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Real Estate Marketing Ecosystem Guide For Successful Real Estate Agents & Teams
(R.E.M.E.)

There is a huge need for real estate agents to step up their marketing efforts to be able to remain relevant in today’s digital age. Gone are the days where just signing up for Zillow or Realtor.com ads and watching the leads pour in. And techniques like Cold Calling, Door Knocking, and Direct Mail, still have its place, but the effectiveness is not where it used to be as people have become more closed off with their doorbell cameras and solicitation blockers on their mobile phones.

But there are so many tools and systems out there it is easy to get confused and going online in groups, everyone has their favorites to use. In order for real estate teams to be able to compete today, they will need to have a core system in place that works together. By having this system, once it is running as it should, your team will only need to focus on one thing, that’s contacting and keeping track of who’s in your CRM.
I like to call this system the Real Estate Marketing Ecosystem (R.E.M.E.) and it’s one that is a must for real estate teams to use in order to grow and compete with all of the noise and distractions your next clients have to go through just to remember that you exist and how you can help them. I break down the core components of this ecosystem and break down their purposes. Please let me know if you have any questions on how all of this fits together.

Website

A fully functional website is just the beginning of getting things set up for a successful Real Estate Marketing Ecosystem. A website with built-in IDX, tracking pixels for building custom audiences to retarget on Facebook, integration with your CRM, and an analytics tool to understand where things need improving is where you need to be.

It’s a place for you to produce content that you can use and repurpose on social media and to send out to your mailing list to stay top of mind. The content on your website is a great way to get traffic to your website so that you can retarget this traffic so that you can remain in front of them in the place (Facebook and Google) where they are.

There are many options when it comes to websites and you shouldn’t get too caught up with the platform, as long as you are able to install your tracking pixel, and include an IDX so that you can use this as a lead magnet for your social media advertising.

Social Media Advertising (Facebook Ads/Google Ads)

Facebook since the beginning of 2018 has become more of a ‘Pay To Play’ model. It is vital for real estate teams to use their ad platform to acquire new leads, nurture leads who haven’t contacted you yet but interested in your services, and stay top of mind with past clients.
Facebook ads are more than boosting posts. Building a proper marketing funnel (Top of Funnel [Cold Audience], Middle of Funnel [Warm Audience], Bottom of Funnel [Past Clients]) with a focus on retargeting is how you win with Facebook. Your next clients are on Facebook and if you don’t have a presence there, more and more real estate teams are there who are and it’s important for these clients to continue to see your presence. And Facebook loves video and this will allow you to reach more people as well as stay in front of your audience in a medium that people like more than pictures and text. So utilizing videos will help with building your presence online and gaining more leads.

If you are not using Facebook Ads in the proper way, you won’t get results. And for those saying that they didn’t work for them, I would ask them, did you provide a compelling offer for them to engage with you? Did you retarget this audience with relevant content marketing and videos of yourself? If you aren’t retargeting, you are just wasting money and you aren’t getting that when you use lead sources like Zillow and Realtor.com. Did you include a chatbot to provide you with a way to directly communicate with leads through chat which is becoming a must for businesses to use to connect with leads and clients?

CRM

Having a CRM that’s integrated with your lead sources is what is necessary to keep you and your team happy. The CRM is the only place you and your team need to focus your attention as the rest of the components of the marketing ecosystem. This is probably the most important piece of the ecosystem because you need a place to keep track with who you should contact, and how often you have contacted them.

There are so many CRMs, that your head would spin. The best CRM is the one that you and your team use consistently. Once your CRM is configured and integrated with the rest of your ecosystem, lead nurturing becomes much easier for your team and for you to focus.

IDX

Having a website is great, but having a website with an IDX is the best because you can direct lead magnet traffic to your website IDX and when they visit your site, you can now retarget them on Facebook so you can stay in front of them with your content marketing. Having an IDX will help with SEO, but with all of the search engine changes, don’t bank on getting a flood of organic traffic, but you will get traffic if you combine fresh blog content with links to your IDX.

Chatbots (Digital Personal Assistants)

Chatbots (Facebook Messenger Automation) has become one of the best methods for creating a one-on-one direct line of communication with leads and clients. It is frictionless as this avenue of communication is instantly established once a person interacts with the chatbot.

It will allow for your business to have a conversation with a person that they wouldn’t have, had they not had a chatbot in place. It allows for 24/7 automation so that the chatbot will be able to work on your behalf until someone from your team is able to continue the conversation. Chatbots help qualify leads by asking questions (Have you been qualified, what’s your timeline, etc) that help retrieve more information about a person and their needs before you are able to contact them. And because chatbots are a product of Facebook, it makes it simple for someone to provide their real phone number and real email instead of fake information that occurs many times on landing pages.

You can also use chatbots to send broadcasts out to everyone who’s interacted with your chatbot and segment messages as well. Facebook is continuously expanding this platform for businesses as they will be integrating their Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct Messages into one integrated Inbox. And the success of using chatbots to deliver listing information will allow you to obtain more buyers and buyer leads who may be looking for a different home than you have ever done in the past.

If you have any questions about how all of this works, don’t hesitate to contact me. Christopher M. Walker
Digital Marketing Architect ‘I help ‘non-techie’ Real Estate Agents close more deals using Digital Marketing Skills.’

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