It’s amazing how fast the business landscape can change. We’re seeing it right now, with the vindictive coronavirus wreaking havoc on our economy, our health and our real estate businesses.
Many of us are scrambling just to maintain our business, let alone grow it while the market falls apart around us.
But as with any crisis, opportunities always emerge. In all the uncertainty, some will end up thriving and growing while most do not.
So which opportunities can the average real estate agent take advantage of in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak and economic collapse?
Making sure every $1 spent on real estate marketing and advertising goes much, much further than it would have even a month ago.
Think about it. So many competitors are now sitting on the sidelines and playing defense! You literally have less competition for the attention of the consumer, at a time when those consumers are scrolling their news feeds much more than usual. Those real estate agents who decide to play offense, and do the right things, can really end up winning big and growing while most are moving backward or playing it safe.
So what exactly should you be spending your precious marketing dollars on right now? Facebook video ads retargeted to people who already know you.
Of course, you could always do what 98% of other Facebook advertisers do, and go right for the conversion or the sale. Almost all of your competitors use Facebook ads for nothing more than trying to capture leads from an audience who has never seen them before. They focus on capturing leads from a cold audience of people who don’t know anything about them. But that’s the hardest way to get leads and to get people to hire you!
It’s much easier to get someone to click a button, watch a video or do a certain thing when they already know who you are. When you are already familiar to them. The best way to stay in front of this “warm audience,” those who already know you, is through a tactic called retargeting.
Every major online retailer does it. You’ve been retargeted before. Why do you think it is that when you look at a particular product on Amazon that it all of a sudden starts showing up in your news feed? Or when you visit a company’s website and then start seeing ads for them everywhere? That is called retargeting, and we, as real estate agents, can use the same strategy to stay in front of our network.
Retargeting is when you show an ad, or a series of ads, to a group of people who have taken a certain action. For example, you show a video ad to only people on your email list. You could show ads to only people who have visited your website, engaged with one of your Facebook posts, or watched one of your previous videos.
By spending money marketing to those who have already seen you before somehow, every dollar you spend will go so much further. That’s smart even in the best of times, but in this new world of coronavirus-led disruption, it’s absolutely imperative. Spending your money intelligently can mean the difference between maintaining your average level of business over the next six months, or being completely out of business in 6 months.
You do retargeting Facebook ad campaigns through what is called “custom audiences,” which is like a box of people who have taken a certain action or meet some criteria that you specify, and then running an ad campaign targeted to just that custom audience (aka only the people in the box). There are countless videos out there, like this one, that can teach you how to do it. You just have to take the initiative to seek out the information, and then do it.
I challenge you to figure out how you can spend more money on marketing right now, while your competition is spending less than it has been in years. Make the investment of time and money to learn how to do these ad campaigns the right way.
Facebook ads are a tool, which can be used correctly and effectively, or when used ineffectively, can be completely useless. Hire a coach, take a course, but ultimately you need to have control over your ads. If you just outsource it to some other company, you have no control over the content of the ads, nor their effectiveness, not to mention you are paying much more than if you learned how to do them yourself.
I’m a firm believer that any real estate agent right now who invests some time and some money to master their own ability to generate leads and build awareness of their brand will look back six to 12 months from now – their businesses thriving and enduring – and they’ll only wish they had spent even more.
Think of this time right now as a digital land grab, so you can start dominating the precious news feed real estate of everyone in your sphere of influence.
