Episode 3: “Eminem Headlines! Is It The Real Slim Shady?”

It’s Party Time! In this installment of “War Stories” we meet a big-time agent who SHOWS big-time  customer appreciation. This successful agent throws an elaborate party to thank all of the clients who helped get him to the top. This agent has a trick up his sleeve to make the event quite memorable indeed.

The takeaway here is simple: you cannot be a successful real estate agent without clients who want to buy and sell homes. You can never go wrong showing appreciation to those people who have helped you achieve success.Enjoy our latest video, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and Facebook page for the latest news, content, and updates. Happy marketing!

Episode 1: “The Real Estate Man with No Marketing Plan”

Tune in to Discover Publication’s founder Leo Zupan’s “War Story.” In this debut episode he talks about a big-ticket client with a haphazard marketing approach. Our takeaway from the story? Consistency is key to a successful marketing program, especially B2C, especially in real estate, and most especially with direct mail.

The challenging thing about marketing in the real estate industry is that homeowners are only ready to sell their homes every 3, 5, maybe 15 years, depending on turnover in the area. And to make matters worse, when that magical time comes, an agent has about five minutes to win the listing before it’s gone. The most successful agents we’ve encountered understand that they need to be in that prospect’s head months, perhaps years, before they are ready to sell if they have a fighting chance of getting a contract. That’s why they mail consistently to their farm month after month, and why they tend to get more leads in the later years than in the early month.

Enjoy our latest video, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and Facebook page for the latest news, content, and updates. Happy marketing!

The three time-maximizers that agents forget:

These rock-solid strategies are nothing new. And yet, we at Discover continue to be amazed by how often even the best agents go against the most basic best practices.

We get it… sometimes, it seems easier to do the busywork yourself than stop and think how it could be leveraged, or if it’s even necessary. Falling into this trap can stunt growth, and at worst, sabotage your business. That’s why we can’t stress enough the importance of getting other people to help you with the activities that support the the growth of your business. Here are those three obvious (but under-utilized) methods…

1. Delegate to your staff – correctly

If you’re a high achieving agent, you probably already know that the workload required to reach any summit is about as massive as the mountain underneath. So if you’re striving for an Everest level of success, you know even working around the clock would be futile without an army of supporters. But ask yourself: when you bring more and more people on board, does it feel like you have more and more resources to climb the mountain successfully, or do you feel like you’re moving slower, with a lot more luggage? Your people want the team to reach the top, but may not understand that when they ask you to handle a small problem they could easily solve, they’re distracting you from doing the activities that carry the team forward. The solution? When your buyer’s agent tells you about the major mold problem with a house she has in contract, ask her how she would handle it. Listen, coach, let her do it, and follow up later. When your office furnace goes out, call your assistant, not your landlord. The key is to give ownership of all the important but routine activities (and all the not-so-routine but all-to-common little fires) to the people who are there for that very reason. Remember your focus here is to maximize time to support your business’ growth – no matter how much better you could have done it, it’s worth delegating. 

2. Leverage your professional partners

Productive agents have referral partners – we hope you’re in this boat. Think about how much business you send your mortgage guy, title rep, home inspector, interior designer, insurance company, and the whole gamut of contractors. They appreciate your referrals, and rarely have opportunities to reciprocate. And they want to reciprocate. If you’re internally scouring the Internet for expired listings and FSBOs, or trying to build a list from the Auditor’s site of homeowner’s names to match the addresses in your farm, stop. Your title agent can help you. If you’re driving around sticking fliers on porches or paying someone by the hour to do that, stop. Any of your service partners who are door-to-door prospecting in your neighborhoods would gladly take a stack of your materials with them. If you’ve got a buyer in a weird finance pickle, don’t spend hours untangling the situation, simply call your mortgage broker and ask them to meet with your buyer to discuss it. Even if they’re not a prospect for the broker, your broker values your relationship tremendously and would happily do your client the favor. You get the idea. 

3. Use full-service vendors who minimize your legwork

Think of all the elements that make your business successful. You need legal and financial protection – the right kinds of insurance and a good attorney. You need a good office environment, the right Internet and phone setup, a CRM, and probably a good accounting system. If you have employees, you need to understand payroll and HR dos and don’ts. You need a solid marketing plan and the right tools to execute it. The list goes on. Think about each critical area of your business and what third parties you pay to handle each component. Are you getting the full value they offer, are you able to maximize time? Your payroll processor might also offer free handbook templates and printable onboarding forms. Your CRM might have a nifty reporting feature that saves your hours – and if it doesn’t, maybe there’s one out there that does. And consider of course your marketing service providers (like us!). How much time do you spend sorting through lists, figuring out what to write, or ensuring your branding is consistent? Are you paying someone to chomp away at copywriting or bank reconciliation when you could upgrade to a premium service provider that could do it better – and end up costing you less? Successful people don’t need to master minutia but rather master the art of coordinating the right external partners. Achieving and maintaining high levels of success means choosing the most effective and turnkey services available, not the cheapest do-it-yourselfer alternatives which take time away from your journey up the mountain.

It’s 2016 – the age of technology, and now what many are calling the age of Snapchat marketing. Today there are so many gadgets, techniques, and social media platforms used to connect with your prospective clients, that you’re left wondering which ones are best for your industry. Oh, and how you can “connect” without spending eight hours a day online. Want in on the secret of quick, easy-to-use social media marketing? Snapchat.

By now you’re already actively promoting your business on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. While those are consistent platforms to build your brand, there is a relatively new platform with over 100 million daily users that, as a real estate professional, you should be integrating into your marketing. We call it Snapchat. Using this application to connect with clients and prospects is incredibly easy and fast-paced. It’s time you give it a try. Here’s how:

Snapchat is an extremely simple way of sending photos and videos directly. But here’s the catch – after the recipient has viewed the photo or video, it disappears forever. Not to worry though, Snapchat has a feature called, ‘Stories’ where you can compile an unlimited amount of photos and videos throughout the day. With this feature, your audience can view your posts as a whole, like a slideshow or video compilation. ‘Stories’ are live on your account for 24 hours.

At first, you may wonder how is a platform that erases images valuable to your marketing program? Let’s say you are working with a new millennial client who frequently uses Snapchat. You easily add them to your contact list, and send photos and videos directly of a potential home that you think they might be interested in. The app notifies the user to take a look at the video you’ve sent them, and you will also have a visual indication if they’ve seen what you sent. And, because Snapchat has a fantastic built-in communication system, your client can follow-up with a message, photo, or video as well. Easy, right?

Now think about it this way – When you send a “snap” to followers who know that what you’ve shared will only be live for 10 seconds, you will have their undivided attention for the full 10 seconds that your image or video is displayed on their screen. This results in higher retention from your audience when compared to them scrolling through a homepage feed. This also results in a higher response rate due to the urgency stemmed from disappearance.

The ‘Stories’ section of Snapchat can be useful to you as well. You can showcase an open house, any community events, or even create short market updates. With the ‘Stories’ side of Snapchat, you can see who’s watched the entire compilation, and you can even download your entire ‘Story’ as one large pre-edited movie file, and upload it to your other social media platforms. Remember, social media works in collaboration, sharing a video from platform to platform will get more attention towards your posts and your business.

Every client is going to be different, but as time goes on we are seeing that more people want their home buying process to be easier and more accessible. That’s why Snapchat marketing is an easy and fun way to communicate directly with your clients, and all it takes is 10 seconds .

Questions? Give us a call at (614) 785-1111 and in the meantime subscribe to our our youtube channel for more inspiration and real estate marketing videos.

Top real estate agents know the value of becoming the go-to person in their community. Here are five ways they’re getting ahead.

Why is being the “go-to person” in your community so important for a real estate agent? The industry is a very personal business, people need to feel comfortable with the agent they choose. Establishing yourself as that go to person assures people that you are a community leader, and the person they want to work with. Being active locally will create new business, referrals and lasting friendships within the community.

1. Hold free seminars – educate people on the local market, refinancing, retirement. Free seminars are a great way to meet people in the community and let them know you care. You are their real estate agent, and their resource when it comes to anything industry related.
2. Host an annual past client party – rent out a movie theater, the local zoo or just have a BBQ. This is a great way to show appreciation to your past clients and build a personal relationship with them. Also get referral business!
3. Consistent direct mail and online marketing – As a real estate agent, you always want to stay in front of your market. Marketing will allow the general public to know you, people want to work with someone they know and trust.
4. Community Fundraisers – Hosting fundraiser events for the local schools, or building a team to participate in a cancer walk are great ways to show you care about the community and are actively giving back.
5. Advertise that fact your audience and clients may call your office for anything – Need a contractor? Call my office, I can refer someone. Want to refinance your home? Call my office we will help get you on the right path. Just another great way to help people in the community and let them know you are their go-to real estate agent for everything and anything.

Real Estate is the Best Industry for Direct Mail Marketing

Over the last few decades, here at Discover we’ve made huge efforts at getting custom publications in the mailboxes of various industry prospects. We’ve tried the full gamut of small businesses marketing to a geographic farm. What we’ve found is that real estate is the best industry for direct mail, and yet, we still run into agents who don’t get results. Here we’ve come to understand a few basic principles about direct mail; when and how it becomes effective. These are our nuggets of wisdom.

(1) You are still building a community presence

Real estate is such a great industry for direct mail because you only need a few good leads to cover the cost of several mailings. This isn’t true for other industries, whose services are yielding much lower revenue per lead. But to get even those few leads, your mail needs to reinforce an image that is already familiar. Of course, your mail assists with the familiarization process, but having a few yard signs in the neighborhood and a booth at the fireworks will make you mail much more effective. That doesn’t mean that if you’re a new agent you shouldn’t use direct mail (we think you should), but you must realize that it probably won’t send leads your way for a long time.

We’ve found that agents who have been working in the community for 5 or more years, have 5% or greater market share in their farm. And those who participate in community events regularly get the best results in the fastest amount of time.

(2) You aren’t sending the right kind of mail

Ah, postcards. Even here at Discover we’ve dabbled with them. We learned early on that postcards can be a great tool for showcasing a recent sold or a hot listing, but they should not be used as the backbone of a direct mail strategy. Today’s consumers are highly distrustful of almost anything promotional, and it’s really tough to cram anything but self-promotion on a postcard. You’re go-to direct mail piece should speak to the homeowners in your community about what interests and concerns them. It should show, not tell, how you are an expert, member and leader in the community.

This realization was the genesis of our custom publication, which is designed to position agents as caring, contributing members of the neighborhood who are also successful real estate agents. Sending relevant, engaging content to your prospects is more effective over the long haul than promotional postcards or fliers.

(3) You aren’t properly prospecting or supplementing your direct mail with other forms of marketing

We’ve heard of agents who love the idea of direct mail so much that they rely too heavily on it, and it gets them nothing. A seasoned real estate agent knows that you’ve got to heavily prospect as part of your overall strategy. This includes regular phone calls, emails and even door knocks. If you’re calling on people you’ve been mailing too, you can use that as an opening line so the call doesn’t feel as cold.

Direct mail is also one of the least threatening forms of marketing because it is so easy. You send it. With your websites, social media, videos and emails, you’re taught to follow rules, cross-connect multiple channels and then analyze all of the metrics. We get it. But nonetheless, the fact is that even if you are a fantastic networker, direct mailer and community leader, if your prospects can’t find you online they’ll be turned off. To get the most out of direct mail you should:

• Lead prospects to a beautiful, functional and well-integrated website. It should tie to all your social media and other online profiles and sites (like your broker landing page and Zillow profile), showcase listings, link to tools your prospects can use to value their home and search local listings, and feature regular updates and blog posts
• Have a presence with frequent posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
• Build and maintain a clean email list of past clients and future prospects. You should email them at least twice a month with interesting content that is non-promotional, including videos

We know it takes a lot of inertia to do all of this, but we have found that agents who take advantage of multiple marketing channels get more calls from the direct mail they send out.

(4) You aren’t mailing consistently 

Just like with prospecting and email marketing, consistency is key. We’ve found that mailing a good, core piece at least every other month will pay off within 6-8 months (for an agent with presence, market share, and a good supplementary marketing program).
But what’s interesting is that once the agent mailing hits this “break-even” point, the leads don’t come in at a steady pace, they tend to come in faster and faster. It’s as though the continual reinforcement starts to take hold and homeowners start to associate the agent with “successful real estate selling.” At that point it’s exciting because it’s a matter of housing turnover more than trust building, because that’s already been accomplished.

We hope you’ve found this information helpful. We’re always here to share our experience and insights, so let us know if you have any comments or questions.