How To Grab The Attention Of Property Owners Online.
Many estate agents will probably feel there was something unique about them and their business, which if their competitors’ clients knew about, will cause them to leave the competition and hire them.
How could you go about ethically stealing your competitors’ clients ? Or ensure more of them are aware of your strengths? Many of us could probably put a bit more effort into selling ourselves and expertise online.
The more we positively influence our target audience, the more they like us. Hopefully well enough to give us a call when they want to sell or rent our their properties. If you want to influence more home owners online then try the following steps.
1. Choose your favourite platform
Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter provide access to people. According to the ONS there are about 23 million households in England and Wales of which about 15 million or 65% are owner occupiers.
We have 45 million adults online and if 53% of the UK population is aged 25 – 64, then we can assume about 24m of online adults fall within that age group.
Now bear with me. According to Ofcom 66% of online adults have a current social network profile. And, 96% of those are active on Facebook right now. Which means there are 15 million adults aged 25 – 64 on Facebook.
65% of households are owner occupiers and if we agree most will fall between 25 – 64 that means 9.75 million people on Facebook are potential vendors. How could you go about influencing them?
2. Rethinking your adverts
On Facebook, I believe people are craving human connection. Which means before anything else you have to sell yourself. And that means only one thing. Offering value. In a time of virtually no organic reach and in the first instance your personality and content has to become the ad.
Last time I mentioned Data + Content Marketing +Re-targeted ads = Effective Lead Generation Campaigns. Now how could you go about applying this formula? To set out the right strategy, make your personality shine and knock ’em dead with offers they can’t refuse.
3. Data
The point of data is set out the right content strategy. You can invest in one or two monitoring tools to get a feel for what is trending. The idea is to share your own unique take on popular topics.
Below is a graphic of results from a monitoring tool I built myself using the Python programming language and Twitter’s public API. Don’t worry you don’t have to be a geek. Just search for “social media monitoring tools”.
Out 7188 tweets containing the keyword “zoopla” a tweet about stamp duty surcharge on second homes was retweeted the most. Followed by property prices and tips when applying for a mortgage.
A savvy agent only needs to DJ this topics for their own audience which leads to the next part of the equation.
4. Content Marketing
Once you understand your personality and content offering value is an ad, it becomes a question of choosing one or two formats. Video is the most powerful. You could also do podcasts or organise events.
Having the courage to be yourself, the local property advisor is key. Getting started might be difficult. However once you get momentum and get some positive feedback, it could become fun. Your personality and expertise need to shine through.
Invite questions from clients or talk about topics you discovered in your own way. You can also collaborate with other key professionals. For example inviting a mortgage expert onto your show or podcasts could offer a lot of value to some segments and generate many shares.
This is the important. Organic reach is dead on Facebook. So spend money say £20-£100 in making sure your content reaches as many prospects as possible.
Next time we’ll discuss re-targeting and ad optmisation strategies you can use to ensure maximum R.O.I for your social campaigns.
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