I give a lot of advice on this blog but todays article is going to tactically break down the single greatest way for a real estate estate agent to market themselves in 2017.
We all understand that it’s essential to build our brands and demonstrate a point of difference in a crowded marketplace.
The strategy I am going to break down for you today will help you grow your brand and create tremendous goodwill in your local marketplace.
1. Set Up A Personal Website That Allows you To Blog
You need a place to centralise all of your marketing efforts. That’s where your personal website comes in. It acts as the central hub of all of your marketing efforts.
Whether you are doing flyers, billboards, social media, business cards or other advertising your personal website is the best place to send potential clients to learn more about how you do business and allows you to position yourself as an expert.
When setting up your personal website make sure that it has a blog.
A blog allows you to share articles and videos on your website that people can read and watch.
People love reading and watching helpful videos and articles. This means that you can bring more interested people back to your website to read an article or watch a video. You can then generate leads with call to actions to request an appraisal or get in touch.
Your website needs to look professional as it is the first impression that a lot of your potential clients will have on you.
If need help setting up your personal website get in touch.
2. Review Your Area On Your Website
Most real estate agents think the only content that they can talk about is real estate and listings.
You see it in 99% of agents Facebook pages. The only activity is when they post a new listing. It’s great to talk about real estate but long term if it’s all you talk about it will turn people off.
Your blog on your website gives you the platform to share informative content with people.
The key to a successful blog is to post content that people actually want to consume. Crazy right?!
A great way to easily get content that people want to read and watch is to interview the most important people in your area.
People like
- The owners of the local coffee shops and restaurants…
- The local football coach…
- The local school teachers…
- An interior designer to give house presentation tips…
- The local butcher, florist, electrician, anyone with an interesting story…
Get the idea?
These are really simple things that you can do and make great content that people want to read and watch.
Here’s what you do.
1. Get the Interview
You go into the the local coffee shop and ask to speak to the owner and say you want to do a quick interview with him that will go on your website that is all about the local area.
You can record the whole thing on your phone, they have good enough cameras to get a high quality interview.
Ask them about why they got into business and what they love about the local area. Everyone will have a different story to tell.
You want to find the stories that are tucked away in the local businesses, school system and the iconic neighbours.
Those stories are the narrative that will create emotion which on a tipping point maybe the reason that somebody does business with you.
2. Post Production
You can get your PA to transcribe the interview and post the video to Youtube.
You are then able to embed the youtube video on your blog (If you have a wordpress based website this will take you 10 seconds.) You can also add the transcript of the whole interview below for people to read.
You could even take a few pictures from around their business and use them throughout the article and on social media.
3. Promotion
Now that the article is published on your website it is time to promote it. Publish it to Facebook and send an email out to your database.
You can then go back to the local business owner and show them the article your put together on your website which will look great and they’ll be over the moon for the free exposure.
Ask them if they would be able to share the article on their social media accounts as well. Which they should be happy to do as its their business that the article is all about.
You then get to tap into their social media friends who are all from the local area who will want to see the interview with Dave from the coffee shop. To read the article they all have to come back to your website with your branding and your call to actions.
Not only do you get great content plus exposure to more people in your area but you have made a great relationship with somebody that is talking to potentially hundreds of your ideal clients a day.
Another take on this and a great form of content is to review the local area.
You can review:
- Local Business’s
- Restaurants
- Schools
- Parks and amenities
Write honest reviews of the best places to eat out on a Friday night. Or the top things to do with your kids on the weekend in your local area.
Here are a couple of examples of great articles that you could write about your area.
Make sure that your content is targeted around your local area and the people that live in it. These are the types of content that people will want to read and share with their friends.
This content shows that you are active in the local community and know what’s going on.
You can also work in articles with market updates and other real estate happenings in the area like the one below.
This type of quality content will have people coming back to your site regularly and will keep you top of mind as the go to real estate agent in the area.
4. Build your Database.
When you are publishing good content some people will want to sign up to keep up to date.
Give people the option for people to sign up to receive your regular content on your website.
The more emails that you collect and build your database the better as you can then send them emails about your future content so as they come back and read and share that too. When they are ready to sell their home you will be top of mind as they have been coming to your website for months reading helpful content.
A good way to collect more email addresses is to offer something for free. This can be in the form of a report or even just another article that you have put together.
Here are a couple of ideas for a free giveaway.
- 5 Ways to increase the value of your house without breaking the bank
- 7 Best things to do in Brisbane this weekend
- The Biggest mistake sellers make when selling their family home.
You can create that content in the form of an article, pdf report or even a video. It doesn’t have to be a massive piece of content and shouldn’t take you ages to get finished.
Another way to collect emails is to have an opt in like this on your videos.
You can set it to only display to people that haven’t already subscribed so that people that have can watch all of your videos freely. We use Wistia to add this opt in form to our videos but there are lots of other options out there.
5. Share Your Blog Posts With Your Database.
You can keep people engaged with your latest content by sharing your latest articles and videos with them.
This will create an engaged community of people that value your opinion and will trust you as a source of knowledge in their community.
Not everybody that consumes your first piece of content will be ready to sell their house. But if they have been following the information that you have been putting out for a number of months and years, when the time comes for them to sell you will be the clear expert in their eyes.
6. Set Up Facebook Retargeting
People that visit your website won’t always contact you on their first visit. That’s where Facebook Retargeting is a massive benefit.
People that have been looking at you on your website are clearly interested in you so wouldn’t it make sense to give them an offer to get a free appraisal
Facebook allows you to run ads to people that have visited your website in a specific time period.
This is an awesome opportunity to get leads.
You can record a quick video that says something like this:
Hey home values are going up. Figure out what your home value is – Link to your website appraisal page
Here’s an example of a simple but effective appraisal page
Why video?
Here’s the thing:
People love video. And it turns you into a more relatable person. Not only that, but Facebook loves video.
Facebook Videos stand out more than anything else on Facebook.
Facebook “autoplays” all the videos. And they catch your eye. They are the only thing that moves when you scroll through Facebook.
It doesn’t have to be long or super high quality. A recording on your phone will be enough.
You can then run that ad directly to the people that have visited your website recently. This will capture a lot of the people that had been thinking about you but didn’t quite take the leap and call you initially.
There are also a lot of people that won’t get in touch with you from the first interaction. So multiple touches is key to capturing these lost leads.
Other examples of retargeting ads that you could run include:
- An ad to your Market report
- Normal link ad to your appraisal page
- Client Testimonial either a video in Facebook with a link to your appraisal page or a link directly to your testimonials page on your website with a call to action to request an appraisal on that page.
Running these ads will only cost you a few dollars a day to get in front of your ideal clients and the rewards will be great.
Read this article for more help setting up a Facebook Retargeting campaign
Here’s the biggest mistake agents make when advertising and lead generating:
They Stop Too Soon.
Successful marketing does NOT work like this:
Marketing is like relationships.
You need multiple touch points before things really take off!
Here’s an example:
Conclusion
They key with any good marketing strategy is consistency.
Being able to get your face in front of your ideal potential clients on a regular basis is invaluable.
I would love to know your thoughts on this strategy. Let me know what you thought about it in the comments section below.
If you don’t have your own personal website yet I would highly recommend getting one setup asap. Send me an email or click the button below to get started.
[av_button label=’Get Your Website’ link=’page,1639′ link_target=” size=’x-large’ position=’center’ icon_select=’no’ icon=’ue800′ font=’entypo-fontello’ color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ av_uid=’av-2tzdxm’]
