Maybe you’ve heard of it and maybe you haven’t, but one of the latest buzz phrases in marketing is “experiential marketing”. As the name suggests, experiential marketing is all about taking that face-to-face approach to the next level. This is done through the transformation of common events into standout experiences, which are then shareable on social media. So how can real estate brokers and agents use this to grow and market their business to a new generation of customers?
We’re all familiar with traditional marketing approaches like open houses or door knocking. These approaches are indeed personal and generate contact directly between you and potential prospects. Experiential marketing, however, takes that further by establishing more shareable experiences and more personal connections around your brokerage and your agents. In this way, people have an opportunity to get to know you and your brand in a less-salesy, more personal way. In the words of our founder Jim Weichert, “people buy you, before your products or services.” For brokers and agents committed to a long-term career, experiential marketing can deliver both short and long-term results. Here’s a few ideas to get you started. Creating Experiences for Your Clients & Partners Almost any event you have sponsored in the past, such as an open house or seminar, can be upgraded to an experiential marketing event with a little extra work and thought. The experience you provide will vary, but the key is to make it fun, memorable, and shareable. Some events may not be tied to a specific home sale, but bringing visibility to your brand creates the opportunity for outreach in the future. Educational Events Most brokers have hosted educational events that allow you to showcase your real estate expertise in a more personal way than a blog post or postcard. Common events include first-time homebuyer classes, staging classes, and real estate investing classes. One way to make these events more experiential is to host them in more interesting places, like a local wine bar, or microbrewery, at an art gallery, or even inside a home you have listed. The key is to present a complete experience around the training, that is compelling enough to merit posting and sharing on social media. When creating these events, cost and creativity are your only limitations, but three words that help set the tone are: fun, food, and photo ops. Events with Hyperlocal Focus Events that allow you to mingle with local prospects and clients while indulging in local business are powerful for networking and making a positive impression. Some examples of hyperlocal events could include historic walking tours of your area, wine tasting tours, and “best of” restaurant tours. Organize a cleanup day at a local park and invite parents and kids. Rent an ice cream or food truck to coincide with a group door knocking event. Choose something you’re passionate about and that you feel your community will enjoy. Encourage people to take pictures and share their experiences on social media to get the maximum value out of your efforts. Partner with Other Local Influencers A way to host more compelling events and keep costs down is to partner with other local influencers or businesses. Host an event at the local animal shelter or pet adoption agency. If you’re marketing a 3 bedroom ranch in a family area, consider throwing a barbecue or partner with a local restaurant to cater an event for a local charity. An event catered by a beloved local hot dog shack will have just as much pull (maybe more) as a 4-star restaurant and give a sense of fun to the entire gathering. Or turn the tables and let your office be the host for a wine tasting, exhibit for local artists or holiday event like a pumpkin giveaway or trunk or treat. Document the Journey as well as the Event Don’t view the planning, brainstorming, and even the headaches of setting up your experience as things to hide. Instead use these as opportunities for photo ops to create content that will give you more mileage out of your event, such as pictures of the team setting up or your planning meetings. This way you can get a dozen or more pieces of content to publish across multiple channels for weeks, instead of just a single Instagram story published on the day of the event. Remember that one of the key goals of experiential marketing is its ability to leverage the connections of all those involved by getting them to share on social media. Encourage all manner of photographs and selfies at your event and encourage attendees to post. Staying Connected Online, Compliments the Experience While these experiences and events are an opportunity for you to connect more deeply with your network offline, your social media strategy can enhance these connections even further. Post consistently in the lead-up to the event to build anticipation and use the phone and email to increase touch points as much as possible. At the event, have someone create content like live feeds and video that can be used later as well. Make sure your team will respond promptly to every comment and interaction on their social profiles. It turns out that experiential marketing leverages some of the things that real estate professionals do best: being friendly and being organized. Experiential marketing ties directly into the Weichert philosophy of the personal connection in real estate as first practiced by founder Jim Weichert, handing out business cards twice a day in a Chatham, NJ train station. But the experience we most often create at Weichert, is one of success. For more information on becoming a Weichert franchise, visit www.weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/how-to-use-experiential-marketing-in-real-estate/
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We live in a world of distractions. The media, news, entertainment, technology tools and social media are constantly bombarding us from all directions. It’s easy to get sucked in to all the cool, shiny new ways to attract leads. While tech is great for attracting leads, don’t become so distracted that you forget to practice the skills and habits that close them. In this highly connected world, it’s more important than ever to hone your relationships and your personal selling techniques. Lots of people can use the same lead technology, but there is only one you. Use that to set yourself apart.
Use Technology To Stay Connected Make sure you have a good CRM. This is the best way to keep your contacts organized and keep track of your communications with them so you don’t lose touch. If you stay out of touch too long, it opens the door for a client to become connected with someone else and call on them when they need something. A good CRM is the perfect example of a tech application that blends automation and good sales techniques. Use the automation and calendaring features to:
Use Technology That Showcases Your Personality It’s no secret. People want to do business with people they feel a connection with and can trust. That is especially true when it comes to one of their biggest assets – buying or selling their home. The best way to stand out is to utilize technology that allows your personality to shine. Use video to share real estate tips or your knowledge about the neighborhoods you work in. Post them on Facebook or use a video email service, such as BombBomb to communicate. This will help humanize you and make you more memorable than a static post or email. Don’t Forget Your Hustle Lead generation sources are focused on one thing…selling leads. And they are happy to sell the same lead to you and the 10 other agents in town if you are willing to buy them. Customers typically work with the first agent they speak with. So make sure that agent is you. This means picking up the phone when it rings and not waiting to respond to that email. Don’t be so busy that you don’t have time to be responsive. Yes, you may have to speak with a few frogs, but you never know when that awesome lead is going to come to you and you need to be ready. Be Smart About Lead Gen Options Make sure the lead gen options you choose are truly productive for your business. How qualified are the leads you are receiving? Do you have to pay for them up front? What is your close rate on the leads you do receive? If it’s not good or you don’t know, you may be spinning your wheels and wasting valuable time and money. This can distract you and make you unavailable when the quality leads do come to you. Make sure you are spending your time and money on the right things. Always Keep It Personal No matter what technology and lead sources you use, don’t lose sight of the personal touch. Don’t let the technology do all the work. Find ways to use it to reach your customers in personal ways or use those applications that allow your personality to shine through. You are your product and people can’t buy if they don’t know you. As Jim Weichert always says, “People buy people, before buying a product or service.” Conviction & Consistency Are King At Weichert, we believe that tech is critical, but must be complemented by proven and successful sales activities. From a technology and lead generation perspective, Weichert associates and affiliates are automatically provided with its proprietary CRM and can qualify to receive leads from its lead center. Weichert invests heavily to attract online leads that are then screened by its call center. This helps connect the most qualified prospects to its agents. Those leads feed automatically into the Weichert CRM. Additionally, Weichert provides a blueprint of best prospecting and sales practices, together with qualified suppliers to help its offices and agents stay connected with prospects. When you approach tech with the right frame of mind, stay true to your mission statement and core values and deliver value to your community, you will never have to worry about how fast tech changes or its impact on the industry. Don’t be concerned with change, as much as you are maintaining consistency and staying connected with your clients. For more information on how Weichert systems can set you up for technology and beyond, go to https://www.weichertfranchise.com or call 877-567-33350. This content originally published at https://bit.ly/2J7VPzF For many people, the end of the year is all about the holiday season, but as a real estate broker, it is all about recruiting season. This is the time of year when many agents might be thinking about a move or when people start thinking about a career change for the coming year. Do you have a plan to capitalize on that? Since there is often steep competition to find the best agents in your local market, you will need to have a clear and consistent strategy in place. Here are a few tips on how to set yourself up for success:
Did You Set Clear Recruitment Goals for the Year? At Weichert, one of our broker mantra’s is to “know your numbers.” One of those important numbers is your recruitment headcount goal for the year. Your choice of a goal here should be realistic yet push the limit of what you think you may be capable of. Some brokers make these goals even more specific, specifying how many new agents they will recruit as well as how many experienced agents they will target. Once you set these goals for yourself, keep them visible and track your progress against them. You should also define smaller goals that support this objective like how many recruiting events will you run each month? How many calls, emails or direct outreaches will you conduct? How much of your online content will be dedicated to recruiting each month? Setting and achieving these smaller goals will not only make you feel good, but if defined right, they should lead to the headcount growth you are looking for. If you didn’t set a recruiting goal for this year, not to worry! You can still set monthly goals from here on out. It’s also a great time to start determining what your goal needs to be for next year. Decide To Make Recruiting A Priority One of the major hurdles that brokers encounter is allowing their recruiting activities to be derailed by “higher priority” tasks. Fixing this is really a matter of adjusting one’s mindset around recruiting and understanding that there really aren’t many more important tasks for your long-term success than recruiting. It is crucial that you decide what methods you plan to use at the beginning of the recruiting season and stick to them, such as holding regular career events or engaging with your local real estate school. Only by being consistent in your approach will you achieve results. Weichert brokers for example, are coached to execute a simple, but effective, recruiting plan on a weekly basis. Initially it may seem like a large time commitment, but the effectiveness of regular focus on recruiting soon makes new affiliates into converts and produces the brokerage growth that may have been missing. Leverage The Power Of Your Brand When it comes to recruiting, one of the best tools any broker has in their arsenal is their brokerage’s brand. For agents, a recognized, an established brand can mean more leads, training opportunities, mentoring opportunities and better tools to market with. Weichert brokers, for instance, often tell us that many of their recruiting and retention headaches were solved the day they hung the Weichert sign on the door. As an independent broker, your ability to create that buzz around your brand, is key to your success recruiting. That buzz comes from a combination of many things including your visibility in your market, the satisfaction of the agents already there, and your ability to help deliver leads, training and support to your team. Make Sure You Have the “Stuff” Training. Sales Materials. Marketing Templates. Listing Presentation. CRM. In order to attract agents, you need to have the tools and resources available to help them succeed and keep them. Agents want to sell and they want to be efficient in their follow up. They don’t want to have to spend time creating brochures and postcards or manually tracking leads. Weichert offers everything from new agent and existing agent training, to a powerful Listing Presentation, customizable marketing templates and personal branding support. In addition, agents are provided CRM technology to help them be as efficient as possible with their follow up. Recruiting Tools You Don’t Have to Grow Yourself If you’ve ever considered affiliating with a national brand, you’d expect that they would provide you with the support you need for recruiting and retention. The reality is many well-known real estate brands offer you little more than their logo to recruit. In addition to a well-recognized and well-respected national brand, Weichert offers a full suite of recruiting tools to attract and sell your value story, such as presentations, videos, brochures and flyers. In addition, you can work with your business consultant to help you map out your recruiting goals and strategy. You don’t have to go it alone. Like everything Weichert, it starts with “We”. For more information about how the power of WE can help you with your recruiting strategy to attract agents to your real estate team, go to www.weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/tis-the-season-for-agent-recruiting/ Summer is over, the kids are long back in school, and the holiday season is right around the corner. As an experienced broker, you know that this is the time of year when agents sometimes struggle to stay motivated and focused on their production goals. You also know that if they can maintain their momentum, they can finish the year stronger than ever. Here are some ways you can help your team maintain, and even enhance, their motivation to close out the year on top.
Revisit the Goals Set Earlier In The Year No matter how determined an agent may be to hit certain goals at the beginning of the year, day-to-day life as a business owner can cause them to lose focus. As their leader, reinforce those goals by meeting with your agents to review them, check on their progress, and provide actionable tips and motivation to keep the needle moving forward. If there are mentors active throughout the brokerage, you should also encourage them to continue to push their mentees to maintain steam and finish strong through the end of the year. The more aware agents are of their goals and benchmarks, the more likely they will work hard to meet those goals for the year. If you have an Awards program, it’s a great time to pull out the level criteria. Awards are great motivators. Maybe you have a couple of agents just a deal or two away from reaching the next Award level. Bringing that opportunity to their attention might be just the motivation they need to buckle down and close two more deals. Imagine if you could get every agent in your brokerage to do that! Educate Agents On Opportunities & Tactics One of the best ways to keep agents focused and energized is to keep them in the loop on new ways to generate business or increase the exposure of their personal brand. In the Fall, ramp up your team meetings, newsletters, and team-wide communications and use them to educate your agents on any new technology, tactics, or networking opportunities that can help them create touch points with their client base. By providing your agents with this training, you will keep them pumped up. Also, Fall is a prime time for festivals and community events. Keep your eye on what is happening in your local market and encourage your agents to participate in local events that they may not have had time for in the busy summer months. Do it together as a team to increase agent engagement with your brokerage. Start A Friendly Team Competition Different people are motivated by different things. For many, adding a friendly sense of competition to business can provide a needed boost this time of year. Creating visuals that track progress in a common area to keep eyes on the prize is a helpful reminder to agents to keep hustling. You can start team-wide competitions on shared goals like the most listings won, open house traffic or properties under contract. You can also make it a race among agents to complete predetermined individual goals. Regardless of the type of contest you launch, adding a prize makes it fun and helps create the camaraderie you want inside your brokerage. Who Motivates You? As a broker, your role as cheerleader and facilitator for your agents is a given. But who cheers you on in the last quarter to reach your goals? Having a mentor or coach is great way to help you stay on track and give you the extra push you need to finish the year out strong. Weichert thinks this is so important, it assigns all its Affiliates a personal business coach. This coach helps with business planning, goal setting and helps you hold yourself accountable to your goals. Their expertise and experience of what works and what doesn’t takes so much of the guesswork out of building a successful real estate brokerage. Plus, you gain a network of hundreds of fellow affiliates who are enthusiastic to share advice, success stories, war stories and best practices. Unlike other real estate franchises, the Weichert model is collaborative and proactive, providing experts in almost every area related to growing your business and training and recruiting your agents. It is a model very different from any other real estate franchise. If you think you could benefit from being part of a respected real estate brand and comprehensive coaching and support, call us today or go to www.weichertfranchising.com Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/make-the-most-of-the-home-stretch-keeping-momentum-in-q4/ You became a successful agent. Then you went on to build a successful team within your brokerage. The trend toward the growth of real estate teams within a brokerage is growing. In a 2018 survey, NAR found that a full 26 percent of respondents were members of a real estate team inside a brokerage. Of those who were not, a full 39% have considered joining or starting one. While teams can vary in size, the NAR study found that a typical team is 4 people and most members (80%) are licensed agents. Do you wonder what the next level of success is for you and your team? Perhaps you are ready to open a brokerage of your own?
It turns out that experienced, and successful team leaders have been developing many of the same skills and overcoming many of the same challenges that are required to be a successful brokerage owner. Some of these include:
What is Involved in Becoming My Own Broker? Broker requirements do vary from state to state and there are many online resources for getting specific requirements in your state. In addition to obtaining appropriate licensing, there are a number of things a new broker will need to navigate.
From Team Leader to Brokerage Owner with Weichert Not every team situation is a good fit for the transition to a broker, but if you are focused on even more success for you and your team, Weichert may be the solution you are looking for. For more information please visit https://weichertfranchise.com Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/your-real-estate-team-is-doing-great-whats-next/ |
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