Mailbox

How to Make Letterbox Drops Actually Work

The letterbox drop has always been one of the most important part of a real estate agent’s marketing toolbox. But things have changed. Most of what ends up in someone’s letterbox gets tossed right in the garbage, and instead of engaging people, you’re more likely to annoy them, which helps no one.

Considering how much time and energy goes into making these materials, it’s important to find ways to make these published materials work, and if you can’t, it’s time to abandon them in favour of other methods.

Do Letterbox Drops Even Work?

This is an important question to ask before going too far into how to make a letterbox drops work for your agency. And everyone is different, so it’s important you find the marketing strategy that works best for your market.

Letterbox drops can still reach older audiences and passive buyers, but the reality is that most people find out about properties these days on the internet. As a result, you’ll probably want to dedicate more resources to other methods that may do better at producing results.

Furthermore, letterbox drops have a handful of other disadvantages, such as high waste, high production and distribution costs and inconsistent/difficult to measure ROI.

However, there are ways to make it work.

Welcome to the Digital Letterbox Drop

As you might expect, the way to make the letterbox drop in the digital world is to give it a makeover. So instead of harassing people with letters and pamphlets, try distributing these materials online.

The Benefits of the Digital Letterbox Drop

There are many advantages to making your letterbox drop strategy digital, such as:

  1. You can still reach passive buyers.
    One of the goals of a letterbox drop is to get in front of people who might not be actively searching for a property but who are passively searching. Delivering your messages online can still have this effect, but it ensures you reach people where they’re most likely to get information: online.
  2. Streamline your marketing budget and get data-driven results.
    Production costs for online content are much less, and because of all the data out there detailing people’s behaviours and preferences, it’s much easier for you to target the individuals who are most likely to respond to your content. This allows you to craft better campaigns that are better positioned to produce the results you’re looking for.
  3. Reduce your environmental impact.
    It’s no secret that creating paper marketing materials and distributing it to people who are just going to throw them out is not exactly a sustainable business practice. Switching over to a digital approach will allow you to save more money, be more effective and also reduce your environmental impact.

In conclusion, the letterbox drop is not dead. But for you to make it work, you need to adjust your strategy and take a digital approach.

Instagram Engagement

6 Tips to Help You Increase Instagram Engagement

Social media has reshaped the way brands interact with their audiences. But Instagram has gone a step further. With higher engagement levels than any other platform, and with more people using it than any other platform, Instagram represents an opportunity to reach new people and dramatically expand brand presence and affinity.

To help you make the most of this powerful tool, consider the following tips for improving Instagram engagement.

Know How Often to Post

To attract followers and engagement, you need to maintain an active presence on Instagram. There’s no magic number for how many times you should post in a day or week, but most people seem to agree that 1-2 times per day is important for staying relevant, especially in the eyes of Instagram’s algorithmic timeline.

When you post is important too, but this will depend on your audience. The best thing is to start trying out some different timing strategies to see which one produces the best engagement results.

Tell a Story

Stories have always been our most compelling form of communications. And Instagram is a “visual inspiration platform.” Too many marketers forget this and preach marketing messages, ignoring the need to captivate their audience. Work to make your content more engaging by including micro-stories, or by using user-generated content.

Make Branding Matter

It’s important to have a focused strategy based on the principles of clarity, creativity and consistency. Decide on the core areas of your brand you want to communicate, and then dedicate yourself to making them clear to your audience. Inconsistency is going to erode your messaging and make it less effective.

Use All Video Formats

Video is one of the most powerful forms of online content out there. And the folks at Instagram know this, which is why they offer you many different options for producing video content. Make sure to use all of them to get the most out of your Instagram marketing efforts.

Use Video Subtitles and Closed Captions

Even though video is so powerful, more and more users are opting to turn off the sound when they watch them, making subtitles an important part of your Instagram content. Spend time getting this right, so that you can reach the right people and increase engagement.

Take Advantage of Video Ads

Instagram users who report being influenced by content they see take an action more often than not, meaning they visit a site, make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, etc. Instagram video ads give you many different formats for presenting content to people, and they are a great way to boost engagement.

Give GIFs A Try

Attention span on the internet is short, and GIFs are a great way to make this work in your favour. Short, 15-seconds-or-less videos, or animated clips, can be a great way to reach people and encourage them to engage with your content and brand.

Overall, there are many different things you can do to increase Instagram engagement, but give these six a try and see how they help you produce better results from this powerful social media platform.

Business Report

6 Ways to Measure Your Property Management Business

It’s important to always measure the health of your property management company/department so that you know where you need to focus your attention.

To help you do this, consider the following ways you can keep you finger on the pulse of the company.

Arrears

A healthy property management company keeps their arrears at 0 percent. This is because doing this means you’re actively working to manage high-risk tenants. If arrears start to creep up, it means your business could have some holes in it you need to address, so make sure to keep an eye on this all-important metric.

Tenancy Expiry

The success of your business depends on your ability to manage your team’s workload. If you push them too hard, then their work will begin to suffer, and you may find it hard to stay focused on keys aspects of your company. As a result, pay attention to tenancy expiry to make sure you don’t have too many terms expiring in the same month, as this can overload your team and cause the business to suffer.

Tenancy Terms

There’s always a tendency to want to engage with six-month tenancy terms, as this reduces risk. But it also doubles your team’s workloads. As a result, a good thing to look at to measure the health of your business is how many of your lease agreements are for 12-month periods. The more long-term leases you have, the more productive your team can be, as they won’t need to stop every few months to work on a renewal.

Average Income

The goal of any business is to make money. As a result, it only makes sense that one of the key things to look at to measure your business’ health is average monthly income. Obviously, this number will fluctuate a little bit depending on the month, but it should never be too far away from your average. Make sure you know what this number is at all times. This way, if you’re off by quite a bit in any given month, you’ll find out quickly and be able to take the necessary steps for addressing whatever has gone wrong.

Incoming Calls and Emails

To keep your business as productive as possible, you need to implement a proactive communication style. This is where agents call clients to keep them informed. It’s the opposite of reactive communication, which means you wait until the client calls you.

Proactive styles are preferred since they help you deliver better customer service and also minimize the time you need to spend answering the phones; the ideal scenario is to only be on the phone when you want to be. Measuring the number of incoming calls and trying to keep it to no more than 20 percent of all calls to and from the office, will help you identify when you’re becoming too reactive and need to change.

Productivity

Just because you’re busy it doesn’t mean your productive. Keep track of both the number of tasks completed by your team as well as how long it takes to do them, as this will help you get a feel for how productive your business is, making it easier for you to identify areas of improvement.

Drone House Photography

7 Ways to Make Your Listing Stand Out in the Crowd

With Spring now officially here, it means we’ve entered the peak of the selling season. More homes are hitting the market every day, so to make sure you’re getting the right exposure, you need to do all you can to make your listing stand out. Here are some tips to help you do that:

Perfect Presentation

While buyers will always want to do a detailed inspection, it’s hard to bear the power of a good first impression. This is why it’s so important to take the time to present your home in the best light possible. The goal is to make people feel warm and welcome when they come to visit the property so that they can begin to imagine it as their home, something that will increase interest and encourage them to make an offer.

Nail the Photo Shoot

Photos are obviously an important part of any listing. But you can’t get away with just any old photos. You need to make sure they cast your home in the right light. When a professional photographer comes to take photos, let them rearrange furniture, bring in flowers, or declutter certain parts of the home to help present it at its best. Of course, make sure you get permission from the vendor before you touch their stuff.

Drone Footage

Aerial footage is a great way to help show off to buyers the location of the home relative to nearby hotspots and amenities. And with drones being so common now, this can be an exciting way to show off your home and make it clear to people what they’re getting into if they buy it.

Favour Local Knowledge

Most property listings will mention the local school zone or other local features, but all too often an agent will do this when they don’t even know the local bus routes. Make sure to spend the needed time acquiring the right local knowledge, and then make this clear on the listing to appeal to buyers in the area.

Upgrade Your Advertising

Everyone is advertising, so to stand out in the crowd, you need to go a bit further. Upgrading your advertisements is a great way to get people to notice. Even little things, such as a bigger photo window or larger font can go a long way in catching someone’s eye and getting them interested about your property.

Step Up Your Social Media Game

Social media allows for such targeted marketing that you’d be really missing out if you weren’t using this tool. It’s the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing, so be sure to include it in your strategy.

Connect with Advocates and Your Database

Doing all of these things to keep your property appealing is only half the battle. You need to be ready to move at any moment. Make sure your database is always up-to-date so that you can connect buyers with properties when the timing is right. This might also mean keeping a relationship with the buyer’s agent. Doing things like this will not only make your property stand out, but it will help you make a faster sale.

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Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning Your Marketing Efforts

It’s important to consistently update the way you present yourself to current and potential customers. And with Spring now on the way, this is a good time to look at your current efforts and see where you could get better. Here are some things to consider improving:

Profile and Headshot

The most important thing is to be authentic. If a prospective client is expecting one thing but then gets another, they are going to be disappointed, and they may even feel defrauded. And this could be about something as simple as the photo of yourself you have online. This stuff shouldn’t matter. But it does. And it’s even worse if your information is out of date.

Also, make sure to review your value proposition to clients by taking the time to look over:

  • Your stand out points and how they relate to past results
  • Your achievements over the past twelve months
  • Your relatable points i.e. how can people get to know you? What groups do you belong to? Or which organisations do you support?

Lastly, your profile should welcome people and make them want to reach out. So, have some fun with it and make sure you’re smiling in the photo.

8 Profile Picture Rules

Video Profile

While it’s important to have a great written profile, customers these days will expect something else. So bring your online self to life by making a video. You can either do it yourself or hire a professional.

However, make sure you’re using this medium to its fullest. Consider having staff or past clients speak on your behalf, as this can often be more credible and effective in helping you make an impression on potential customers.

Social Media

This is a must for any business today. Make a Facebook business page and add the contacts you have in your database. You can then use this to distribute content and communicate with current, past and future clients, which will help you become an authority in your marketplace.

Using Social Media to Increase Exposure for Your Real Estate Business

Website

An agent website is an absolute must. If you don’t have one, then you need one. And it’s a good idea to have it professional designed. Make sure to include a profile video, some testimonials, evidence of recent success and, of course, the properties you’re currently selling.

Why a Personal Website is Vital for Real Estate Agents

Online Presence

There are other online platforms you need to make sure are updated. For example, business.google.com is a useful reference for many people, so make sure you have a listing there and that it’s fully updated with all relevant information.

Strategy

The best way to market yourself is to have a plan. So take this time to create one that you can carry out throughout the next year. It’s important to focus on your value proposition and base your campaign around making people know what this is.

Step-by-Step Content Marketing Strategy: Step One

Testimonials

Ultimately, what others say about you is going to be more important than what you say. As a result, make sure you’re constantly gathering testimonials from past clients. Take this time to reach out to those you have helped over the past year to update your profile and present yourself in the best light.

 

Google+

Google+ Shuts Down After Massive Data Breach

Although once considered to be the darling of Google executives, Google+ is shutting down after a massive data breach that was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. This move was made easier by the fact that the platform continues to lag behind other social media options in terms of engagement; the average Google+ user spends less than 4 second on their page.

The breach was discovered after the company found a bug in one of Google+’s People APIs that allowed apps access to data in Google+ profiles that was not designated as public. Static data such as a person’s name, email, occupation, gender and age all became available. However, the breach did not include information from Google+ posts. And although the bug was patched back in March 2018, Google did not let people know. Furthermore, because of Google’s attention to privacy, they only keep two weeks’ worth of log data, meaning they cannot confirm which users were impacted by the bug.

However, Google+ will continue to work for Enterprise users, which is far and away the most popular use of the social network. As a result, Google decided the service was best used as an internal social network for companies, rather than a consumer product. And the company plans to announce new Enterprise-focused products for Google+ in the near future.

This decision falls in line with Google’s Project Strobe, which is Google’s internal investigation into third-party developer account access to Google and Android products. The project’s main goal is to closely examine security controls, as well as whether or not low user engagement is the result of privacy concerns. And it hopes to identify areas where privacy controls could be strengthened and made more effective. More news will come as Google continues to reshape Google+ and address what could be the largest security breach in the company’s history.

Confused

Not Having Success With Your Videos?

As YouTube continues to change our lives, more and more real estate agents are using video to attract vendor views and get people to schedule inspections. And agencies are also using video to help promote the agency.

However, just because it’s popular, it doesn’t mean it will work right away. Just posting videos about your properties isn’t going to automatically translate into leads and sales. If you’re having trouble getting results, here are 8 reasons why your video efforts might not be producing the results you want.

1. Videos Don’t Fit Your SEO Strategy

Make sure your videos are designed around the keywords you are already targeting in your SEO campaign. This ensures uniformity and makes it easier for your videos to help you improve how you rank for specific keywords.

2. They Don’t Fit Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Part of the reason video is such an effective medium is that people can watch videos on many different platforms. But because of this, you need to make sure the videos you create fit on all the different channels you’re using to reach your audience, otherwise you risk being inconsistent, which can hurt your chances at generating leads.

3. They Don’t Have the Right Messaging

It’s important to make sure your video is supporting the goal you intend to achieve with it. So, if the point of the video is to get people to click through to your website, make sure you have engaging calls to action that get people to check out your site. Misaligned messaging can make well-made videos useless.

4. You Don’t Have A Goal for Your Video Content

Before making a video, make a plan. What is the purpose of the video? And how do you plan to fulfil this purpose? Not doing this makes it more likely for your video to be unfocused and therefore ineffective.

5. Your Video Isn’t SEO Friendly

To perform well with search engines, make sure you follow similar SEO guidelines as you would for written content. Give the video a short, concise title, as well as a description that includes your most valuable SEO keywords.

6. You’ve Over-Used Video

While it can be very effective, most consumers these days are bombarded by video messaging. If you rely on this medium too much, you risk getting drowned out by all the noise out there, meaning your hard work creating the video goes to waste.

7. You’ve Misjudged Time and Budget

Videos can be effective, but they are also expensive and time-consuming to produce. Improper planning can lead to low-production quality, or, worse, going over your budget. Spend some time to carefully plan how you’ll make the video so that you can be ready for the process and avoid surprises.

8. Video Isn’t Always Best

It’s possible your videos aren’t producing the results you want simply because videos aren’t the best way to reach your audience. Maybe they’re not tech-savvy, or maybe they just prefer a different medium. You need to be sure videos are desired by potential customers so that you’re putting in effort where it really matters.

Agent Emails

Five Emails Every Agent Should Send

Email campaigns are one of the most effective ways for you to boost your brand and attract new business. No matter how big your email list is, a well-managed campaign can bring in significant ROI. But not all emails are the same. Here are some that you should definitely be sending to be successful.

Newsletters

Putting together and sending out a newsletter based on some of your most valuable blog content is a good way to make sure you stay on top of people’s minds. In addition to your most recent blog posts, your newsletter can include other content you’ve created, such as infographics, eBooks, white papers, etc. Other things to include are opinions of the current housing market, as well as any other information about your local community.

Specialised Emails

It’s always a good idea to send emails out surrounding special events or holidays. Even if you’re not pushing a specific business agenda, it’s a popular time for people to get in touch, and it can mean a lot to people if you take the time to reach out. However, it’s a good idea to try and do something to connect it to the business, even if this just means designing a relevant theme for your email communications.

Digest Emails

The purpose of these types of emails are to provide people with important links. They are great for the people on your email list who might not have the time to read through an entire newsletter or even blog post. These emails can go out once every week or two, and in addition to your own content, you can include links to content from other reliable sources, something your readers may really appreciate.

Promotional Emails

One of the best things email can do for you is help you nurture leads, and promotional emails are a great way to do this. The idea is that you’ve already got their interest and so now you just need to stay on their minds for them to think about you when they do decide to get involved in the market.

Follow Up Thank You Email

This email is separate from the other four on the list because it would likely go out after you’ve already sent an email. Usually, if you can determine that a lead has taken some sort of action on your site, whether it be downloading the report you sent them or signing up for your newsletter, then make sure to take the time to thank people for their support. But when you do this, avoid falling back on mass email tactics, as this tends to turn people away. Instead, take the time to write up a personalised email. This will go a long way towards helping you build a good relationship with both buyers and sellers.

Content Marketing

3 Ways to Use Content Marketing to Build Your Brand

For content marketing to work, you need to be different from your competitors. You should be able to remove your branding from a piece of content but still know it’s yours. And if you can’t, then there’s a good chance you need to rethink the way you’re doing things.

To help you strengthen your bran, you need to do make sure every piece of content you produce reinforces your brand messaging. You need to have a strong brand voice, but you also need to make sure you’re communicating your vision and offering people value. And when you do this, you’ll start to see far better results from your content marketing efforts.

Here’s a little more about how to plot out your content marketing strategy so that it helps you build a brand.

Define Your Vision

For branded content marketing to work, the content you create needs to clearly reflect your brand’s identity.

Since your organisation likely already has a mission or vision statement, spend some time thinking about how you can create content that reflects this aspect of your company. Then make sure this is aligned with customer needs.

In short, every piece of content you create should show people your unique expertise in helping them solve the problems they face.

An A to Z Guide to Personal Branding

Define Your Brand’s Voice

A strong, clear brand voice is a must if your content marketing is going to be successful. And while you may know what this voice, it’s important you check to make sure the rest of the people at the company do too. You need to prioritise certain aspects of your company over others, so make sure messaging is consistent and is reflective of the image you’re trying to present.

Brand guidelines are a useful tool for helping make sure everyone in your organisation is aware of what’s expected of them in terms of brand voice.

6 Quick Lessons to Help You Find Your Brand Voice

Define Your Value

For you to remain successful, you need to constantly remind people why you are valuable to them. This not only keeps them focused on you as a brand, but it also helps you define their buying vision, making it more likely they’ll think of you when it comes time to make a purchase.

Find out how you can be most useful to your target audience. Maybe this means performing case studies, or perhaps it means releasing white papers. The point is that you want to move away from your relationship being customer-centric, meaning it’s based entirely around the transaction of buying and selling, and towards a relationship people see as necessary in their lives.

Try and Try Again

Content marketing is necessary for you to be successful in today’s market. But this doesn’t mean it’s easy. You can focus on the three things discussed here, but you might still struggle. And that’s okay. The important thing is to stay focused on creating messages that stand out and that help people identify you as a brand. Do this and you’ll eventually be able to break through and build real relationships with people.