You might have heard of Brivity and that it is a complete software suite for real estate professionals, including a CRM and many more other products that can help you generate real estate leads, manage transactions and teams, and follow up with potential clients.

Since it offers quite a large variety of different products, it can be difficult to determine how you can actually use it for real estate marketing in an efficient way.

And this is where my today’s article comes in.

I will therefore discuss the following topics:

  • What it is
  • The five different software products
  • How you can actually use it for real estate marketing
  • The products & prices with scores for real estate marketing
  • Positive and negative consumer reviews
  • The Pros and Cons
  • 11 Brivity alternatives

So please keep reading.

 

What is Brivity?

Brivity is a complete software suite. It includes…

  • CRM (customer relationship management) software
  • IDX websites
  • A CMA tool (comparative marketing analysis)
  • Brivity valuation websites for seller lead generation
  • And a mobile-based buyer leads capture system called Kwkly (kind of a weird name).

The company was founded in 2012 by Ben Kinney and today has its main location in Bellingham, WA. Although they present the software as a suite, most of the software solutions mentioned above are priced separately.

Brivity’s 5 Different Software Types and Their Features

Before we step into the question of how you can use Brivity for your real estate business, let’s first get an overview of the five different software types the company offers and their features.

 

1) Brivity CRM

With the Brivity customer relationship software, you can manage your time, team, and listings.

It helps communicate, prospect, and follow up with your different real estate leads through features that additional ones can complement should you choose to buy the CRM within a platform plan.

These are the features:

Automatic Email Drip Campaigns, Mass Emails, and Email Templates

Using this feature, you can engage with potential buyers and sellers regularly.

It also provides you with different email templates, so you save time when it comes to creating emails.

Team and Project Management & Document Storage

This feature helps you organize your tasks, obligations, and deadlines linked to contacts, leads, and clients.

Here, you can monitor different partners and colleagues involved with clients and deals.

Additionally, you can store and share documents within the platform, and your partners, team, or clients can access them there.

Custom Tags and Filters

This feature can be a great time saver.

Based on your individual needs and how you internally organize your real estate business, you can define custom tags for lists of clients, contacts, and vendors.

A possible use case could be that you want to look up information about a certain person and check the listing information, past communication, deadlines, and more.

Managing Listings

A transaction management system for active, pending, and sold/closed listings helps keep up to date with agent production, commissions, and dates on each property.

The transaction dashboard enables you to check the status of each listing.

Dependent Tasks

You can define tasks that have to be done before or after a date or event. These can be linked to a specific person, project, or transaction.

Single property websites (called Property Pages)

This feature can be accessed through the “Transaction Dashboard” and creates for each property a single website that you can share and promote via its URL.

Elements of these property pages include a mortgage calculator, pictures, property details, and a contact form to schedule a showing.

Client Portal

It gives clients more transparency because they get access to each task and deadline linked to a specific real estate transaction.

It is also possible to leave feedback.

1-Click Marketing

The name is kind of misleading because it’s not exactly one click, but you can define how, where, and how often listings should be marketed on different third-party platforms.

This can be done from the marketing tab. You will need to select in your preferences which platform to use (e.g., social media, Craigslist, or Active Rain).

Seller clients will get an automatic notification once a property has been shared or promoted.

Brivity GO App

This app allows you to access contacts and leads from your mobile phone or device. You can download it for Android or iOS devices.

Gmail Connection

You can connect your Gmail accounts to the Brivity CRM to send and receive emails from one place.

Relationships

The feature also allows you to add and edit your contacts to see connections between different people.

Lead Routing

Depending on your internal real estate business rules, you can set automatic lead distribution rules for your partners or other agents.

Virtual Tours

I already discussed the importance of virtual tours in this article, and this feature of Brivity CRM allows you to showcase listings with MLS compatible with branded and unbranded virtual tours.

Additional Features When You Get the CRM with a Platform Plan Package

You will see that many of the below features you will find again in the Brivity products that you can order separately without having to buy one of the packaged platform plans.

Click to Call

This feature allows you to call different contacts directly from Brivity and also track these calls for outcomes.

Texting

Great for an omnichannel follow-up approach is the possibility to also send and receive text messages directly from Brivity.

I would have wished to see this feature already in the single CRM product you can buy. But as it seems, you only get this when purchasing the CRM within a platform plan.

Unlimited Landing Pages

This feature can auto-generate landing pages on IDX property and search pages.

Auto Plans

Here, you can create rules that get automatically triggered, activate tasks, and send texts and emails.

Home Valuation Sites

This feature is also mentioned later in this article, where you can create home valuation sites that generate seller leads, which automatically get added to the CRM.

Text Lead Capture

Here, we have another feature separately sold in the late-mentioned product, “Kwkly Text-to Lead.”

It can capture buyer leads with the help of text shortcodes.

Active Lead Capture

This feature forces visitors to register with their contact information before viewing specific properties, getting listing alerts, or saving searches.

Listing Alert Drips

Each client and collaborator linked to a specific listing gets an automatic and daily update about the listing.

This increases transparency and keeps them informed if a task has been completed or is still pending. It’s similar to the functionality of the client portal.

Community Data

You can show school ratings, walk scores, neighborhood demographics, and market trends here.

Market Reports

With this feature, you can generate market statistics that you can use to stay in touch with your database.

The statistic types available are active, sold, and pending listings.

Comparable Market Analysis Reports

Comparing five active, pending, and sold listings allows you to generate comparable market analysis reports that you can send to potential clients.

2) Brivity IDX

If you want to integrate your MLS into your real estate website, you may want to consider Brivity IDX.

It features and can integrate the latest MLS listings, search tools, and search criteria.

Further features of this Brivity product are:

Saved Searches

Depending on the search criteria potential homebuyers have and prefer, they can browse the IDX website and then save what they have found into the Saved Searches.

Search after entering their contact information.

Potential buyer clients also get automatically updated once more property listings fit their predefined criteria.

Forced Registration

The company may see this as beneficial because you can generate real estate leads. 

I also see it as a potential risk to interfere with the website’s usability.

Why? 

Because the IDX website from Brivity will need visitors to enter their contact information before they can benefit from the website’s functionality, such as the saved search or getting the result from a home valuation. 

The latter seems acceptable to me, but I find the saved search a bit of a double-edged sword.

Showing Scheduling

A simple form is included on the IDX website that potential buyers can use to schedule a showing.

The scheduling process, including defining general availability, can be completed once they enter their contact information.

 

3) The Comparative Market Analysis Tool (CMA)

When you want to create a listing presentation, including reports, as a real estate agent, this Brivity product can come in handy.

It draws data directly from your MLS to ensure the information is up-to-date.

The algorithm for this functionality applies a 5-5-5 method, which compares five active listings, five pending listings, and 5 sold listings to get the right results.

This also helps your potential buyer to stay informed about properties in their preferred area that are for sale, off the market, or pending.

The relevant market reports get automatically sent to them.

The tool also includes some analytics, so you can track the behavior of your leads.

You will be able to see who opens and reads your reports.

Based on this user behavior or your potential buyers’ behavior, you can include them in a drip email campaign.

4) Brivity Valuations

This product is basically a seller lead magnet already done for you.
Based on the leads that are generated by that, you can set up email drip campaigns to omnichannel follow-up approach.

By the way, if you need further ideas on real estate lead magnets, you might also want to read this article.

These are the further features of Brivity Valuations:

10 Valuation Sites

The system allows you to create a maximum of 10 separate valuation sites to target different audiences.

For each one, you can get an individual domain name.

Integration with Facebook

You can add a valuation site to your Facebook page as a tab. Due to the twiddling organic reach of Facebook pages, this feature might not be as valuable as you might think.

Landing Pages

Since you get individual domain names, you can and should use them as landing pages for different marketing campaigns, such as PPC advertising with Google AdsFacebook Ads, or SEO.

Visitors that are potential seller clients can then get a property value range from your landing page – of course, after they have entered their contact information.

Since they become leads, the Brivity CRM will automatically add them to the database with their contact information.

According to Brivity, this method would get you four times as many seller leads.

This claim might be debatable since using a valuation landing page as a lead magnet is quite a common practice.

And as you may know already from my article on real estate lead magnets, you need to stand out to get good conversion rates with lead magnets.

5) Kwkly Text-to-Lead

I found this one to be one of the most inspiring products from Brivity.
Let’s check the use case for a moment.

Potential buyers on a property hunt offline, meaning they see a sign on the road that says, “Text ‘Interested’ to 79448 to get pictures, videos, and information about the current price,” can send this to the indicated number.

After they send the text, the software accesses the phone’s GPS and provides the relevant information by gathering all the data from the MLS.

As the real estate professional, you will then get the potential buyer’s phone number, but unfortunately, this information isn’t automatically added to the Brivity CRM.

 

How to Use Brivity for Real Estate Marketing

From many of the different Brivity products above, you may have already guessed how you can use them for your real estate business.

But let’s dive deeper into the different use cases from a real estate marketing perspective.

 

The Brivity CRM from a Real Estate Marketing Perspective

This article already established the importance of increasing lead conversion rates with the right follow-up methods.

So, I think the drip campaigns possible with the Brivity CRM are a good option to support your overall real estate follow-up systems.

You will be able to save some time since this functionality is already integrated into the CRM.

Unfortunately, when buying the CRM separately, you won’t have access to features such as text messaging and click-to-calls and are not part of one of the platform plans. 

That’s a big minus to me. 

Why? 

Because you will only be able to apply an omnichannel follow-up approach where you can combine email follow-ups with text messages and phone when buying the CRM as part of a platform plan.

These plans come with additional Brivity products that don’t necessarily have the same benefits for your overall real estate marketing as the CRM.

Regarding the 1-Click Marketing feature, I am not quite sure about its efficiency.

Why?

Firstly, it’s not just one click; you will need to promote a property.

Secondly, it is just a feature to promote properties on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, Active Rain, and Craigslist. 

So, your possibilities are a bit limited by the organic reach of those platforms, except maybe Active Rain and Craigslist.

A better name for this feature could have been the “Property Sharing” feature.

The feature to generate different market reports will give you some assistance in creating some helpful content for the different drip campaigns you can carry out from the CRM.

Regarding efficiency for your marketing campaigns, you can also automatically filter leads into the CRM from different sources via Zapier, amongst others.

 

Brivity IDX: Saved Searches, Showing Scheduling from a Real Estate Marketing Perspective

You can order the Brivity IDX product separately or get it as part of each platform plan. 

So, should you go for the CRM, this will be included anyway.

The value of this product from a real estate marketing perspective is debatable since the functionality is contingent on the potential real estate client registering with his contact information.

If a user finds some interesting properties and wants to save the search, they must register with their contact information. 

I mentioned already that this might be good from a lead generation standpoint, but it’s also a barrier for some users.

Additionally, the real estate professional might not generate the best quality of leads. 

Why?

Because some users will just register to be able to use the saved search, but not necessarily because they are seriously interested in a property.

Being able to schedule a showing is a positive since Brivity IDX provides you already with a call to action element. 

For this one, I find having some contact registration requirements acceptable and even necessary.

Overall, I would prefer a WordPress-based real estate website with a plugin or a theme that supports IDX.

With this solution, you would have much more freedom in testing different property listing landing page variations and see which variation can provide you with more and better leads.

Brivity CMA from a Real Estate Marketing Perspective

Brivity CMA can again be purchased as a separate product and is also part of the “Excelerate,” “Expand,” and “Mega” Platform Plans.

Similar to the market report feature of Brivity CRM, it helps you create content for your potential real estate clients in your database.

This might help you to increase the conversion rates of those potential clients and turn them into customers.

Brivity Valuations from a Real Estate Marketing Perspective

All of the Brivity Platform Plans include this product.

I am not too impressed with this product’s benefit because it provides you with one of the expected standard real estate lead magnets you already find on many other real estate websites.

By the way, I already discussed the issue with standard real estate lead magnets in this article.

I find it great that Brivity wants to offer something to help you in increasing your seller lead conversion rates, but the problem is that it’s limited to just home valuations.

It might be too much to ask, but if they had some more options to creatively offer different lead magnets, this product could be much more beneficial.

So that you could, for example, offer these types of lead magnets:

  • Toolkits and Resource Lists
  • A Mini Video Course
  • Different Types of Quizzes and Tests

 

Kwkly Text to Lead from a Real Estate Marketing Perspective

From a real estate marketing perspective, after the Brivity CRM, I find Kwkly Text to Lead one of the products that offer the biggest benefit.

Why?

Because it can help you generate potential buyer leads offline in an efficient way.

This product is automatically included in all the Platform plans but the “Growth” plan.

It would be even more efficient if leads were added automatically to the Brivity CRM.

Maybe this integration has already been done by the time I write this article? I hope so.

 

Overview of all the Brivity Products & Prices with Scores for Real Estate Marketing

I find the information about the different products and the pricing you find on Brivity’s website a bit confusing.

If this happens to me, it probably also happens to you.

So, I made a table overview to get a bit more clarity.

In the column “Value for Real Estate Marketing”, I awarded points from 0-10, with 10 being the highest benefit for real estate marketing.

Product Package/ Platform PlansPricingValue Score for Real Estate MarketingSeparate ProductPricingValue Score for Real Estate Marketing
Growth: CRM + IDX + Brivity Valuations, 2 UsersUndisclosed10Brivity CRM Basic$99.99 /mo ($19.99 per additional user), 2 users9
Accelerate: CRM + IDX + Brivity Valuations + CMA + KWKLY (Text to Lead), 5 UsersUndisclosed10Brivity CRM Basic$149.99 /mo ($19.99 per additional user), 5 users9
Expand: CRM + IDX + Brivity Valuations + CMA + KWKLY (Text to Lead), 10 UsersUndisclosed8Brivity CRM Basic$199.99 /mo ($19.99 per additional user), 10 users9
Mega: CRM + IDX + Brivity Valuations + CMA + KWKLY (Text to Lead), 25 UsersUndisclosed8Brivity Valuations$99.99 /month for 10 sites6
KWKLY (Text to Lead)Starting at $99/ month10
Brivity IDXUndisclosed6
Brivity CMAUndisclosed8

 

2 Positive and Negative Brivity Consumer Reviews

2 Positive Consumer Reviews

“Brivity allowed us to take five different pieces of software and roll them into one.

You can really tell that this is a platform built under the guidance of a successful real estate agent, as it really does help surface the most important aspects of our business.”
(source)

“Great tool for organization and maintain communication with clients.”
(source)

 

2 Negative Consumer Reviews

“I can’t use the website for my clients. The search-ability of properties in my area is not available at all.

I was sold on the ability to do custom work and custom searches, but this is not true.

I have asked over and over to change the search to fit my needs and left empty-handed after 6 months.

Customer service is all talk and no action.”
(source)

“There are only 3 (really 2) functions within the app: tasks, leads, more.

I’ve just set up the platform and don’t have any tasks, so can’t speak on it.

Every time, however, I try to filter, sort, or search in leads I get no results.”
(source)

 

Brivity Pros and Cons

8 Pros

1) Great connectivity:

By combining the Client Portal with the Brivity GO app, real estate clients can be kept up to date regarding a particular transaction.

Additionally, you have constant access to leads and contacts.

2) Email Drip campaigns included in CRM:

This feature is a pro because it will help you create drip campaigns from the CRM to follow up with potential clients.

3) The automatic lead routing of the CRM:

This will make your internal organization in your business more efficient since you can set automatic lead distribution rules for your partners or other agents.

4) The CRM virtual tours:

This feature will help increase the conversion rates of potential clients you will have in the database, as already discussed in this article.

5) The Click to Call and Texting feature in platform plans:

With this feature, you can apply the omnichannel follow-up approach that leads to higher conversion rates, as already discussed in this article.

6) The scheduling feature included in IDX product:

Another feature that helps you to include a call to action for potential clients after they like a property you offer.

7) Comparative Market Analysis Tool/Product:

This one enables you to create helpful content for drip campaigns more efficiently.

8) Kwkly Text to Lead Product:

This product is a pro because it helps generate buyer leads offline (people on the road and hunting properties).

6 Cons

1) Pricing and Information about features of the different products are confusing:

A lot of the pricing information is undisclosed; to get this information, you will need to register with a lot of contact information for a demo account.

If you look for the CRM as a separate product, you won’t find it on the plans page, although other separate products are displayed there.

You might get the wrong impression that the CRM is only available within the different platform plans, which is not the case.

You would have to find this page about the CRM to find this information.

2) Limited integrations:

One of the products I like best (Kwkly) is not completely integrated into the CRM.

You would need a workaround using third-party tools such as Zapier, BombBomb, Zillow, IFTTT, and others. The same is true for the IDX and CMA.

This situation makes you think about the value, and by considering the pricing, you might use another solution, such as a combination of WordPress, IDX plugins, and other CRM providers, and combine those.

3) Hard to cancel the subscription:

The same spirit of forced registration for potential real estate buyer clients seems to be active in their cancelation policy.

This is what you need to expect when you want to cancel (from the Brivity forum):

“If you wish to discuss the billing of your Brivity account, please contact our Support team by calling (855) 427-4848 or emailing support@brivity.com.

If a team member is not available to take your call, we will reach out to you by phone to return your call and provide information.

If your billing inquiry is related to the termination of your subscription, the request will not be finalized until you speak directly with a team member.

If you choose to cancel your Brivity subscription, we require a written notice of cancellation to Brivity at least 30 days prior to the expiration of the then-current term.

For any billing related questions, please contact us at support@brivity.com or (855) 427-4848. ” (source)

4) Forced registration:

Several Brivity products and features use a forced registration like the IDX saved search.

This leads to limited functionality for users and may increase the website’s bounce rate because users do not want to stay there to just consume some property information they can get without that hassle on other websites.

On the other hand, it may generate leads.

Still, the quality will be doubtable because some will just register to use the website and not because they are interested and serious potential buyers.

5) The one-click marketing option is actually not just one click:

You won’t be able to post a new property listing on several social media platforms in one click, so this isn’t actually what it claims to be.

6) Brivity Valuations lead magnet creation (limitation):

The intention to offer a way to generate seller leads with the Brivity Valuations product is good.

Still, it helps to create another standard real estate lead magnet that many others use.

A more flexible way to use your own real estate lead magnet ideas in this product would be desirable, so you can better increase your conversion rates.

 

11 Brivity Alternatives

You might also want to compare several alternatives to Brivity on the market.

Here they are:

If you are looking for even more CRMs, you might also want to read my article “The Best 28 Real Estate Customer Software to Increase Revenue”.

 

Conclusion

I have some mixed feelings about Brivity. 

On the one hand, they help real estate pros to make the real estate transaction process easier for their clients and offer some nice functionality within their CRM and overall platform plans. 

Another positive is also the text-to-lead feature to generate offline buyer leads.

On the other hand, what worries me a bit are the limited integration possibilities of some of their products into the CRM, the difficult subscription cancelation process, and the texting feature not being available when bought separately.

If I had to choose to get the most out of Brivity for effective real estate marketing strategies, I would go with one of the following products:

  • The Accelerate Platform plan, so you get the CRM together with the Kwkly product and the texting feature to follow up via omnichannel.
  • The CRM Basic plan (the CRM bought separately)
  • Just the Kwkly product

This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.


Tobias Schnellbacher