For the 362nd episode of Mail Right Show, Jonathan Denwood and Robert Newnan discuss the most important marketing channels for real estate agents in 2023. Robert Newman, the CEO of Inbound REM, an inbound marketing firm, has spent the last decade in the real estate SEO business. Meanwhile, Jonathan Denwood is the joint founder and CEO of Mail Right, a platform that builds beautiful websites on WordPress and combines a suite of digital marketing tools in a streamlined, user-friendly package. Given the many agents available, your marketing efforts should focus on promoting you and your services. This episode dive into ten lead-generation methods to help agents to set themselves apart from other real estate agents.
Local Discovery
Your Google business profile dominates local discovery. If people are searching and using a mobile device, the property or the Google Map Pack will appear, and it’s all linked to the central area called Google business profile.
The local discovery might place number one if you’re talking about results versus money spent because this is a way that, with a little bit of research and knowledge, you could theoretically generate anywhere from 1-10 transactions by just understanding your Google business profile.
Claiming a Google my business profile is a bit painful because Google sends you a physical postcode card with a number, and you need to have a physical address and ensure you get the card. But it is one of the reasons they apply so much credit and so much benefit to your profile. It is a physical process, and it’s tough to fake out, but that’s the whole point: once Google sets your profile up, they’ve identified that you are you. And once they understand that, they start applying a high degree of credibility connected to your email address and local contributions. And Google, as a service provider, starts to increase your reach off that profile.
Social Media Videos: Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Tiktok
If you want an effective social media presence, get in video and get as much video on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Tiktok. These platforms are a great way to introduce people and drive traffic. Only a few real estate agents or professionals make that much money off Tiktok; some people are doing good on Instagram, although not as good as YouTube, but pretty consistently doing some business.
The problem with Instagram and Tiktok is it’s difficult to drive people with clear enough intent to those videos. For instance, if you’re entertaining people, you can get thousands of views on these videos. However, it could be trickier if you’re trying to elicit a response. If you are using Instagram and Tiktok, have your name or web address on it to get people’s interest, look you up on Facebook, or drive people to your website.
Email Marketing
Although overused, email has slowly been returning to its own because direct mail and other sources have lost their effectiveness. The email trick is the same as other marketing; do you have an agent or somebody taking the time to craft their emails themselves and send them out to their audience with valuable information? People that do that still experience massive, tremendous results on email.
Talking about a weekly or monthly newsletter, the more you focus on it and the more effort you put into it with a more target audience, the better result you’ll get. But there are other types of email like, if you’re doing advertising through Facebook called Google, and then you’re driving them to a landing page, you need your purpose. If you’re converting them to get the lead magnet, your purpose is to get that conversation by sending off a series of drip emails and text messaging to try and gauge the person to have a conversation with you.
Check Out NextDoor for Real Estate Leads
There is a growing number of local lifestyle websites, such as Next Door; other ones are neighborhoods.com, AreaVibes, and Neighborhood Scout. These websites focus on an area’s lifestyle and offer advertising opportunities for any service provider. Now, to say that there wouldn’t be an opportunity in these lifestyle sites would be a mistake, especially if you happen to be one of the people that started to do a lifestyle brand. Like agents who do YouTube videos, content, and blog posts focusing on the best restaurants in the city or real estate agents that use a lifestyle approach to generate real estate leads.
Making a “Niche” Facebook Group Page
Find your niche so you can be an agent that sells and helps people generally but focuses on your niche. For instance, you focus on horse ranches, if that’s the case, you should start a Facebook group about horse ranches, and you should be the administrator. You’re not going to get instant leads, but you will still get some leads at the end.
Podcasting Talk to Influencers in your Area
Podcasting is excellent if you want to meet with notable people, and you can put it on your website anywhere else. It dramatically raised your profile if they felt you were worthy of conversation. Moreover, most successful agents mix personal face-to-face marketing with digital marketing, and meeting the Mover and shakers in your community is also important. You could win them up or email them for a coffee; however, if they are usually busy, you can do a podcast over Zoom.
Putting a Chatbot in your Real Estate Website
Jonathan Denwood of Mail Right Now has a business that got substantial contracts and started the initial sales discussion through his website’s chatbot, and 40% of his sales come through the chatbot of his other business. People can use the chatbot to book a zoom with you or tell you they want to phone call.
A chatbot will be the most important marketing channel for real estate agents in 2023 and is worth putting on a website. But, it will be challenging if you think you don’t have to take the messages.
Use Virtual Staging Software
Virtual Staging Software offers enormous possibilities to show clients a photorealistic home design. Some companies, such as Zillow, have a free program where you can build and use your iPhone; they could provide you with the software and do some fantastic stuff with it.
Get Something Published in your Most Popular Local Magazines.
Print is still alive, especially since most magazines have digital copies of their magazine online, so talk about the local magazine you’re getting online and the traditional print. Some real estate agents utilize magazines, pay regularly, have a place to interview, and then use it for their online marketing. And if you utilize magazines cleverly, especially in the entire luxury side of the market, it’s a great way of helping you build your brand.
Rethink Your Brand
Rethinking your brand is incredibly relevant. The beautiful thing about rethinking your brand is even if for 20 years you sent out flyers that say you’ve been the general practitioner of real estate inside a particular city, tomorrow you could put up a digital sign by doing a couple of videos and creating a Google my business page focused on a single area, and you’re not impacting your 20 years worth of reputation. So, you’re just saying you always focused on all this area but will talk about the other areas more now.
