How to get leads post COVID-19

As we slowly come out of COVID-19 the way things were done once, may not be anymore. 

The world has changed and unless you are prepared to change with it you could return to a very difficult world.

I know most business coaches and trainers talk about getting into the office early and smashing out calls, but I’m going to show you how I took my business from a side hustle to the number 1 marketing agency in the country for real estate marketing on Instagram – according to the social media institute of Australia by doing the complete opposite of what I have been taught.

I will preface this article by stating that the results, stats and opinions are my own and based solely on the success of Bespoke Media Management. We have achieved so much success in our short time that I wanted to share with you the way did it.

Let's have a look at;

1) Telephone prospecting 

2) Door knocking 

3) Email marketing 

4) Traditional vs social/digital marketing

Telephone Prospecting

I can with about 98% conviction confirm that I have not once picked up the phone and prospected asking for business since I started my agency. I guess I’m not a fan of hassling people during the day when they are busy with work, life and family.

Let’s be real, most of the time we are calling someone to push our own agenda am I right? We can sugar coat it all we want but underneath calling to give an “update” as to what’s happening is interrupting someone's day to tell them something, we think they should be interested about because we have time to sit on the phone and chat. In saying that, I am on the phone about 10 hours a day. The difference is, we have become an attraction agency due to our marketing and business success.

We let our social media marketing do our prospecting for us & we are reaching thousands more people than we ever could on the phone.

Door knocking

Same as above just a different tool. 

P.s I live in Elizabeth Bay (Sydney’s east) Which is around 80% apartments, so you want to have a plan C for prospecting because I can tell you door knocking isn’t going to work around here. 

Email Marketing

There’s a reason the average open rate sits around 25-30%. It’s probably because it’s boring and useless information for the majority. It took me a long time to shift my understanding of providing content to my database. With an open rate this year on average at 67% Bespoke Media Management has taken the time to listen to our clients and share information with our database that actually provides useful information and we hope a little entertainment as well at times. 

Simply sending a just listed “To All” isn’t marketing to your database, it’s sending an ad to your mailing list. So, you want to start looking at the difference between a mailing list and a database.  I know we all like to think our eDMS are awesome and that they are unique, but look at your own emails, how much junk comes through that you just highlight and delete.

Little tip, take the time to at least make the subject line catchy to stand out from the rest.

Also, you want to check your google analytics to see where your website traffics coming from. I never thought of myself as a data nerd. Anyone that knows me will know that spread sheets and data analytics bore me to tears. However, as a business owner they have proved to be essential to how I run my business, where I put my money and what messaging is working best. Your google analytics will give you every piece of data you need to know in terms of demographics, age, location, behaviors, pages viewed, how long they stayed on a particular page and the page by page click through.  This is particularly important to measure the success of your email marketing and is it ACTUALLY getting the outcome you think it is.

Prospecting of 2020

I’m not going to make any friends here in the coaching world and that’s ok. I’m not saying that you should stop your traditional ways of prospecting, I’m simply saying they are outdated AND like all other elements of the industry have changed and progressed over the years, I’m yet to see social media really given the respect it deserves. 

Yes, I know, you all have your seminars or start of year conferences and you get someone who offers a social media ad package or knows someone on social media who does “ok” and get them to speak for 15 mins. I know, I’ve been to them, I’ve seen them, I’ve heard the feedback and it’s been uninspiring. 

Why is it something the coaches avoid? 

While I can’t speak for everyone, I have heard coaches say in the past that we are wasting our time with socials, that we should be on the phone. That social media will never take off. A phone is only good for making calls, socials are a distraction and the list goes on. 

How do they come back from that?

COVID-19 shut all those traditional methods down. People depended on social media to keep their business alive and open and to also continue to provide services to their clients.

Having been active on socials for so long COVID-19 hasn't really impacted us as nothing really changed. It’ll be interesting to see how the coaches who have been against social media for so long, in particular those who told me it’ll never take off or produce results go from here. 

The only part I agree on is “wasting time with socials, that we should be on the phone”. Only if you don’t know what you are doing with your socials. Spending hours on socials trying to get the right video, create the perfect image or write an article is not a great use of your time. That’s why you need a company such as Bespoke Media Management to outsource all of that to.

I also believe that many coaches just don’t believe social media can pull the results it does. I’ve listed around 30 properties in the past 5 years as a DIRECT result from social media marketing. 

It’s great that you get a speaker for an event but where’s the follow up? Social marketing is so complex that even for us it’s a full-time job and I’m lucky to be a member of the social media marketing institute of Australia who give me weekly updates with all that’s happening. Did you know Facebook had an upgrade last week? If you answered no you really need to call me to see the impact it will have on your business. 

Business owners

You have a responsibility to provide your agents with all the tools they need to be a success in their real estate career.

Let me ask; 

• When was the last time you had a social/digital media guru come and speak with your office/network? 

• Do you currently provide a library of current images fit for all the different dimesons of social media marketing platforms?

• Do you know the platforms that work best for all your agents/offices? 

• Do you know how a lookalike audience can reduce the dependence for portals such asrealestate.com.au or domain.com.au

• Do you know about TikTok - you better.  It will replace Instagram in 12-18 months

• Do you know how to film a Facebook or Instagram live video?

• Are you providing training to your agents weekly/monthly giving them the updates on what’s happening on socials? Things change weekly so if you are waiting for your annual conference it’s way too late. 

• Do you have a social media toolkit for your agents/network?

• Did you know to do a social media ad correctly there’s over 100 steps? It’s more complicated than hitting the boost button

If you answered no to even one of these points we need to chat.

So, what is the prospecting of 2020? 

I would have to say that you are probably reading this on your phone would that be correct? It’s where we all spend most of our lives. They can do so much more than just make calls or send a text. 

There are a few ways you are seeing this article right now. 

1) You are on our database and it’s been emailed to you. 

2) You saw it on your social media newsfeed.

3) I have decided based on the audience preferences I can input into my ad creative that you want to see this. That’s right “I” decided that this is something you want to see. 

4) Because someone that “looks” like you on my database is connected with you on your friends list. 

5) I’ve blanketed a particular are with no audience preferences and hoping something comes. 

Now, why does this smash your traditional prospecting? 

Ok, so you have your little sheet where you tick off your calls/connects made for the day and what’s the response. It’s usually “you need to make more calls”. Would that be fair to say? 

Or even better, go and spend a few hundred dollars on print marketing and have them dropped. Out of the last 1,000 DLs you dropped tell me how many people saw them.

Please don’t tell me 1,000. For the majority they will end up in the no junk mail bin in an apartment complex, you may not reach everyone in the patch because of the no junk mail stickers or the distributor has thrown them in the bin as has happened to us all let’s be honest. If your DL does get seen it’s amongst every other agents DL in your area. Your just listed/sold are boring and tired so they are not making an impact anymore. 

With your social marketing I can tell you EXACTLY how many people it reached, how many people saw it and how many people took an action on it. Liked, clicked, commented, shared, watched a video or visited your website. Aren’t they stats you really want to know?

Imagine cleaning your prospecting up to be relevant to 2020 (not 1980) and create an ad that can be seen by the same person a few times during the course of the campaign who you want to market to who doesn’t even realise you have put it in front of them for a reason.

THAT’S PROSPECTING. 

It’s 24/7 prospecting reaching your desired audience without interruption and it’s the heart of how we went from nothing to #1. 

By all means continue with the traditional prospecting methods, I'm not saying they don’t work. I’m simply saying they don’t work as well in 2020 as they did in 1980.

If you are looking for a more ecomonical way & affordable way to produce results and gain more leads moving forward, get in touch with my team today.

Nic Fren

Founder

Bespoke Media Management