is. Plan for a long run of short, useful touches across email, text, calls and the occasional letter.

Send short, plain emails from your own address on a steady schedule, and stop the second someone replies. Keystone writes the sequences and puts each message on your Today list with the person's details filled in, then adds text, call prompts, letters and cards for the people who don't answer email.

Run a campaign for each kind of contact: new buyer leads, new seller leads, past clients, your sphere, open house visitors and a few seasonal touches. Each needs its own pace and tone. In Keystone every sequence comes written, so you pick one and add people.

A real estate drip campaign is a series of pre-planned messages that go out to a contact over time, spaced days or weeks apart. In Keystone each step is drafted and shows up on your Today list when it's due, and a reply stops the sequence.

Yes, when it's personal, timely follow-up instead of a generic monthly newsletter. Real estate decisions take months, and email is a cheap way to stay in front of people until they're ready. It works best alongside a text, a call or a note in the mail.

The 80/20 rule (the Pareto Principle) means roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities or clients. For agents, a small group of relationships, usually past clients, referrals and hot leads, tends to produce most of the commissions.

At a 6% total commission, a $500,000 sale generates $30,000, usually split between the listing and buyer sides. After a typical 70/30 brokerage split on one side, the agent earns about $10,500 before taxes and expenses.

The 5 P's of real estate are Property, Price, Promotion, Place, and People. Together they cover the home itself, pricing strategy, marketing, location and the relationships behind every deal.

The 3-3-3 rule in real estate is a rule of thumb with a few versions. For buyers it means judging a home after 3 days, 3 months and 3 years. For agents it means following up at 3 hours, 3 days and 3 weeks.

In many U.S. markets the slowest stretch is mid-winter, often January, when weather, school schedules and post-holiday budgets cool buyer activity. Warm-weather markets follow different patterns, and the buyers who do show up in winter tend to be motivated.

The 3-3-3 rule in marketing is a rule of thumb: you get about 3 seconds to catch attention, about 3 minutes to make your case, and it takes at least 3 touches before someone forms a real opinion. It points to repeated, consistent contact over one perfect message.

The 4 P's of email marketing are Purpose, Person, Personalization, and Persistence. Every email needs one clear goal, a specific reader in mind, details that make it feel individual, and a follow-up plan that goes past the first send.

A CRM is a database for managing contacts, deals and team activity. Follow-up automation is a narrower tool that decides who you should contact next and drafts the message. Keystone is the second kind: a follow-up layer that runs email, text, call prompts, letters and handwritten cards, not a full CRM.

It depends on which job eats your time. Follow-up tools like Keystone handle emails, texts, letters and cards to your contacts, full CRMs handle lead routing and pipelines, and app connectors link the tools you already use. New agents usually get the most from follow-up first.

Look for software that stops when someone replies, comes with the writing done, and sends from your own inbox. General newsletter tools make you build everything yourself, full CRMs add weight you may not need, and Keystone is a follow-up layer with the sequences already written.

Compare approaches before products. A full CRM suits teams and busy pipelines, a basic CRM suits agents who mostly need a contact list, and a follow-up layer like Keystone suits agents whose problem is staying in touch. Keystone isn't a CRM, and some agents use both.

The cheapest option isn't the lowest sticker price, it's the lowest total cost once you add seats, contact limits, texting, mailing and anything billed on top. Keystone is follow-up software, not a full CRM, and its Free plan costs $0 for 100 contacts, with paid plans at $49, $99 and $189 a month.

No. Keystone is follow-up software for residential real estate agents, not an investor CRM, so it has no deal analysis, skip tracing or buyer lists. It can help an investor who already has a list of owners and past contacts follow up by email, text, printed letter and handwritten card.

Keystone is built for residential agents, so it isn't a commercial CRM and has no lease tracking, property databases or deal pipelines. A commercial broker can still use it to keep in touch with owners, past clients and referral sources by email, text, call prompts, letters and handwritten cards.

Only partly. Keystone is follow-up software for residential agents, so it has no skip tracing, buyer lists or deal analysis, and it isn't built for bulk direct mail. It can follow up with owners you already have on a spreadsheet through email, text, call prompts, letters and handwritten cards.

Mailchimp is a general newsletter and email marketing tool. It works for sending a newsletter to your list, but it's built for broadcasts, not for following up with individual people. Keystone is a follow-up layer for agents that adds text, call prompts, letters and handwritten cards and stops a sequence when someone replies.

The return on follow-up automation depends on how many leads you work, how many you lose to silence today, and what a closing is worth to you. A simple break-even formula lets you plug in your own numbers, and often the answer is a fraction of one closing per year.

Keystone starts at $0 a month for 100 contacts, with paid plans at $49, $99 and $189 a month (20% less when billed annually). Full CRMs and general email marketing tools are priced differently and cover different ground, so compare what you'd actually use.

Free real estate tools fall into a few types: limited trials, generic business CRMs, and free plans of tools built for agents. What matters is what the free plan actually lets you do. Keystone's Free plan costs $0 and includes 100 contacts and 3 letters a month, with follow-up across email, text and call prompts.

Free plans for real estate software do exist, but they differ in what they cap and what you have to build yourself. Check for a time limit, a contact cap and whether the tool writes the follow-up for you. Keystone's Free plan is $0 with 100 contacts and 3 letters a month.

Reply detection stops a follow-up sequence the moment a contact writes back, so you never send "just checking in!" to someone who answered yesterday. In Keystone, a reply pauses that person's sequence and moves their message to the top of your list.

A good buyer follow-up sequence opens with a fast, specific reply, then delivers listings, neighborhood detail and pre-approval guidance over a couple of months, using email, text and calls. Keystone's buyer sequences come written and drop onto your daily Today list with each person's details filled in.

To create a real estate drip campaign, pick one audience, set one goal, map out the touches and spacing, write each message short and personal, and decide what stops the sequence. Keystone gives you the sequences already written and stops them automatically when someone replies.