Our guest at Agent First Summit this week was Erica Sobba, a professional and real estate marketing expert who has exploded into the marketing sphere in the last few years. Her goal is to help real estate agents market effectively by using the 6 key steps that she used when starting out as a marketer for a mortgage company.
Our Agent First Summits happen every Tuesday morning! It’s a perk for all our real estate team members and any of their guests who want to grow their real estate business. To get an invitation, RSVP here: Save Your Seat!
In this class, Erica shares with us how to get from point A (“I know I need to do marketing, I just don’t know where to start”) to point B (“I have a game plan with actionable items that will position me as the expert REALTOR®”) in real estate marketing!
Real Estate Marketing Vs. Sales
First things first, let’s distinguish between marketing and sales. Marketing is all about relationships—it’s about showing people that you’re the expert and can be trusted to provide the knowledge and support necessary.
Sales is more about follow-up—it’s about the process of getting a customer from learning about you to getting them to use your services. Today, we’re going to learn about the process of marketing.
The 6 Key Phases of Real Estate Marketing
There are six phases you’ll want to go through to become a truly effective marketer. Let’s dive into these phases so that you can get started with them in your real estate marketing career.
1. Assess and Plan
First, set your target audience. You must speak to the people you’re trying to reach. Define the area where they live, define the types of buyers you want to work with, define how they view money, define what questions they’re going to be asking. You have to know your audience first.
Once you know who your audience is, you can “call them by name.” With the appropriate information, you understand who they are (even if you don’t know their real name) and can call out to them with the information that they want. When they hear you saying what they want to hear, they’ll come to you.
2. Share Content
Keep sharing content! You won’t become a superstar agent with one piece of content. You have to constantly produce content, and, eventually, you will get out the kinds of content that resonate with your audience and get their attention.
When you’re making content, you have to remember that people HATE being sold to. Your role is not to try and sell yourself to people, but rather to attract them through the value that you bring to them.
When you’re sharing content, it is not about you! It’s about them. All your content should therefore be:
- Valuable
- Educational
- Entertaining
- Resonating
- Relatable
It’s got to be all of these things for your target audience in order to become the kind of quality content that gets people’s attention, builds credibility, and establishes your authority.
Where To Post Content
To get to your audience, you need to come at them from every entry point. With that in mind, it’s important that you have a presence on all of these platforms:
- Website
- Webinars
- Social media
- Facebook (both business and personal)
- YouTube
- Ads (NO boosting)
- Emails
As you’re creating content, just start with the basics. Connect with people where they’re at, offer a low-commitment (reach out if you need me) and high-commitment (come here, do this, etc.) CTA, and engage with people who are responding to your content. It’s that simple!
3. Capture Leads
As you create content that draws people in, you’ll want to make it a priority to capture people’s emails. Social media changes often, so email will help you keep in touch with your leads even if social media has changed the way you connect with your audience.
To get an email address, you want to use a lead magnet, a piece of valuable content that people want and will only get through providing you with an email address. This magnet should be something that meets your audience’s needs, establishes your authority, and is easily accessible (PDF, video, event, etc.). Some great options include:
- Guides
- Roadmaps
- Checklists
- Case studies
- Resource lists
- Trainings
- Networking events
You can offer this information manually by using Google Forms to collect information and manually sending an email with your lead magnet to each person who fills out the form. Alternatively, you can use a CRM to automate both the form and the email.
Your CRM will collect the information you need, such as your lead’s:
- Name
- Phone number
- Mailing address
- Segmenting/categorizing info (what category they fall into in relation to real estate)
- Notes
- Tasks
- Follow-ups
Once you’ve captured that information, you must engage with leads! You have to build trust and a relationship with them. Send emails or newsletters weekly or monthly, not so much that they start automatically deleting your messages, but often enough to stay top of mind.
In addition, you will want to create a landing page for clients to come to when you invite them to download or access the lead magnet from an Ad or posting. You want the page to be effective, so make sure you follow these two key steps:
- Make the lead magnet accessible at the top and bottom of the page.
- Ask for minimal information.
All you need is a name and email to get started. Then, you can slowly add them into your chain of communication so that you can keep in touch for a long time.
4. Trial and Error
It’s crucial that you test your marketing practices as you go. You need to know what it feels like to get a bite and you must see and record what people are biting into. If you don’t know what’s attracting people, you won’t be able to continue drawing leads in.
With enough testing and enough tweaking, you’ll eventually get the traction that you need—it just takes a bit of practice. Don’t worry if it takes a while, because if you just keep going, you will eventually see results.
5. Data
Use spreadsheets to track your marketing data! You must have spreadsheets or you’re not going to make it beyond that first reach. You need to know what works and what doesn’t, have the ability to make adjustments and predictions, and discover patterns and trends.
Track engagement on all your channels so that you know what’s working and know how to keep in touch with the people who truly care about what you’re saying. Put this information in spreadsheets and keep an eye on it so you never get lost.
6. Loyalty and Advocacy
Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews and referrals. Most people are willing to help you after a good experience, but you have to be willing to ask for the help you need and make it easy for them.
Create a simple questionnaire that past clients can easily fill out to offer you the online reviews and referrals you need. Build a sense of loyalty and keep asking until you’ve built up a strong foundation of referrals and reviews. Then, keep asking! Eventually, you’ll have a strong community that provides you with a steady flow of clients, directly and indirectly.
Implement Real Estate Marketing Now
It’s really as simple as that! Implement these six key marketing steps and you’ll be well on your way to winning more leads and more clients just as Erica has done for so many years. In no time, you’ll see your real estate business thrive!
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