Two Real Estate Marketing Tips For Agents
There is a lot of great content in there, and the entire video is only about 17 minutes long. If you have the time it would definitely be worth watching if you are an agent wanting to up your marketing game.
I want to focus on two big rules that Tom mentions in the above video that I think are the most important parts since they are directly related to the work we do here:
RULE #3: YOU NEED TO MOVE FROM STARTUP TO GROWTH IMMEDIATELY
Tom says that the mistake a lot of agents make is that they act like a startup company. This means that there is only one person trying to do everything. That is not a good business practice.
What people should be trying to do is manage their company for future growth, where:
“Growth is a dedicated leader empowered to go build the business.”
Tom goes on to ask about who does your email marketing, who converts your social media connections to appointments, who writes your Facebook ads, who handles your direct mailings, and who manages your photos and brochures?
Many agents try and do all of these things by themselves. What they need to be doing is outsourcing to experts that make their livelihood around producing results in each of the aforementioned categories. So find the experts who make their livelihood from creating the best direct mail, the best Facebook ads and, of course, the best real estate photography.
“Stop trying to be the expert at everything. Be the expert going on appointments. Be the expert at negotiation. Everything else can be outsourced.”
If you are a realtor who wants to get to the top of the field in the West Michigan area, Grand Rapids, or wherever you might be, then you need to bring in people with expertise in their field. If you don’t do this, you are making it a lot harder for yourself if you take your own photos. Professional photography has to be a part of your game regardless if the property is worth $1.7 million or $70,000. A particular listing may not be worth much in financial terms, but the people who see the house will gain a particular impression about you and your brand.
And who knows, those people looking at that super cheap home might also be owners of a $1.7 million home. Do you think they’re going to hire you if you are sharing photos taken from a cell phone?
So here’s my tip to follow on from the excellent ideas shared by Tom Ferry:
“Outsource your real estate photography to a professional who makes their livelihood from producing results for agents like you.”
A photographer that specializes in real estate photography lives and breathes for this kind of thing. They don’t know how to negotiate with a home buyer. They don’t know how to bring a difficult buying or selling contract together. But they do know how to create stunning images that sell homes and that sell their real estate agent clients. Bring the right people in for the right job, including photography, and things will drastically improve in your company.
Rule #4. Always Be Testing.
Tom says that you need to develop a culture of testing so that you know what works best and when. This applies to your emails, to your headlines, to your Facebook posts, and everything in between.
Although Tom didn’t specifically mention this, I think this rule around testing all the time can be applied to many different aspects to the photography side of marketing. For example:
Test Different Photos.
Will a photo of the front of the house from ground level work best, or will elevated shots look better?
Is a daytime shoot ideal, or will you ‘wow’ potential buyers with a twilight shoot?
Try different images in different areas, then check the response you get see if there’s a standout. Facebook ads are an ideal environment in which to test this out since you can run multiple Facebook ads at once. This will allow you to find out which photo gets the highest amount of engagement during the ad campaign.
Test Different Photographers.
What is the difference in the number of enquiries you receive when you use a low-cost photographer compared with the amount of interest you receive from an expensive photographer?
How many listings do you pickup when using average photos compared to the number of houses you sell using above-average photos?
Look At The Numbers.
The important takeaway here is that I encourage you to test different photographers in the West Michigan area, because you don’t know if the cheap photographer you’ve been using for years and years is actually working out well for you. Once you’ve tested different photographers, and you have found the clear winner make sure you stick with them to help your business succeed.