June 2018 - iDashboard Blog

Real Estate’s Golden Question – Is It Still Valid?

“Where did you hear about us?”

In the world of marketing, this has been the golden question for years, giving us an insight into how customers interact with our content and marketing strategies to work out which areas of our advertising work best.

However, in today’s digital climate, does asking this question still hold value? Let’s take a look.

The Golden Question Examined

The majority of the time in the real estate industry, when a buyer is inspecting a home, you’ll ask where they heard about the property from.

More often than not, they’re going to tell you it was via an online search portal.

Why is this? Well, largely because some large portals are known to garner over 10 million views a month, meaning they’re the primary source for individuals looking to buy property.

From this, the only information you’re going to get is that you should start or keep listing your properties on these portals, as this is where the majority of your enquiries are coming from.

However, is this actually worth the cost? Should you have to pay thousands of dollars just to get a handful of people who might place a bid on your listing? Are these portals actually the source of your enquiries?

Think about it – it’s no different than your own website. Each month, you’re likely going to be clocking thousands of visitors if you’ve got a strong web presence and have been in the market for a while. From this, you’ll get a smaller number of leads, and a couple of those leads will convert into sales.

So, think about this – is using generalised questions on largely unqualified leads putting your money in the wrong place?

Consider an Alternative Approach

Some agents trying to break free from the clutches of real estate portals are asking these questions instead:

1) Why are you inspecting houses today?

2) What made you want to inspect this property?

There are a number of responses you could get, including:

“X has changed in our lives, so we need a new home to achieve Y.”
“I really like the look of the property’s interior.”
“Homes like this are hard to find in this area right now.”
“I want my children to go to X and this property is in the catchment zone.”

Use Better Questions to Get Better Information

In turn, you’ll be able to use this information to make better marketing decisions. With this, you’ll be able to develop fresh strategies that target your market in more effective ways.

5 Top Reasons It’s Time to Start Your Own Agency

Whether it’s the result of your boss not listening to you, you wanting a bigger slice of the pie, or simply more control over what you do on a day-to-day basis, the thought of starting an agency is one that’s crossed many real estate agent’s minds.

However, knowing whether it’s the right time to make the jump is a different story altogether. It’s a difficult decision to make, but there are a couple of tell-tale signs that running your own agency might be a good fit for you. Read on to find out more.

1) You Like Healthy Competition

When you start working for an agency, you adopt some of that agency’s brand trust and industry reputation. When you start your own agency, you’re wiping the slate clean and going at it from scratch. That means you’re going to be playing the underdog for a while and going at it against your competition.

This might be intimidating at first, but if you like the sense of having to fight for your piece of the market, it could be right for you. Additionally, you’ve got to remember – people don’t always list because of a brand – they list because of the agent they’re speaking with.

2) You’ve Got Some Savings

There are no two ways about it – if you want to start your own agency, you’re going to need money, as the first few years of a new business are often strenuous on the cashflow.

So, if you’ve got enough savings to last you for a year or two, it could be the right time to make the jump.

3) You’ve Got Access to the Right Talent

It comes down to the old story of building your house on sand. If you want to give your agency the best chance of being successful, you need to find the best talent.

Finding talented agents who are ready to jump ship and join a start-up isn’t always easy, but if you’ve got the right people in mind and know they’d be interested in either partnering with you or working under you, go for it.

4) You’ve Got a Robust Client Base

Without sufficient clients in the first few years, new agencies struggle. As a result, a strong client base is one of your most important assets. Before starting your own agency, you should focus on building a long list of contacts that you’ve either worked with before, or whom would be interested in working with you in future.

If you’ve worked in the same area for a considerable length of time, you might have already achieved this. However, if you’re finding it hard to get consistent work in your current position, it might not be the right time to move.

5) You’re Ready for a Challenge

Real estate can be fiercely competitive, but if you’ve already made it to one of the top positions in your current agency, you might be looking for a fresh challenge.

Starting your own agency will present just that. Not only will you have to bring in new business, if you choose to operate in the same area you’ll also be directly competing with your previous agency. This is a challenge that not all agents are ready for, but if you think it’s time and you can handle the pressure, go for it.

If you’re starting a new agency or going out on your own, our team can help you with a new website & a CRM & Property Uploader – contact us to find out more.

Your Guide to Video Marketing in 2018

Once a tactic that set savvy, experienced agents apart, video marketing for real estate has now become the norm. It’s standard to log onto Facebook and see stunning, high-budget-esque listing videos from agencies in your area.

However, the rules have changed, and although video marketing is common, many agents are still following the old playbook. And in 2018, that just won’t cut it.

You need to get creative and change things up. Read on to discover 5 tips that’ll show you how to do just that:

1) Change Your Video Format

The social media game has been completely changed by the rising domination of smartphones. Where online video was originally targeted at desktop users, this is no longer the case.

In 2018, size matters, and the best advice you can follow is to stop producing videos in 16:9 landscape format. They don’t look great on Instagram and they’re much less effective than their square counterparts.

So, start shooting your videos in 1:1 square ratio. These give you an extra 78% of screen real estate you can fill with engaging content, giving you a huge advantage over your competition.

2) Don’t Sell – Story-tell

Although this might go against every instinctive bone in your body, nobody wants to be sold to on social media. And your video style should reflect this.

Instead of selling the property’s features, use storytelling to push how buyers would benefit from living there. Sell them the experience.

3) Get the Timing Right

Work out who you are selling to, as well as when they spend their time on social media. After you’ve worked this out, plan a posting schedule around when you’ll be able to get your content in front of them. This will help you to boost your engagement.

You should also try to understand how each social platform works. For example, the Facebook algorithm isn’t going to give you a whole lot of control over when your audience are going to see your content, but Instagram is a bit more predictable.

4) Be Speedy, but Maintain Quality

It might seem like too much work, but you should aim to create a listing video for each and every one of your properties. Why? Because they vastly increase the chances of a sale.

This means you’re going to have to work fast, but you should also maintain quality. Whilst you don’t have to get drone footage of every home you market, if you’ve taken on a larger property, you should set aside a bigger marketing budget.

If you don’t feel confident in front of a camera, think about using quality audio descriptions over the top of photos or videos instead.

5) Livestream Your Properties

Facebook Live is a TV in your pocket, and you better be making the most of it. Statistics show that 25% of us use Live video to watch, but only 5% of us actually record our own.

It’s anticipated that this number is going to rise dramatically over the next few years, so get ahead of the curve and start using Live video to market your properties in the mom

How to Nurture Your Real Estate Leads to Maximise Their Value

If you want to make the most of the contacts, connections and data you’ve got, lead nurturing is absolutely essential. In fact, to get from initial lead generation to conversion, it’s near essential.

However, it’s common for agents to completely skip this step, and get put off the whole marketing process when it doesn’t deliver the results they’re after. So, what can you do to come out on top? Focus on nurturing your real estate leads and set aside time to do it on a regular basis. Follow these tips to find out how:

Never Give Up

Consistency is key, and if your communication with your leads is irregular and inefficient, you’re not going to drive the results you’re after. Because of this, it’s essential you maintain your lead nurturing activities on a regular basis.

The miracle of real estate lead generation is when a random individual visits your website, reads one of your blog posts and picks up the phone and signs with you. However, the chances of this happening aren’t high, so you need to place your focus on capturing that individual’s data and nurturing them through your sales funnel.

Let’s Get Started

That’s the end result you’re aiming for. The moment when your lead gets in touch, having finally decided to elect you as their real estate agent of choice.

That’s the goal – to move them from “I don’t want to” to “let’s get started”.

Understandably, not all of your real estate leads are going to be in the same stage of your sales cycle at the same time. And it’s frustrating, but you need to get used to it and focus on producing a full-cycle funnel that nurtures individuals, regardless of what stage they’re at.

Be Patient

Cultivating and nurturing warm leads into hot enquiries is a gradual process, and it’s not going to happen overnight. As a result, you need to learn to be patient with it. You’re going to have to stick with your activities and follow up with them to keep your agency fresh in their minds.

Get a CRM

When you’ve got 1 or 2, you might be able to remember them by name. But when there are tens or hundreds of leads in your nurturing cycle, that’s going to be a tall order.

CRM systems such as iDashboard are an investment, but it’s one you’ll never be sorry you made. They provide an efficient means of tracking your leads as they head through the buyer journey, so before you speak with one, you’ll know exactly who they are and how you should handle the interaction.

Define Who Your Leads Are

Set up an easy-to-remember system that categorises your leads. The simplest and easiest to implement one is hot, warm or cold. Hot leads are those who are ready to go, warm are those who are considering your services but aren’t ready to move forward right now, and cold are those who simply aren’t interested.

Each one of these requires a different nurturing approach, so it’s important you split your leads into these 3 defined categories to make the most of your nurturing efforts.

Nurture Your Leads Effectively

Whatever type of lead you have determines how you should nurture them. Hot leads need your attention right now, as they’re ready to go. Get in touch with them, leave messages, and send emails. Make 4-5 follow up calls before putting them back into the nurture system.

Warm leads are those that you often miss out on. Don’t let this happen. Keep in touch with them on a regular basis by sending them valuable content in the form of a newsletter. The same should be done with your cold leads until they either unsubscribe or express an interest in your services.

Make Your Blog Exceptional with these 5 Content Types

When working to build a beautiful real estate website that perfectly captures your agency brand and attracts new clients, blogging is exactly the avenue you should be pursuing. However, what if you’re only just starting, or don’t know what you should be writing about?

To help you get those creative juices flowing, we’ve pulled together a list of the top 5 most effective content types to build meaningful engagements with your audience.

1) List Posts

You’ve no doubt seen them all over the internet, and for good reason – they work. List posts or listicles are the internet’s most popular type of content.

The best part about a list post is that it’s very hard to go wrong with it. Focus on finding a topic that’s big enough to split into separate headers and you’re ready to go. List posts are easy for your audience to digest, as they break information down into bitesize chunks that make them more approachable. Make sure you keep the format simple, include plenty of actionable information and the more list items you can discuss, the better.

2) Local Events and News

What better way to engage a local community than discussing events and news? If there are any events kicking off in your local area, be sure to write about them.

For example, if a new gym has just opened or your local school is running a sports day for charity, do your bit to promote it. Not only will you curry favour with your community, you’ll also boost your brand reputation, as people will deem you to be more of an authority in the area.

3) Answer Buyer Questions

One of the best ways you can rank your blog posts is by effectively answering the questions that people are asking. You might think that other blogs have this covered, but there are new questions being asked every day, which give you the perfect opportunity to slide in and help people out.

Think about the types of questions your buyers ask you on a regular basis and make a list of them. After a while, you’ll start to notice a trend around the types of queries that are coming up. Create a post packed full of useful information that answers this query and you’ll strengthen your local SEO.

4) Answer Seller Questions

This is exactly the same as the buyer questions, but instead focusing on the types of questions that sellers will likely be asking themselves. This checklist should help you work out the types of questions you should focus on:

Collect seller questions and make notes of which types of sellers asked them
Create a blog post around that question and make it as professional and engaging as possible
Write a whitepaper with common seller questions on it and offer it to your audience as a free downloadable resource
Update your post each time you’re asked a new question
Include links to each specific post in your follow-up emails

By doing this on a regular basis, you’ll be able to build up a knowledge-base of useful, actionable information that will help you to nurture your leads more effectively.

5) Market Updates

When it comes down to it, your audience will be interested in their bottom line the most. As a result, information on how prices are changing – or could change in the future – will be invaluable to them.

Market updates are the types of content your audience will be actively looking for, so it’s naturally going to be an engaging topic. So, if you post this information on a regular basis and give them a quick and easy way to subscribe to a mailing list, there’s a good chance your readers will stay with you.

Instead of long-form content, try to keep your market updates short and easy to read. If need be, break larger chunks of information up into 2 posts and add in a link for those who want to find out more.

Top Tax Tips for the End of the Financial Year

As a real estate agent, finding your way around the tax system can be difficult. So, in order to take a weight off your shoulders and help you make the most of your heard-earned cash, we’ve compiled a list of top tips that will help you deduct from your tax bill efficiently.

What Can I Deduct as a Real Estate Agent?

As a real estate agent, you can claim tax deductions on the following:

Referral expenses
Your real estate license, as well as renewals
Advertising costs
Vehicle/transport expenses
Mobile phone costs

It’s essential that you keep hard-copy evidence of everything you intend to claim on, such as receipts, invoices and bank statements. The same goes for travel costs. Although you’re entitled to claim travel expenses for journeys related to work, you need to have the required paperwork. If you don’t have it, you can’t make the claim.

Unfortunately, you can’t claim fuel expenses for your journey to and from work, as this is deemed to be private travel.

How Can I Claim Deductions for Travel?

There are a couple of core methods you can use to claim your tax deductions for travel.

Cents per Kilometre

This is a set rate for every kilometre you travel for business. With this method, you can claim up to 5,000 business kilometres a year per vehicle. If you think you travel over 5,000 kilometres a year for business, the other method of deduction will be better suited to you.

The amount you claim is calculated by multiplying the number of kilometres you’ve travelled by 66 cents, as this number accounts for all running expenses associated with the average vehicle.

Whilst you don’t need to have written evidence, you will need to be able to show that you’ve made the journeys you’ve claimed you have. For this, a logbook or diary of trips you’ve taken for work will do the trick.

Use a Logbook

The amount you claim is based on the percentage of each car expense used for business. This is worked out from a logbook that’s kept for no less than a 12-week period, updated every 5 years. By using a logbook, you can claim every expense that relates to the operation costs of your vehicle at the percentage you use for business purposes. Your logbook needs to keep a record of all business journeys you’ve made over a 12-week period, including:

When the logbook starts and ends
Odometer readings for the start and end of the period
The total number of kilometres you’ve travelled
The percentage used for business purposes

As part of each journey you add to the logbook, you need to include:

Journey start and finish times
Start and end odometer readings
Number of kilometres travelled
Why you made the journey

If you’ve made 2 or more journeys in a row on the same day, these can be recorded as a single journey. You’ll also need to keep any receipts for fuel, insurance, servicing and repairs for the year in order to justify your claim.

How You can Make More Sales by Knowing the Mortgage Market

There are over 100 big mortgage lenders in Australia, but despite this, 75% of buyers use the same 4 banks. So, if your buyers are narrowing down their options to Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ and Westpac, they’re massively restricting the offers they could get.

So, the next time you’re talking with a buyer who’s having trouble getting pre-approval for a loan, it could be worth asking them if they know just how vast and competitive the mortgage market is. Despite it becoming harder than ever to borrow money, buyers are continuing to limit their options themselves.

Regardless of what you might think, you don’t have to be an expert on credit and challenger banks to be able to point your buyers in the right direction and help them explore the options they have at their disposal. In fact, challenger banks will often offer lower rates as they try to get a stronger foothold in the market.

Another method you can use for helping out budding buyers is putting them in touch with a trusted mortgage broker. An experienced broker will have a firm grasp on the market and will be able to properly assess your buyer’s financial situation and use it to find the best product for them. They’ll also be able to use this experience to recommend which lenders are likely to approve them based on their circumstances.

Research has shown that mortgage brokers arrange over 53% of Australian home loans, making them the first choice for many borrowers. So, here are the 3 key facts you need to take away for the next time you speak with a buyer who’s struggling to get a mortgage:

1) There are roughly 150 mortgage lenders in Australia

2) Interest rates can be as low as 3.39% (at the time of the writing of this article)

3) 53.6% of borrowers now use mortgage brokers

If you offer your buyers some simple, unbiased information, you could help to boost your sales results.

5 Tips for Boosting Your Instagram Followers

Looking to get more Instagram followers for your real estate business in 2018, without having to use cheesy, outdated sales tactics or spend money on bots? We’ve got the answers for you.

Your goal is to develop a following that actually cares about what you have to say and the content you’re going to share. This is the only way you’re going to get real, sustainable business results from Instagram. Read on to find out exactly what you can do:

1) Set out a Clear Strategy

Before starting with Instagram marketing, you need to have a plan. If you move forward without one, you’re likely to misspend resources and see a low return on your investment.

Your plan needs to clearly define:

What your goals are
Who you’re trying to target
The story you want to tell your audience
Who your brand is and why people should follow you

By creating a quick but detailed plan, you’ll head into Instagram marketing knowing what your brand is, allowing you to target your audience more effectively.

2) Create High-Quality Content

Nobody goes onto Instagram to get bored – they do it to be entertained, and to do this, you need to create great content. This is the stuff you see people sharing, commenting on and liking, and that’s going to be a key part of how you’ll gain new followers.

You can find out what type of content to share more easily by knowing who your target audience is. You want to engage, inform and entertain them with your content, so keep it visually-interesting, with eye-catching captions.

3) Tell Other Social Audiences About Your Instagram

Cross-promotion is a top way of getting some quick wins. For example, if you’ve got a more robust following on Facebook, share some of your Instagram content on there, with a Call-to-Action requesting your audience follow you on Instagram, too.

On top of this, you should make sure your Instagram profile is discoverable, so people can find you on their own.

4) Make the Most of Other Communication Tools

Every communication tool you have at your disposal is an opportunity to push people in the direction of your Instagram account.

Include links to your Instagram on your website, in email footers and in newsletters. This will help those who are already aware of your agency connect with you.

If relevant, you should also include your Instagram content in blog posts, as anyone who hits your site from a search engine will be made aware of your Instagram presence.

5) Use Hashtags that are Relevant to Your Brand

This will help make your posts discoverable to people who are searching Instagram for similar content. Make sure you work out which hashtags are popular by using the search function and consider creating your own hashtag to push your audience to engage with your brand by sharing their own content.

You shouldn’t, however, go over the top with your hashtags, as they can distract your audience from the main content. Additionally, avoid gimmicky hashtags such as #likeforlike, as although you might get a temporary boost in followers, they’re likely to be bots, spammers, or people only interested in getting a follow back.

Is Your Customer in Control of Your Business Relationship?

When customer service is in question, your client expects you to give them a superior experience throughout. However, meeting their expectations of excellence at every turn isn’t always easy.

10 years ago, business would have been done in one of three ways – face-to-face, email, or over the phone. Now, the list of communication tools we use is endless, so it’s understandable for it to get a little overwhelming at times.

Our clients are connected to us 24/7 and there’s very little delay between thought and communication. As a result, clients are much more likely to speak their minds and will wait to hear from you with increased urgency. Taking 24 hours to get back to someone is no longer an acceptable time-frame to work around. Other industries have set the bar, and even if they’re miles apart from you, clients expect you to measure up.

Quick, personal replies have become the benchmark, which puts the client firmly in control, and makes it much harder to build their loyalty, as they expect more for less.

However, it’s still controllable. The only thing that stands between you and your client satisfaction is punctual, relevant and responsive communication.

1) Match Your Client’s Communication

How they’re speaking with you is how they’d like to be communicated with. Even if you keep everything in writing, make sure you use the same channel they use to reach out to you. Work out what their preference is and stick to it, as not everyone is hot on email anymore.

2) Help them to Solve their Own Problems

Customers hate wasting time and want the height of convenience from your service. As a result, landlord and tenant portals will allow them to communicate with you at their pace. Creating educational blog posts, FAQs, knowledge bases and user-friendly websites will help your clients find the information they’re chasing you for themselves.

3) Be Completely Transparent

Half the time, your clients will be chasing you for an update and that means telling them what’s happening as it’s unfolding, not a day after. Showing your clients what you’re doing behind the scenes will help to build your relationships and cultivate trust. Remember – you do this every day, but they don’t, so don’t assume they know what you’re doing.

4) Every Client is Unique

You need to realise that every one of your clients is an individual, so you need to ensure your communication with them is personal and shows that you know what they need from you. Everyone has different reasons for getting into the property market.

5) Automation isn’t Just About Saving You Time

Sure, improving your processes can help save you time, but you need to work on how automating your communication can provide a better experience for your clients.

6) Be Authentic and Show You Care

The key to remaining in control of any client relationship is communication and building relationships with both landlords and tenants. Be authentic with everything that you do and you’ll show them that you care about them and value their business.

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