
Welcome to our three-part series on digital advertising campaigns that give you more sign-ups! Branding campaigns (campaigns that advertise to your agents or agency) are an important part of the agency’s long-term marketing strategy. Here’s what we’ll cover:
Part 1: what the real estate marketing funnel looks like, the goal of targeting prospects at every stage of the real estate funnel, and some ad ideas to get you started;
Part 2: the topic that will have the biggest impact on your audience at every stage of their journey and some campaign ideas to try; and
Part 3: our top tips for running branding campaigns that leave a long-term impression in your audience’s mind.
At the end of this series, you will have a repeatable process that you can use to effortlessly generate and develop your prospects in customers and referrals. It’s about smarter work, not harder.
So let’s get started.
There are some obvious peripheral benefits of paid advertising by suppliers for your brand. Any advertising is good advertising and all that. However, most people who read your ads, mailbox listings, and other marketing efforts for listing are buyers. So, naturally, their focus is on listing and not the brand that sells the list.
If VPA is all the advertising you do, do banking for buyers who remember your name when the time comes for them to sell in 5, 7 or 10 years …
To increase brand awareness and ensure that buyers will eventually return as sellers (especially your sellers), you need to run campaigns that promote you. agency and agents in a way that is most relevant to your customers at specific to them the stage of the property’s journey. Read on for your town hall on the real estate marketing funnel.
A « funnel » is a framework for placing potential customers or audiences in a hierarchy, defined by their personal needs at each stage of their journey to work with you, and the duration between when you market them and when you will he needed your services.
The concept is quite old. It was first proposed in the book Bond Salesmanship by William W. Townsend in 1924. He described it as follows:
« Forcing by compression a broad and general concept of facts through a funnel that produces specifically and favo (u) the rare consideration of a fact. »
Broadly speaking, the idea is that you can move a person from the stage of awareness (when they initially learn about your services), to the stage of consideration (where they consider your services as an option), to the decision-making stage (when they decide to use you). services, over another agent). It looks like this:
When it comes to real estate, the funnel is a long one. It takes about five months, on average, for a homeowner to decide that he wants to sell his house. To make sure they think of your name when it’s time to sell, you need to target them at every stage of the funnel.
Advertising without the funnel context results in ads that are:
X less efficient (ie more expensive)
X poorly planned, without a clear overall strategy
X is not targeted to any area of the sales funnel
Usually, what happens to agencies that ignore this context is that they only target the lower part of the funnel, where the warm heat lives. This means competing with any other real estate agent and their dog for the same opportunities.
In this blog post, we’ll show you a goal for each stage of your real estate sales funnel and give you concrete examples of messaging, targeting, and ad content that you can use to move your audience to the next stage and beyond. when it invites you to a listing presentation.
People in this part of the funnel are the furthest from becoming a salesman. Maybe they don’t have enough equity in their house to sell now, or maybe they are waiting for their children to move out of the house before removing the barrels. Whatever the reason, it will be some time before they ask for your services.
The goal Advertising for these people means creating awareness (and, ultimately, building trust and familiarity) that will increase demand and increase leads down the funnel at a later time. By the time they are ready to sell, your audience should feel like they already know you.
Traditional tactics for targeting people at this stage of the funnel include garage sales, power supplies, and the like. Modern Day Tactics is a branding campaign, designed to get your image and brand in front of your audience constantly. Think of hyper-local competitions and gifts.
Here are the channels, ad content, targeting methods, and budget you should use at this stage.
channels:
Awareness is built on several touchpoints. It is crucial that people in this part of the funnel receive a relevant and unified message across multiple channels: Facebook, Instagram, and the Google Display Network. You could target these ads to click on the home page of your website or About Me.
Ad Content:
Here is an example of a Facebook ad that you could create, aimed at sellers in the dream stage, to stimulate your brand.
Aim:
Because people at this stage of the funnel aren’t currently looking to sell, they probably don’t offer indicators that you can use to specifically target them. So keep it wide and target these ads, especially in the local neighborhoods you farm.
Budget:
Your budget could be up to $ 150 per month as long as your campaign is in progress. Consistency is key – people will probably need to see your ads a few times before they remember their name.
The people in this section are getting closer to becoming potential. Maybe they just need a special opportunity or situation to get them to act. For example, they may sell if they find out that the value of their home is higher than they thought, so they have enough equity to expand.
The goal Advertising for these people means keeping your brand on top. You do this by increasing the traffic to your website and then by developing these potentials through retargeting, while constantly delivering value (without asking for anything in return).
channels:
Again, it’s important to keep a multi-channel approach: Facebook, Instagram, and the Google Display Network.
You could target these ads to click a market update on your blog or testimonial page because your audience is already familiar with your brand.
Ad Content:
Here is an example of an Instagram ad that you could create, aimed at sellers in the research phase, to keep your brand (and services) to the maximum.
Aim:
Again, keep your farm to a minimum. But this is where you can start to become smart and target people based on their online behavior. Then reload them with several different ads. This is the key. Retargeting keeps your brand in front of your prospects, even if they don’t read your emails or come back to your site.
Budget:
Your budget for campaigns targeting this level of funnel should be higher, as these are lead purchase ads. Some digital gurus suggest $ 400 a month, but it’s entirely up to you. You can always change later!
The people at the bottom of the funnel, the smallest section, are actively looking to sell; they are ready to act now and they need an agent.
The goal here is to catch the hot sales. It is the place where all the hard work that targets the top and middle of the funnel pays off!
channels:
If you use one of Spoke’s proposed campaign budgets, your advertising spend will be split evenly across the Google Display Network and Facebook / Instagram networks.
However, you also have the option to set a custom budget. This feature allows you to not only expand your budget, but also set a specific budget for each network. For example, if you’ve run a few Spoke campaigns and noticed that your Facebook or Instagram ads are performing better than your ads on the Google Display Network, this may indicate that your audience is an avid social media user. So you may want to create a custom package that includes a higher cost for Facebook ads.
Ad Content:
Here’s an example of some of the Google Display Network ads you might create for targeted marketers to help you earn a record.
Aim:
You should target people whose online activity shows they are ready to sell. Spoke’s smart categories do this for you! Check the « Sellers » category when setting up your ads.
Suggested budget:
Try to capture real earnings here, so the budget for these campaigns should again be higher than the campaigns targeting the middle and top of the funnel. Bigger budgets lead to better results. How much do you pay for an advance through the portals? How much do you think is worth a genuine hot seller lead?
You may be wondering why I didn’t mention the frequency or duration. Well, how long you should run your branding campaigns depends on you. It makes sense to run branding campaigns until you start seeing results (i.e. an improvement in the number of properties you register) or until you reach saturation. market. However, as a general rule, you should always have a branding campaign in place. Just remember to edit your ad copies and images at least once a month so that your audience doesn’t get bored of your ads and pay attention.
This funnel is meant to be repeatable. Once you have things set up, you can use the same tools, technology, and strategies again. Still you must have the right web presence and technology.
These are just some basic advertising ideas. Now that you know how the real estate marketing funnel works, as well as some of the messaging, targeting, and ad content you could use at every stage of your audience’s journey, you’re ready to start your branding campaigns. Stay up to date with Part 2 of this blog series, where we explain the topic that will have the biggest impact on your audience at every stage of their journey, and we’ll give you some campaign ideas to try.