Today I taught another real estate marketing class for real estate professionals in the Phoenix area – Surprise to be exact. What was a “surprise “is how damn far the City of Surprise is away from my home in Chandler – 47 miles! Today’s real estate marketing class was at WEMAR. This real estate marketing class was all about the new paradigm in real estate marketing. Getting found online compared to spraying consumers with a message they did not ask for and most likely could care less about.
In the beginning of every real estate marketing class I teach, whether there is 50 people or 500, I ask one question
“Can I Be Honest With You?”.
I ask this question because it’s very important to get “buy in” before you destroy their belief system. I can tell real estate agents exactly how I feel about certain things. Not necessarily about them as individuals [they are good people] but the stupid things they do in their real estate marketing. By the end of the class we were all laughing, shaking our heads at the things some real estate agents do in their real estate marketing and why they make absolutely no sense. Ya know – the business card glamour shots, with the guy leaning on a SOLD sign, smiling from ear to ear with the caption “Results For You” or The guy with “Top Producer 2004″ on his real estate marketing – it’s 2011!
It’s not really their fault. Too many real estate agents will do what another real estate agent does because it LOOKS successful. They call it MODELING, I call it FOOLISH. It takes research and some common sense to figure out if a marketing method is worthwhile or not. It can be challenging. It’s not like a real estate agent that knows what works is going to stand up with a megaphone in the office bullpen and say
“excuse me. . .can I have your attention. . .I would like to show you exactly what is working for me, so you can do it as well and compete against me. . .gather around everyone”.
Many real estate agents are left blind – forced to rely on what something LOOKS LIKE. Trust me, mailing 17,000 real estate marketing postcards sounds like a good idea when you are going solely on what something LOOKS LIKE.
Today we talked about:
- WordPress For Real Estate
- WordPress vs Active Rain
- Content Creation
- The importance of unique, engaging, dynamic, valuable and educational content
- Identifying Your Ideal Client
- Using your website as a HUB
- Adding Value
- The role of social media tools and so on
You cannot and should not measure a video based upon the number of views. It’s easy to make this mistake since the general public talks about views in relation to videos all the time. This “views” mentality is usually used when speaking of VIRAL videos. The dog that says “I Love You”, the Old Spice Guy, the star wars kid, the evolution of dance, etc. Viral videos occur when someone else shares a video because it effected them – funny, inspirational, emotional, educational,etc. VIRAL videos really happen by accident. There are hundreds, hell, even thousands of corporations with MILLIONS of dollars that have not been able to get a video to go viral. If it was about money, every video produced by Kia or Apple would go VIRAL. They don’t. Besides, getting a video to go viral about real estate would not really help a real estate agent. Viral Videos rarely result in any more sales for anyone, people watch and share them for their amusement factor.
My ideal client is real estate agents, loan officers, builders, investors – in PHOENIX. These are the same people that click through from YouTube.com to MyTitleGuy.com, fill out a form for a meeting or consultation or sign up for my mailing list. This is who I want to be found by. In order for you to grow your real estate business using tools like YouTube Real Estate Marketing, WordPress and Social Media, YOU FIRST NEED TO KNOW WHO YOUR IDEAL CLIENT IS, WHAT THEY LOOK FOR ONLINE, WHAT IS VALUABLE ABOUT YOUR MESSAGE AND WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO AS A RESULT OF YOUR CONTENT.
