This is a guest post from 4Property, a leading provider of technology and market intelligence services for estate agents and valuers.
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In almost all instances, the current circumstances have impacted almost every industry in an obstructive manner. I’m sure you are sick of hearing the doom and gloom. This situation isn’t ideal, but it has undoubtedly raised some opportunities for estate agents around the world.
One positive, and something that has increased even more than usual, is the time we are now all spending on social media. Research by Global Web Index found that we are seeing a huge increase in people checking social media across all age demographics: 27% among Gen Z, 30% among Millennials, 29% among Gen X and 15% among Boomers.
The increased social media usage means one important thing for estate agents, this is the time to be making the most of your social media channels, in particular Facebook and Instagram. Why? Increased social media usage means increased reach, greater exposure and more potential customers!
When run effectively, paid Facebook campaigns boast unparalleled results in terms of attracting new buyers and sellers to your estate agency. We are going to show you the essential things you need in order to do this and how you can attract quality leads purely from running Facebook campaigns.
What you will need – Essential
Tracking
Pixel tracking allows you to trace all website visitors so that you can remarket to them directly on Facebook. Not only can you track who has been on to your website, you can track the actions they took whilst navigating, such as the specific pages they visited and how long they spent on a page. Why is this important? Retargeting to previous visitors is essential, typically customers don’t enquire first time round and enquire once they have engaged or interacted with you a few times.
Without the pixel, you are unable to run dynamic product ads, for more information regarding dynamic ads click here. The Facebook Pixel is an essential tool for generating quality leads and if it is something unfamiliar to you, please ensure that this is set up as soon as possible.
Content
Within your Facebook campaigns, it’s essential your content is informative, engaging, and relevant. If you fail to engage your audiences, you will not generate leads! Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, would you make an inquiry to a business if their marketing efforts were lazy, dishonest, and irrelevant? Your customers need to feel like they are missing out if they don’t inquire with you!
Boast about your service, shout about what makes you stand out from your competitors, but remain honest! Customers value transparency and trust, and you’ll be found out if you fail to follow this. Avoid huge chunks of text, keep it short and intriguing, and make the customers want to find out more. Content is king! Be creative.
Images
For lead generation, good images are crucial to the success of your campaigns. When selling a property, you need to consider that this is one of the most important and expensive purchases a customer can ever make. Would you be interested in a property that looks unappealing?
Good quality images are essential, but what is featured in the images is equally important.
Investment
Like most things, you need to invest in order to see results. Paid Facebook & Instagram campaigns do need some sort of Investment. This may deter agents from wanting to invest anything at all, but if you’re not willing to invest money into your own business, how can you expect your estate agency to grow? Obviously, the bigger the investment, the better results you will see, but you can run multiple successful campaigns for as little as £100.
Once you see the results that can be achieved, your confidence will grow and you’ll be wanting to invest more. If you make one sale through Facebook, your investment will have been paid off for an extensive amount of time. Don’t let this feel like an outgoing cost that you’ll never get back, see it as an investment that will pay off in the long run.
Strategy
The final essential step to making sales directly on Facebook is a comprehensive and well-thought-out strategy. It is important to recognize how the process works and what steps you need to follow before you can start generating good quality leads on Facebook. Your social strategy should replicate a ‘marketing funnel’ and acknowledge there is a process that needs to be followed. You can break campaigns down to 2 separate objectives.
The first is brand awareness. Has your estate agency been getting enough exposure, are people familiar with your business, do you have a reasonable page following? If the answer is no, then you must first concentrate on this before moving towards your next objective.
The second is traffic. How much traffic are you currently getting to your website? If it’s a lot, then great, there’s no such thing as too much traffic! If it’s not enough, then you need to focus on this. Successful traffic campaigns can lead to a huge surge of web visitors. Usually these are people who have never been on to your website before. In some cases, these web visitors may result in enquiries the first time of asking. What is more likely, however, is that they take a look at your website, see what you have to offer and then continue with their day and move on to something else. These people have now shown intent with your business, but a number of factors may have contributed to why they haven’t led to a conversion. Now you have attracted people to your website, it is now time to implement a remarketing strategy to them, this can be done on Facebook & Instagram. When done right, this will generate you hot quality leads ready for your team to make sales!
What you will need – Desired
Other marketing channels
Other marketing channels such as Email Marketing, SEO & PPC all help towards generating leads and sales for estate agents. How does it help with Facebook? Running other marketing campaigns alongside social media marketing allows you to focus solely on lead generation. If your website is already receiving a good amount of traffic, your social media strategy can focus purely on lead generation, the third and final objective in your strategy.
To optimize your lead generation efforts and ensure effective PPC campaigns for your SaaS business, partnering with the best PPC agency for SaaS is crucial. Their expertise in SaaS PPC advertising can help you drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and maximize your return on investment. With their specialized knowledge and experience, they can tailor your PPC campaigns specifically for SaaS, ensuring optimal results and growth for your business.
Experience
Previous experience running social media campaigns isn’t essential, but it would be preferred. Running social campaigns without already having done them before, means that you are likely to make a few errors before you start to realize exactly what it is that you need to do. Like anything in life, the more you do something, the better you will get. There are lots of guides out there, but nothing will replicate actually having the experience of doing it yourself.
Time
Sales take time! If you are looking for a quick fix, this is probably not the avenue for you. The average time it takes to sell a home is around 4 months, so you need to be patient and give the campaigns time. It’s important to manage your expectations of what can be achieved. Facebook campaigns are an amazing tool for generating leads, but you need to be realistic still. It is possible to generate leads in the first week, but the time to convert that into a sale at your end could mean that your investment isn’t paid back for a few weeks or months, but this depends on how good you are at selling!
Conclusion
To conclude, when done right, all of the above things can help bring your estate agency high quality leads which WILL ultimately bring sales to your business. Facebook allows you to advertise directly to the consumer.
This means you are not having to shell out money to a middle man, such as property portals, where results aren’t guaranteed and profits can be shared. Facebook is a platform that should be taken seriously in terms of its capabilities of generating sales for your business. Lots of estate agents still aren’t utilizing Facebook, and they are lagging behind those that are. The ones that are running paid Facebook campaigns are ahead, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they are running these campaigns effectively.
Illustration by Ouch.pics.
