Are You Using the Right Marketing Platform to Convey Your Message?
If there is one thing the real estate profession is missing, its classes on marketing. We have all kinds classes from “Legal and Ethics” to “How to Run Facebook Ads,” but we are missing guidance for when and where we should be sending our messages. We need to market our services to the world, but first we need to understand more about our messages and how they are received by our prospects.
I often hear agents say they are going all digital with their marketing. The unfortunate result of this is the wrong message at the wrong time. We see Facebook as an avenue to blast ads when it is actually an ideal space to take a different approach. In the exert below from the article “An Open Letter From Millennials to the Real Estate Industry” you will see an example of what I mean.
“Finding a real estate agent I can ‘trust’ is difficult. And no, seeing your face on a billboard or a bus bench isn’t going to help.
You grew up seeing around 500 ads a day, but I’m used to being bombarded with at least 5,000. I don’t read the newspaper, I don’t click on banner ads, and even on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll need to have some compelling content for me to take the time to click on your ad and see what you have to offer.
How can a real estate agent earn my ‘trust’? The answer is transparency. If I look at your Twitter account or your Facebook page, is it cobwebs? Have you just been posting every listing you’ve had for the last few months and little else? Seeing old listings doesn’t tell me anything about who you are.”*
Here is another excerpt from an article addressing a study that further illustrates my point.
“A new study entitled “Why do people use Facebook?” from Boston University’s Ashwini Nadkarni and Stefan G. Hofmann proposes that the social network meets two primary human needs: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation. The study also acknowledges demographic and cultural factors as they relate to the belonging need, and the variation of personality types on Facebook usage.
I think we need to stop and question the kinds of messages we send, where we send them and what we are saying in that space. People come here for affirmation, reassurance and engagement with others and the best thing we can say is “Call me when you are looking to buy or sell a home.”**
Facebook is an ideal place to keep the personal element of your relationships strong. There are other avenues to reach your sphere with business based messages like postcards and email. That being said remember if your plan is to rely solely on digital marketing the odds of really reaching your audience are low. According to MailChimp, the world’s leading email marketing platform, only 1 in every 5 people will open your email newsletter let alone read your message.***
The lesson I have learned is not to rely on a single marketing platform. With all the opportunities to reach people, our best course of action is to stop and think about the message we truly want to convey, consider whether or not the recipient is in the right place to receive our message, and finally execute our marketing efforts with a strategy that utilizes the best platform for that particular message.
Sources:
*An Open Letter From Millennials to the Real Estate Industry. (2016, March 28). Retrieved December 20, 2016, from http://res.rethinkcrm.com/an-open-letter-from-millenials-to-real-estate/
**Review of: Why do People Use Facebook? (n.d.). Retrieved December 20, 2016, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911005149
***MailChimp. (2016, March 1). Email Marketing Benchmarks. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/
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