Online Ads That Get You Appointments
The ZipperAgent CEO Success Series: How to Leverage Technology to Grow Your Real Estate Business explores how technology is changing the real estate business and how top-notch agents can profit from these changes.
I’m ZipperAgent’s CEO, Depankar Neogi. I have decades of experience in cutting edge technology and the ways it reshapes older business models. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and observations on the real estate industry with you!
Chapter 2: Online Ads that Get You Appointments
Hello, everyone.
In this chapter, we’re talking about the big online ad strategy for building your real estate business.
Lead generation in today’s day and age is an omni-channel problem. Realtors know they need to communicate with customers both on and offline. However, offline communication is becoming more expensive and the return-on-investment is dropping. In most cases, a good digital strategy will net a much higher return. Continuing our discussion from the last blog in the series on ‘How to Leverage Technology to Grow your Real Estate Business’, I want to highlight one of the strongest lead generation campaign methods used by today’s top producing real estate agents.
It is Facebook Advertising!
Facebook Ads are so powerful that they can quickly turn a good real estate business into a great one. But before you dive in, you need to make sure few housekeeping things are already in place–otherwise you’ll waste your money. In the last blog I explained that the precursor to any good ad campaign is a good landing page. After all, you want to capture the basic contact information of any online visitor or lead you get through your campaign in order to follow up, qualify, and nurture them—and eventually convert them into a closed deal.
In addition to landing pages, make sure you have a good website, a blog page, and a solid Facebook Business page with consistent styling that reflects your business image. Once you have these things in place, you should plan on building a Facebook Ad funnel for your business. If done right, this funnel can become your #1 channel for traffic, leads, and sales. However, don’t think Facebook Ads are a cure for bad business practices; even an excellent Facebook strategy won’t triple your sales overnight. You need to take a long-term view to properly establish your brand and grow your lead funnel.
How To Take A Long-Term View of Facebook Ads
There are three levels to building a long term lead generation engine via Facebook.
Level 1: Content Marketing
Your Facebook Ads need to be backed up by quality content: blog posts, videos, articles, podcasts –anything that will attract a ton of clicks. Visitors need to be able to access some of this content pre-registration—before giving them their contact information—because it convinces them of the sincerity and quality of your business.
These ads and this kind of content also build trust. When someone does not know you, they need several external signals to feel comfortable enough to do business with you. Content marketing builds brand recognition as leads start to think of you as a resource and an expert.
Level 2: Conversion Marketing or the Mouse Trap
Conversion marketing ads get visitors to go to your landing page and convert them into leads in your database. Create a good landing page where you offer e-guides, gated videos, home valuation reports, and other content magnets that will lead visitors to give you their content information. It is important that all your Facebook conversion marketing ads should lead to a landing page with both a content offer and a means of capturing their contact information.
Level 3: Closing Leads
Once you have a visitor’s contact information, the next step in the marketing funnel is to convert them into an appointment. You can do this in few different ways depending on how they came in as a lead. If they came to watch a video on home buying steps, you may want to push them towards a webinar or download a report. If they came asking for a home valuation report, consider reaching out via email or a phone call. The goal and progression of your funnel should be to focus on closing leads to become an appointment.
In Summary: Level 1 creates traffic and awareness. Level 2 gets visitors to register and give you their contact information. Level 3 converts the contact to a lead with an appointment to see if they qualify for doing business with you.
What You Need To Remember
When you’re ready to develop your Facebook Ad strategy, pay close attention to these seven key features:
- A Killer Image – is your key to getting traction. The ad image must look great and stand out.
- The Text on the Image – should complement your image. Bring out your message with short, focused text.
- Killer Copy – is where the rubber meets the road. The message must be well thought out: serious prospects will only go to the next step if they understand and like what you are offering.
- Your Call to Action (CTA) – is your chance to tell people what to do next. This will make people go to the next step – whether it is to like a page, download something, or click through to your website.
- Mobile Friendly – make sure your ads are optimized for mobile, since 75% of visitors will see your ad on a smartphone.
- Target Audience – since Facebook allows great targeting options—including location, age, education, interests, income, and more—experiment and optimize your budget to target the demographics which will give you the best leads and the most clicks.
- Landing Page or The Mousetrap – the goal of all your Facebook ad optimization is to drive leads to your landing page, so make sure it’s set up to capture their information! This is the transition point, where you pull leads into your sphere of influence, and start them on the path to scheduling an appointment.
Quick Tip: If you’re having trouble coming up with killer copy, here are some eye-catching examples you can use for attracting buyers and sellers:
Copy Examples for Buyers:
- “Own Your Own [Area] Home!”
- “Great Deals: [Area] Homes under $X”
- “Live Near [Desirable Area]”
- “It’s Time to Upgrade to a Better Home”.
Copy Examples for Sellers:
- “Curious to know what your Home is Worth?”
- “Get a Free Home Valuation Today!”
- “Sell Your Home with the [Area] Home-Selling Expert”
- “It’s a Great Time to Sell!”
Stay tuned to this blog to discover the best ways to build your business with modern technology.
Best,
Depankar
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