Filming Video

How to Improve Your Marketing Efforts Using Video

We need to stop thinking about video marketing as “the next best thing.” Instead, we need to embrace it as an effective tool for interacting with our audience that we can start using right now. This is because it is one of the most effective and efficient ways of growing your brand.

This is especially true in the world of real estate where most people are using video at some point in their journey from being a buyer to an owner. But, as with anything, to be successful using video you need to have the right strategy. You can’t just start loading up videos and expect to get results. You need the right approach, and we’re going to discuss some of the elements of that approach to help you make use of this powerful tool.

Focus on Social Media

Where people come into contact with your videos will have a big impact on how successful your strategy is. The idea is to strike a balance between something that’s visually appealing, on-brand, and also eye-catching. Short, informative videos tend to work well, and if you load them right up into Facebook, then they will start playing as soon as someone scrolls past it in their feed, increasing the chances they stop to watch.

Another good thing to do is update your Instagram Story. This allows you to post short, 15-second videos that can become instant hits when done well.

Determine Who You Are

For any video marketing campaign to work, you need to be clear about the messages you are sending. More specifically, you need to understand how your videos are going to impact your brand. Ask yourself: what do you want people to know about you as a result of watching your video?

You probably want them to see you’re knowledgeable and professional, but what else? What are some of the other things that make you unique that you’d like to share with current and potential customers? Make sure that have answers to these questions before you start posting videos so that your content can be more effective.

Become an Authority

One of the things video can do is help you come off more authoritative. We live in a visual world, and we all know how quick we are to judge something that looks unprofessional or sloppy, such as a blog post that’s clearly just been thrown together.

A well-made video can be a great way for you to not only showcase who you are but also establish yourself as an authority, something that will help present you in a better light and improve your chances of winning new clients. Offering tips and tricks and other pieces of advice based on your experience is a great way to use video to become an authority. Plus, people loving learning about new hacks and ways of doing things, so producing this type of content should help you boost your exposure.

Linkedin Mobile

Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Brand

Most of us use Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest to connect with our audiences and grow our brand. But there’s another social network out there that can be a rather effective tool but that most of us overlook: LinkedIn

There are currently more than 500 million people on LinkedIn, and because it is dedicated to professionals, the type of content people expect to see on there is professional and educational in nature.

Furthermore, LinkedIn works as a digital CV. It’s a place where you can showcase yourself and your talents, which is a great way to show potential clients that you’ve had past success and can be trusted to deal with their listing.

So, to help you use this tool to be a more successful agent, here are some tips you should consider

Describe Yourself

You need to make it abundantly clear right from the beginning who you are and what you do. Your headline is most important for this, but make sure you’re using the right keywords so that people can quickly understand what you’re all about. Another thing you can do is customise your URL. This way, when someone views your profile, they will be able to see that you’re dedicated to real estate.

List Skills

One nice feature of LinkedIn is that you can list the skills you have and then have people endorse them. This can have a really powerful impact on your potential clients because they will able to see that there are people out their vouching for the skills you claim to have. After all, anyone can say they’re qualified to do something, but it’s quite another thing to have some actual proof.

Get Recommended

In the real estate world, word of mouth is everything. Having people speak to others about you and your skills is a really effective way of winning new business, and with LinkedIn, it’s really easy to reach out to past clients to ask them to recommend you. All you need to do is click the “Me” icon at the top of the page, then “View Profile,” and then “Recommendations.” Once there, choose “Ask to be recommended.”

This will send a notification to the client of your choosing as well as a note you’ve written asking them to give you a review. Of course, it’s probably best to speak with them in person first about this, but after you do, LinkedIn makes it really easy to boost your reputation in the community.

Be Active

Lastly, it’s critical you stay active on LinkedIn. Just like any other social platform, if you go quiet, you risk losing out on chances to connect with your audience. Make sure to post frequently, reach out to people, and respond to those who try to connect with you. Do this, as well as what we’ve mentioned above, and LinkedIn will soon become your best friend.

Start Blogging

What You Need to Do Before You Start a Blog

Blogs are an important part of your business. But when you go to launch, you need to take it seriously.

You may think the best thing to do is to just “go for it,” but before you do that, take some time to consider the following:

Why are you writing a blog?

The first thing you need to determine is the purpose of your blog. What do you have to say, and why is it important? People are flooded with content all the time, and you need to come up with a good reason why they should read what you write. But this should match-up with the overall goal of your company. It doesn’t need to be exactly the same, but there should be a connection.

For example, if you sell sports apparel, your blog could be dedicated to providing people with tips on how to get in shape and feel better about themselves. This will allow you to educate and inform while also providing people with a reason for why they should buy from you.

Who’s your audience?

Next to your blog’s purpose, the most important thing you need to figure out is who you’re trying to reach. A good way to do this is to define your buyer persona. This is a description of a fictional person who could very well be one of your customers or readers. Think about how they live, what they like, what they don’t like, and how you could help them. This will allow you come up with content that’s relevant and useful, which will help you form a better connection with your readers.

What are your goals?

Next, you need to figure out what your goals are. The acronym “SMART” is very common in the world of marketing. Having SMART goals means they are: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

An example of a SMART goal is, “We want our blog to boost newsletter subscribers by 20 percent in a six-month period.”

Of course, whether or not this is attainable or relevant depends on where you are now, but the point is to set goals that outline the very specific things you’re trying to achieve with your blog.

What’s already been done?

To have a successful blog, you need to be unique. And to do this, you need to spend some time looking up what people are already saying about the topics most relevant to you. Read up on what’s out there, and then work to find an angle that hasn’t been explored before so that the content you create can be truly original, something that will help it stand out.

Who’s going to run the blog?

Running a good blog is a full-time job. You need to brainstorm ideas, create content, add images, and market it, not to mention doing some outreach so that you can build up links. Put together a team that understands the process, give them some guidelines, and then let them run with it.

 

When you first start out, there will be lots of trial and error, but if you ask yourself and answer these questions first, then you’re well on your way to developing a winning strategy.

Writing Story

Using Stories to Attract Customers and Grow Your Brand

Storytelling is one of the oldest of all human traditions. Whether it’s an ancient myth being told around a campfire or an uplifting story we read on our phones, there’s always a good one to be found.

However, what most people don’t realise is that storytelling can actually be a powerful inbound marketing tool to help you generate more leads. Read on to find out why it’s so effective:

Stories are More Relatable

One of the reasons people love stories so much is because they can relate them to their lives. Even if someone has never lived through the same situation as the character in your story, they can still see what the situation was and relate and connect to it in a meaningful way.

As a result, if you can get your inbound marketing material to tell a good story, then you’re making it easier for people to relate to and understand your brand. This will allow them to digest your content more easily, and it can help to encourage action.

They Help You Connect with Your Audience

Stories help to build trust with people. They make you and your brand more human, and people like this more than the feeling they get when they know they are working with just some big company.

However, what’s important to note is that you don’t need to save your storytelling efforts for just blog posts and other articles. Spend some time telling a compelling “About Me” story and use stories in the emails you send out to people. Giving your audience more chances to connect with you and your brand in a significant way can only be good for business.

Plus, it builds an extra layer of trust, improving the relationship and boosting your opportunity of converting a lead into a sale.

They Play on People’s Emotions

We can never forget that humans are primarily emotional beings. We have a tremendous capacity to rationalise and reason, but in the end, most of us just “go with our gut.” As a result, to be successful with your inbound marketing, you need to find a way to elicit an emotional response from your reader, and what better way to do that than with an interesting and compelling story?

The story could be about anything, ranging from something that makes people happy to something really helpful about your product. In this sense, the content doesn’t matter so much as the emotional response it generates, as this is what will ultimately inspire action.

Larger Than Life

Another thing people want to feel is connected to something larger, and stories present you with a great opportunity to do this. Try to tell stories that show how your product or service can impact some larger cause, and this will make people feel good and more motivated to buy from you. Again, this is one of the main reasons we love stories so much, so try to use it to build your brand.

Write, Write, Write

Storytelling is an effective tool, but it’s also a skill that takes time to master. But don’t worry. You’ll get there. Start by writing whatever comes to your mind and make it a habit to write frequently. Over time, your stories will get better and then you will really have an effective marketing tool at your fingertips.

Leader

How to Use Transparency to Become a Better Leader

Building trust and transparency in the workplace plays an important role in your business. Employees want to feel safe that not only is their job secure but that they have someone to go to in the event they need some help, either professionally or personally.

Things such as diversity, inclusion, and communication, as well as many other factors, all play a role in making an organisation transparent. But leadership is also a huge component. After all, people follow the examples leaders set, and this makes it your responsibility to be as transparent and trustworthy as possible. Here’s how to do it:

Forge Personal Connections

We tend to trust less in those we don’t know. It’s just a fact of life, and this is the same when dealing with your organisation. If you’re an enigma to your team, and you don’t know the people who work for you, then it’s going to be hard for anyone to trust anyone.

A good way to work around this is to schedule frequent 1:1 meetings with everyone who works for you. Even just a 15-minute meeting every week can be a great way to better understand people and also build a stronger connection with them.

It puts you more in tune with the issues your employees face, and it also reminds people they have someone to talk to when they’re dealing with a problem. This improves the quality of relationships between you and your team, which helps boost trust and transparency.

Work on Culture

To really make your organisation more transparent, you need to build transparency into everything you do. Being inconsistent is only going to send confusing messages to your employees, and so you need to work to make transparency a part of your culture.

How? You ask. One good way to do this is to empower people to experiment with new ideas. People are often afraid to innovate because they fear failure will cause them to lose face, but if you can be open and honest with people about their ideas and demonstrate there will be no retribution for bad ideas, then you’ll find people will become more willing to open up to you.

Another thing to do is actively solicit feedback. People should feel comfortable speaking up when they see something isn’t being done as well as it could be, but you need to get them to this point by working hard to get their opinions. Over time, people will begin to trust that they can speak up, and this improves the overall function of the company.

Thinking at desk

Beginner’s Mistakes in Social Media Marketing

Social media is obviously an important part of any marketing campaign. However, knowing exactly how to use social media to attract new customers and build your brand can be quite difficult, especially when you’re first starting out and have no real idea what you’re doing.

So, to help you skip some of these growing pains and jump right to the part where you’re successful, here are a few mistakes most beginners make.

Trying to Do Too Much

When you first break into digital marketing, you realise the internet, like much of life, is divided into niches. Some niches are large, and some are unbelievably small. In the beginning, our natural inclination is to go after the biggest possible audience, and this usually means trying to connect with as many niches as possible.

But all this usually does is erode the quality of your content. It’s much better to stick to one niche, build up an engaged following, and then work with that group before you expand into other areas. It will help you connect more with your audience, and it will also help tell you what you need to do to be successful with social media.

Assuming Influencers Are Experts

Everyone’s path to the top is different, and most people don’t want to accept their success is just as much the product of luck as their specific effort. This doesn’t mean what others have done won’t work, it just means it’s not guaranteed to work for you.

By all means, ask people with large followings how they got there, and listen closely to their advice. But don’t assume that just because they have a large following they know all the answers. Doing this can either close you off to strategies that might work or cause you to pursue ones that have little chance of success.

Skimping on Content

Want to know the secret to a successful content marketing strategy, whether it includes social media or not? Wait for it… Wait for it, it’s…good content!

It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people think good content marketing is about something other than content.

People will stop to read, watch, or look at anything, so long as it’s interesting and relevant. So, spend time figuring out what your audience considers interesting and relevant, and then invest time and resources into creating great content centred around those ideas. This will put you in a much better position for success than pretty much anything else you could do.

Forgetting Marketing is a Process

In the business world, we all like to think that we can succeed by spending lots of time researching potential strategies, making plans, and then implementing these strategies. But this causes us to look at different aspects of our business as mere decisions.

However, marketing is not something you can “decide,” per se. Instead, you need to treat it as a process. Do your homework and go with what you think has the best chance to succeed but be open to the idea you may have gotten it all wrong. Then, when you feel it’s time to make a change, do it, and then repeat the process. Never let up nor assume you’ve got it all figured out. That’s a great way to get left behind.

Hopefully, now that you know about these common beginner’s mistakes, you’ll be less likely to commit them yourself, helping you achieve success more quickly with your social media marketing strategy.

Analyse

Why Stepping Back to Analyse Your Business Can Give It an Immediate Boost

One of the ways to be successful in any business, but especially in real estate, is to evaluate what you’re doing. This helps you identify areas where you could be doing better, and it also gives you the chance to see where you’re excelling.

However, we tend to overlook this part of the business. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day that many of us forget to stop and spend a moment thinking critically about the business and how it could be improved.

But when we talk about evaluating the business, we aren’t talking just about crunching numbers. Instead, we’re talking about taking a more holistic view of the company, something that can be done through reflection, recharging, and refocusing. Let’s take a closer look.

Look Back on Past Successes & Failures

At this stage of your evaluation, it’s important to look at your strengths and weakness. What do you do well? And what could you stand to improve? The process of evaluating your businesses involves highlighting what you should be doing more of as well as what you should change.

After you do this, you’ll want to look out for opportunities as well as threats. Where is your business vulnerable, and where would a calculated risk pay off? Identifying these parts of your business will help to clarify your path moving forward, which will increase your chances of success.

Make Sure You Take Time for Yourself

We often get so busy that we forget to take care of ourselves. But the real estate world is very demanding, and we can’t let it take complete control over us.

A good thing to do when evaluating your business is to decide when you will take you vacations and other breaks. Planning this out gives you some peace of mind—it provides some light at the end of the tunnel—and it will also help you set a schedule. For example, you won’t launch a major campaign right before going on vacation, but you also won’t go on vacation if you’re planning a major campaign.

Thinking about how you’re going to recharge and take care of yourself is an important part of any business evaluation, for after all, without you, there would be no business.

Remind Yourself what You Want to Accomplish

It’s very easy to get distracted from your main priorities. New things come along, and problems arise, but it’s important to stop every once in a while to remind yourself what you’re truly aiming to accomplish.

Doing this will help you discover where you’re wasting time, which allows you to restructure things so that you can dedicate more energy on what matters. It will also help you identify which systems and processes need to be updated or optimised, and it will give you the chance to figure out what you need to do to be successful in the year to come.

Refocusing on your goals is a great way to streamline your operation and improve your chances of achieving your objectives.

Graphic Designer

Real Estate Infographics – Worth it or Not?

In a market space as competitive as real estate, agents are constantly on the lookout for new forms of content that will help them stand out and gain an online advantage over their competition.

With so many different distractions constantly cluttering their screens, winning the attention of your target audience is harder than it’s ever been.

One great way of capturing customer interest that’s grown in popularity is with infographics. And with awesome free tools like Canva and Piktochart, it’s easier than ever before.

However, incorporating infographics into your marketing strategy isn’t always a simple task. So, in this article, we’re going to walk through a couple of key ways you can get this visually-engaging format into your content. Read on to find out more.

How to Create an Infographic

They might look complex but making your own infographics can actually be a pretty simple process. With the help of free tools like the ones mentioned above, infographic creation can be reduced to 3 quick steps:

1) Find Your Information

What’s your infographic going to cover? Pick the information you want to present to your audience.

2) Create Your Infographic

Now, take your information and cut it down into bitesize pieces to add into each section of your infographic.

3) Share it

That’s it. Download your freshly-created visual content and share it online to bolster your brand authority.

What Information Can You Cover?

Picking a topic for your infographic, especially after you’ve already created a few, can be a challenging task. So, if you’re short of ideas, consider trying out some of the following and see how your online audience responds:

  • Listing highlights – taken on any properties recently that have blown you away? Don’t be shy – let your audience know about it by covering some of their most interesting aspects.
  • List-style pieces – it’s a popular format for blog posts and videos – and for good reason. List-style infographics like “8 Things You Didn’t Know About [CITY] work wonders.
  • Neighbourhood synopses – sometimes, the best thing you can do is keep it close to home. So, why not try out a local neighbourhood infographic where you cover some of the top events happening in your area? Not only will it show your audience you’re an authority in your market, you’ll also garner support from local schools and businesses who might even return the favour.
  • Market information – what better way to show you know your stuff than by reimagining local statistics into an engaging, visually-attractive infographic? Buyers and sellers alike love knowing the facts about their local property market, so pick out some points you’ve found particularly interesting over the last quarter and turn them into an infographic.

Cost-effective and a great source of information, infographics are a top way to communicate your message and gain extra exposure for your brand. If you’re lucky, you might even catch a bit of virality and tap into a whole new audience segment.

Happy Professional

6 Core Habits of Successful Real Estate Agents

Two budding agents go to the same school. They read the same books, study as hard as each other, and graduate with the same level of education. Shortly after, they’re both offered the same position at the same local real estate agency.

However, 10 years down the line, one of them is in a middle management role and the other is running his own highly successful property business.

Why? With the same start in life, what has stopped the first agent from making the most of his career and achieving the same level of success?

Education and grades aren’t always the most important aspects of real estate. If you want to be truly successful, it all comes down to one key point – mindset. Having the right approach to what you do can be the sole difference between success and failure.

Don’t worry, though – mindset doesn’t have to be something you’re born with, or even something you’re necessarily taught at school. It’s something that you develop. Let’s take a look at some of the common traits shared by successful real estate agents in a little more detail.

6 Mindset Traits that Influence Real Estate Success

1) You Stay in Control of Your Emotions

With so many moving parts, as well as so much financially at stake, it’s understandable that emotions can run high for most real estate agents.

However, whether it’s a negative interaction with a client or a let-down when a buyer drops out of an agreement, a good real estate agent won’t let it get the better of them. They’ll stay in control of their emotions, accept that there are things they can’t change, and move forward quickly.

2) You have a Positive, Trusting and Contagious Energy

If there’s one key to building a profitable desk in real estate, it’s this – the ability to create, develop and nurture client trust. It’s hard to build, but incredibly easy to break. So, as an agent, you deal with your clients in an empathetic manner, listening to their concerns, objections and motivations.

Coupled with confidence and a friendly approach, you’ll create a magnetic energy that’s contagious to clients.

3) You Manage Expectations

Wherever possible, prepare your clients for potential eventualities before they happen. It’s not always easy news to give but making them aware of any changes and new possibilities will help to build trust and respect.

So, if you think there’s a chance that a buyer will drop out of a sale, suggest to your client that they start pursuing other offers. Shrug off negativity and move forward as planned. It will be trickier in the short-term, but in the long-run a client will always trust an agent who’s realistic more than one who sells pipedreams that fail to materialise.

4) Prospect, Prospect, Prospect

This is the make or break of any real estate desk, but it’s easy to forget. Simply put, if you aren’t putting leads into the top of your funnel, you’re not going to see any revenue coming out of the bottom.

The best way to prospect? Get on the phone and put your people skills to work. Make phone calls, send out promotional flyers and reports of recent successes and get your name and contact details in front of your target audience. It takes hard work, grit and determination, but it’ll help you build a reputation as a real estate agent who understands their local market.

5) Be Easy to Reach

Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean rolling over at 2am on a Friday morning to speak with a client. However, it does mean giving those clients a way to reach you 24/7. The best way to do this? Find out which method of contact they prefer to use. If they aren’t keen on phone calls, trade it off for an instant messenger like WhatsApp.

If phone calls are their preferred means of communication, that doesn’t mean you have to speak with them 15 times a day. However, it does mean that you always have to get back to them, whether that’s immediately or an update at the end of the day.

6) Make Time for Yourself

Taking the above points on board and putting them into action will lay a great foundation for you, but you also need to accept an uncomfortable truth – if you don’t set aside time for yourself, you will run yourself into the ground.

It might not be now, or even next week, but if you don’t set aside time each week to relax, unwind and do what you want to do, the value you can offer to your clients will start to decrease. This might be every night after 7 or on a Sunday afternoon, but schedule me-time in and let your clients know.

7) Tell Prospects What You Want

Sometimes, the difference between a great agent and an average one all comes down to guts. After pitching a new prospect, find the courage to tell them what you want. Close on them politely but assertively with something like “Will you give me permission to start speaking with people about your property?”. You’ll be surprised how much better this works than a simple “let me know”.