By Halo Programs
Most of an agent’s next business is likely to come from people who already know them. The hard part is staying in touch for the years between one move and the next.
In the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, two of every three sellers found their agent through a relationship: 29% used an agent they had worked with before, and 37% were referred by a friend, neighbor or relative. That is the case for sphere of influence real estate marketing. Your sphere is everyone who already knows and trusts you: past clients, friends, family and the people you meet through work and community. Marketing to it means staying in regular, useful contact, so that when one of them, or someone they know, is ready to move, you are the name they think of first.
Why sphere of influence real estate marketing works
| NAR 2025 figure | Share | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Sellers who used an agent they had used before | 29% | How sellers found their agent |
| Sellers referred by a friend, neighbor or relative | 37% | How sellers found their agent |
| Repeat buyers who used the agent they had worked with before | 18% | How repeat buyers found their agent |
| Repeat buyers who were referred | 41% | How repeat buyers found their agent |
| Recent buyers who would use their agent again or recommend them | 91% | Willingness, asked within a year of buying |
| Recent buyers who had already recommended their agent | 62% | Referrals already made, within a year of buying |
These figures answer different questions, so read them with care. The 91% is what recent buyers say about their willingness to use their agent again or recommend them. The 18% describes a different group, buyers who had bought before, and which agent they chose this time. The survey does not follow the same people over the years, so the gap between the two numbers does not prove that clients forgot their agent.
What the figures do show is that a relationship pays off in two ways: a client comes back, or a client sends someone else. Referrals are the bigger of the two. Among recent buyers, 62% had already recommended their agent within a year of buying, and 41% of repeat buyers came to their agent through a referral. For a past client, the right ask is “come back or send a referral.” Someone who never moves again can still send you the friend who does.
Who is in your sphere
| Group | What they need from you | How often to be in touch |
|---|---|---|
| Past clients | Proof you remember them: their closing anniversary, their home, their neighborhood | Regular email, and mail several times a year |
| Friends and family | To know what you do and who you help, without a sales pitch at every gathering | Regular email; personal contact as it comes |
| People who know you through work and community | A clear, occasional reminder that you are in real estate | A few times a year |
| Other professionals: lenders, inspectors, attorneys | Someone reliable to send their own clients to | In person and by phone; co-branded pieces where it fits |
Start with past clients. They are the group with the clearest reason to hear from you, and the one most agents let go first.
Build one clean list before you send anything
- One list, not five. Contacts in your phone, an old spreadsheet, your transaction system and a past brokerage’s CRM need to become one list, with duplicates merged.
- One record per household. Two cards to the same couple look careless.
- Current addresses. A past client who has moved is now a past client in a new home. Update the address rather than deleting the person.
- A note on each person. How you know them, the property, the closing date. Those details are what make the next message personal.
- Opt-outs honored. Anyone who asked not to hear from you stays off every campaign.
What a year of sphere marketing can look like
The goal is steady contact that is about the client, with an occasional, plain reminder that you welcome referrals. This is an illustrative year that any agent could run; RealEstateHalo’s own program is described further down.
| When | Piece | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Right after closing | Thank-you card and a short satisfaction survey | Starts the relationship on a good note, and finds any problem early |
| Through the year | Personalized email | Keeps your name and number current without asking for anything |
| Holidays | Seasonal eCards | A light touch that is clearly from you |
| Closing anniversary | A card or eCard | The one date that is about this client and this home |
| Late in the year | A printed calendar for the coming year | Sits on the refrigerator with your name on it for twelve months |
| When you list or sell nearby | Just Listed and Just Sold postcards | Shows you are active in their area, and reaches their neighbors too |
Sphere marketing and neighborhood farming work together
Farming is marketing to a chosen neighborhood, usually by mail, so that the people who live there come to know your name and see you as the agent who knows their area. Sphere marketing keeps the relationships you already have. They do different jobs, and they support each other:
- Past-client follow-up keeps you remembered by people who already trust you, so they come back or send a referral.
- Neighborhood postcards introduce you to people who do not know you yet. A Just Listed or Just Sold postcard around a client’s home shows real activity on their street, and a regular farm mailing builds recognition over time.
- Each one feeds the other. Every sale to a past client or a referral gives you a reason to mail that client’s neighbors, and every neighbor who becomes a client joins your sphere.
Farming takes consistency, so choose an area you can mail regularly and judge it over a full year or more. Halo offers both: the past-client program described below, and neighborhood postcards and other printed pieces through its print and mail services.
How to tell if it is working
Track your own business over time rather than comparing yourself with a national figure. Record where every new client came from: a past client coming back, a referral and from whom, a farm postcard, a sign call, a portal lead. Then, each year, count:
- Repeat business: past clients who bought or sold with you again.
- Referrals: people sent to you, by the person who sent them.
- Resulting transactions: how many of those repeat clients and referrals closed.
Compare each year with the one before. If the numbers grow as your sphere grows, the contact is working. Thank every person who sends you a referral, whether or not it closes.
How RealEstateHalo handles it
RealEstateHalo is real estate CRM and marketing automation built around this pattern, with Halo’s team doing the work. Every contact starts on done-for-you, personalized email marketing, which even a new agent can use before the first listing. When the agent lists a home, Just Listed postcards; when it sells, Just Sold postcards.
A past client can then move into RealEstateHalo’s 3, 5 or 7 year client follow-up program. In the first two weeks it sends a thank-you card, two satisfaction survey emails and a printed survey. Each year of the program it sends a refrigerator calendar in November, two text messages, a personalized email, a closing-anniversary card or eCard, and seasonal and agent promotion eCards. From the second year a greeting card or an agent promotion postcard is added, and lead-generating surveys in later years ask about plans to move. When the program ends, the client returns to email marketing.
Email marketing is part of every plan. Just Listed and Just Sold postcards and the multi-year follow-up programs are ordered from the Marketing Store and priced separately.
Halo has run retention programs for real estate since 1973. Agents and teams can start online: View Plans & Get Started. Brokerages that want sphere marketing for every agent on the roster can Book a Demo, and can read more about RealEstateHalo and co-marketing with lenders.
Sources: National Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers: Exhibit 7-2 (p. 97), Exhibit 4-6 (p. 56), Exhibits 4-11 and 4-12 (p. 61); transactions July 2024 to June 2025, published November 4, 2025. The year of marketing in the table is illustrative.
