How Administrative Mistakes Can Cost You as a Broker

How Administrative Mistakes Can Cost You as a Broker

What is the real cost of administrative mistakes? As a broker, your clients depend on you to handle things professionally. Administrative mistakes by a broker can have a domino effect and affect everyone involved in the deal. Let’s take a look at some administrative mistakes to avoid and how they can cost you as a broker.

1. Grammatical and typographical errors

Part of a broker’s responsibility is handling paperwork between clients. The correct use of grammar and punctuation is imperative. One misplaced character and failure to carefully proofread documents can cause untold damage. The following incidents are examples of the catastrophic consequences that may arise from such errors.

In 2006, a typo by Alitalia Airlines resulted in business-class flight tickets being sold for $39 instead of $3,900. The result? More than 2,000 people purchased the $39 tickets leading to a $7.2 million loss by the airline. Another incident, albeit more costly occurred in Tokyo when a typing error saw the shares of a renowned company go on sale leading to a $340 million loss. Moral of the lesson? Grammatical and typographical errors are administrative mistakes to avoid.

2. Poor advice and or unethical behavior

When a client hires you or chooses to work with you as a broker, they expect you to act professionally and do your job in terms of giving them good advice. They are paying for your expertise and experience. Doing a half-hearted job and failing to provide clients with honest, accurate, and fair assessments of their situation can result in you being sued if the client loses money in any way.

You may be surprised to learn that as many as 25% of homebuyers said they would never work with their broker or recommend them to anyone. Brokers do get sued for a variety of reasons – fraud, breach of duty, giving advice that’s not within their scopes (e.g. offering legal advice) negligence and breach of contract. These are all administrative mistakes to avoid.

3. Poor data management and failure to document

If there are two administrative aspects of being a broker that should never be overlooked, its documentation and filing papers properly. Poor data management can result in you not being able to find a critical document when it’s needed. There is no excuse for not having a defined records system. This is certainly high up in the list of administrative mistakes to avoid.

4. Hiring the wrong brokers for the brokerage

Do you have a strategy for hiring people? Not having a time-tested solution can result in you hiring the wrong person. This can be extremely inconveniencing not to mention expensive. You’ll want to avoid having to repeatedly post job openings and screen candidates. By following our advice on hiring better agents, you can improve your retention rate.

When you cannot afford administrative mistakes look no further than Real Estate Back Ops (REBO). We’re one of the leading real estate technology and consulting companies in the US. For the best brokerage services don’t hesitate to contact us.

5 Property Staging Trends for the Fall & Winter Months

5 Property Staging Trends for the Fall & Winter Months

Are there people interested in viewing homes during the colder months?

Should you attempt to sell your house during fall or winter?

Do people really buy homes in winter?

Yes, yes, and yes!

If stats are anything to go buy, nearly one million homes are sold each winter between December and February. If you’re looking for serious buyers, the fall and winter months may be the ideal time to stage your property. So, how do you go about property staging during winter? Let’s find out!

1.    First impressions matter – a lot

How important is curb appeal? Extremely important. For buyers, first impressions matter greatly. Do you know that most buyers make up their minds about your house within the first 15 seconds? That’s a lot of pressure. Fortunately, you can do something about it. To help win buyers over, ensure that your yard is well-maintained. Leaves should be racked, hedges trimmed, and the lawn perfectly manicured.

2.    Turn on the interior and exterior lights

You want the house to feel warm and welcoming. So, don’t hesitate to light the driveway and walkway to your front door. Turn the lights on indoors as well. Light is an excellent medium and will help to highlight and draw attention to both the interior and exterior. Lamps and strategic lighting solutions can make rooms appear bigger and make the house feel more inviting.

3.    Keep décor simple and neutral

Are you big on decorating the house during Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas? If yes, you may want to tone it down a notch when you are property staging. Avoid over-the-top decorations such as blown up lawn elements, streamers, and religious symbols. Opt instead for more subtle pieces of décor such as a simple wreath on the front door and electric candles strategically placed around the home.

4.    Evoke the senses with seasonal scents

Human beings are sensory by nature. If you can appeal to people’s emotional side you can influence their decision on a deeper level. Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman in his book, “How Consumers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market”, demystifies the buying experience by claiming that at the core, we are emotional buyers. Zaltman attests that 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious.  So how do you incorporate this into your property staging? Through the use of pleasant seasonal scents; think cinnamon, freshly baked goods, and oranges.

5.    Use clean lines when arranging furniture

How furniture is arranged in a home can make or break the buyer’s experience as they walk through the house. Clean lines are important. Furniture that’s helter-skelter and follows no pattern or symmetry can feel disorderly. If you have a central feature in a room such as a fireplace, organize your furniture around it. Adding well-placed throw pillows and fur rugs can also accentuate the orderliness and comfort of a room.

Selling Your Real Estate Brokerage? Either Way, Get a Valuation

Selling Your Real Estate Brokerage? Either Way, Get a Valuation

If you’re planning on selling your residential real estate brokerage, a valuation is an obvious necessity, since no serious buyer would consider purchasing based solely on the word of the seller. A comprehensive valuation can help the broker to discern what actions can be taken prior to shopping their brokerage to increase its fair-market value. But what if you’re not selling? Is there any reason to get a valuation in that case? An annual physical with a doctor is recommended for your measuring and maintaining your health, and the same is similarly true of a residential real estate brokerage. It turns out, valuations offer several benefits to your brokerage even if you have no intention of selling anytime soon. As the old adage goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Valuations can allow brokers to analyze their brokerage from a different perspective and make changes accordingly to optimize their business.

DETERMINE EXACT RECRUITMENT EFFORTS NECESSARY

Valuations will show a broker somewhat of an ‘X-Ray’ of their business. It will outline each agent’s transaction count, average GCI per transaction, and compare this to business expenses allowing brokers to effectively determine exactly how many agents are required, (by applying average GCI/agent), in order to break even, or how much recruitment efforts would increase the cash flow and profit of the brokerage given measurable recruitment expenses and expected outcome.

SPLIT EXPENSES INTO OPERATING AND NON-OPERATING COSTS

Valuations will additionally provide an actionable guideline with regard to where exactly brokers can cut unnecessary expenses. Any expenses deemed ‘non-operating,’ (not contributive to the bottom line), likewise don’t contribute to the value of the brokerage, and cutting or reducing these costs will increase the value of a brokerage. Any broker thinking about selling their brokerage will definitely want to identify these costs and make cuts where necessary to get the highest possible fair-market value for their company.

IDENTIFY POSSIBLE CUTS IN FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE SALARIES

Valuations can bring to light the agent to employee ratio as it’s applied to profit generation, and spell out how this margin is directly affected by each full-time employee. This allows brokers to first, recognize which employee duties are considered either non-operating costs or extraneous to the brokerage operations, and second, exactly how much this margin will increase by making according cuts and how much that will increase the value of the brokerage.

ANCILLARY BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION

Brokers may elect to include other business models to the operations of their brokerage such as mortgage lending, home warranty services, property management, etc. Often times additional income from these businesses will convince brokers that the functionality of their brokerage is above average by industry standards if the profit analysis of these other businesses is muddled with that of their brokerage. Valuations can help to not only identify where immaterial expenses have crept into their brokerage as a result of these misleading values, but determine how the expenses can be cut, and how to better optimize those ancillary businesses.

IDENTIFY WHAT TRANSACTION COORDINATION EXPENSES ARE NECESSARY

If a brokerage has transaction coordinators employed full-time, (they will soon no longer be allowed to hire them as independent contractors), they are likely lowering their EBITDA during down months when transaction coordinators are processing fewer files due to this excessive expenditure, and thus, lowering the value of their brokerage. Valuations can help brokers to determine if this is the case for their brokerage, and whether or not it would be prescient to consider an outsourced transaction coordination service instead.

Valuations not only provide an accurate assessment of the current value of a brokerage, but can help to point out practical ways to increase that value, and therefore, the profitability, which is a good business practice regardless of a broker’s interest in selling or not. To learn more about valuations and how one could benefit you and your brokerage, contact payton@realestatebackops.com for more information.

5 Tips For Starting A Real Estate Blog

5 Tips For Starting A Real Estate Blog

The existence of such a wide array of blogger tools available for free today, starting a real estate blog has never been easier.

Blogs are a good way to provide personalized content directly to your target audience.

Writing your own content is the perfect way to demonstrate to your social sphere that you are the arbiter of knowledge and experience in your local real estate market.

Just follow the step by step guides provided by one of the blog building software available online like SquareSpace or TheBlogBuilder and begin producing valuable content for your clients and readers right away!

In today’s user-friendly online environment, creating, implementing, and promoting your blog is easy as ever.

The hard part, is writing content for your blog in a way that best expresses the value you provide as a Realtor and real estate market place guru.

We have compiled a list of advice and tips for best reaching your audience, claiming a high SEO score, and generating leads from your blog.

Consistently producing high value content peppered with optimal key words, increasing traffic to your website, and retargeting visitors is a key component for keeping up with the changing landscape in the increasingly technologically driven business of real estate.

Failure to adjust to new marketing trends like localized blogging surrenders territory to those who do adopt the new ways and allows them to dip their hands into your lead and referral business.

Reposting from other sources is a good way to accomplish this when time is short, but generating your own content as well will better guarantee your posts are localized and relevant.

Stop using a lack of ideas for content as an excuse to begin this essential cornerstone to your business. Here are your tips for setting yourself up to create valuable, recurring content and ensuring you capture as much business as possible with your new blog:

1. LOCAL NEWS

Providing your target market with information relevant to your local community is absolutely crucial for imparting valuable content and establishing an authoritative SEO score.

There are several earmarks in your local community that will consistently give you the opportunity for generating this content since there will often be updates and changes within those earmarks.

a. Local Schools

Local elementary schools will host fundraisers, sporting events, concerts, plays, and a variety of other events that you can report to your local community. This information will be relevant both to your immediate sphere of influence and anyone interested in purchasing property there from out of the area.

This content will likely be shared by social media friends with children or relatives participating in any local school events, expanding your outreach and driving more traffic to your blog.

b. Local Events

Most communities engage in shared events periodically throughout the year. These events usually relate to some holiday, like a local 4th of July parade or a community Easter egg hunt. 

Take advantage of these events by creating consumable lists for engaging in these activities specific to your community, like, “5 Tricks for Staking Out a Good Spot at the Walnut Creek Parade,” or, “7 Worst Foods to Cook at the 4th of July Crocker Heights BBQ.”

c. Local Sporting Events

If your city is fortunate enough to have local minor league teams, promoting their games, new acquisitions, or halftime extravaganzas are a good way to provide support for your local teams, and therefore help to establish you as the active go-to Realtor of the local community.

This will also be content that may be shared by team administrators, making your presence and expertise known to players and staff alike. Considering the high player turnover on semi-professional teams, this will allow you to position yourself as the preferred Realtor to be contracted by any new acquisitions. This is a more feasible goal than doing this at the professional level, since the amount of content covering these teams is much scarcer.

d. Local Policy Changes (Especially Affecting Real Estate)

Policy changes often go unnoticed by communities, as there is very little content relating to these changes at a hyper-local level. 

Take some time to attend City Hall meetings occasionally. Try to hand pick any new policy changes that will have a direct effect on the lives of citizens in your local community. Not everyone is willing to take the time to attend these meetings, but they’ll be much more likely to click an article discussing any new potential changes in their daily routines.

e. New Local Hotspots

This will help to provide additional relevant neighborhood information to keep you at the fore front of your local community. Anyone interested in the food and dining your neighborhood has to offer will be highly inclined to click on a localized article like, “New Dining Experiences to Try in San Jose.”

Notify the restaurants or bars you’re discussing. They’ll likely share it on their social media channels as well, heightening your outreach and driving more traffic to your site.

f. Local Charity events

Promoting local charity events will drive traffic to your site in addition to helping convey your charitable inclinations to the surrounding community. Displaying a list of charities your site promotes can also help to do this, as well as link your site to anyone outside your community searching for more information or trying to donate to these charities.

2. PERSONALIZED CONTENT TO INCLUDE HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

We’ve said it before, but it merits repeating – people like buying from other people like them.

By expressing your interests and hobbies outside of real estate on your blog, then tying them back to your real estate business, you will attract buyers and sellers who also express interest those shared activities.

Pick a hobby or activity in which you hold an exceptionable amount of knowledge and insight, then write articles that conflate it to real estate through analogy or metaphor.

For example, if you’re a dog person, write something like, “Why Single-Family Tudors are the Golden Retrievers of Residential Real Estate.”

Or, if you’re an NFL fan, “Which NFL Team best represents your neighborhood?” 

Then discuss commonalities between the two categories you’re comparing. These can be very broad comparisons, but will serve to attract like-minded people to your site.

3. PROMOTE YOUR EVENTS 

Hosting community events is a great way to rub elbows with your neighbors and potential clientele.

Not only can you meet new clients by attracting them to attend, but these are ideal for capturing new content to share on your blog.

The content you share can conform to what activities you arranged for your event. Discuss prize winners, contests, charitable givers, or whatever you feel best portrays your events as community unifiers.

Content generated from these presents the opportunity for promotion both before the event, and advertising your business afterwards.

4. DEMONSTRATE YOUR MARKET KNOWLEDGE

This might not necessarily be the focal point of your blog since it won’t generate as much interest, but demonstrating your professionalism, experience, and knowledge of the local real estate market is a good way to present your aptitude as a Realtor, and give you an additional recurring source of updates and information to maintain a blog with consistent posting.

a. Market Open Houses

Every time you host or hold an open house, this presents an opportunity for a blog post.

Write pricing comparisons of the house you’re hosting relative to the surrounding area, and include graphics from you’re CMA provider.

Describe the house briefly, (this can be the same description in your local MLS or on consumer facing listing platforms like Zillow), then add visual content like embedded drone videos, virtual tours, or listing photos.

This will not only increase traffic to your site and open homes, but demonstrate to sellers the amount of effort you put in when given the opportunity to represent a listing, increasing the number of leads you receive and your referral business.

b. Local Market Updates

To demonstrate you have your finger on the pulse of the local real estate market, periodically post market updates for the neighborhoods in which you operate.

These updates can also show readers that you are a credible source of real estate knowledge in their local area and can lead to more business.

c. Mortgage Rate Updates

Keeping your readers up to date with changing mortgage rates will help further establish your reliability as a real estate expert.

These posts are quick and simple since the data is readily available and require only short blurbs as to the effect on potential buyers and sellers.

5. TIPS FOR HOME IMPROVEMENT

We mentioned utilizing reposts from other blogs is a good way to uphold a consistent posting schedule, and there is no shortage of posts for this topic.

If you do use other posts for this category, try to make sure they reference local companies that can carry out these tasks for home owners. That way, your blog remains more relevant to the local community and additionally increases your SEO score.

If posts referencing local businesses don’t exist, use ideas or concepts from these other posts, then include services of local businesses that can remedy or help with these ideas.

As always, be sure to contact the local business when you do this and encourage them to share your post on their social media as well.

Key Takeaways:

Choose generalized topics in your local community that consistently generate new updates and information.

Once you’ve written about those changes and shared them on your social media channels, contact the organizations or companies mentioned in your article, and ask them to share it on theirs’ as well. 

If you’re busy with other facets of your real estate business, posting content from other sources particularly with regard to market updates or broad real estate questions the general public poses is a good way to maintain a consistent posting process.

9 of the Best Realtor Conference and Event Practices

9 of the Best Realtor Conference and Event Practices

A great way for real estate agents to learn about new developments in the industry, expand their referral network, and generally make new connections for their business is to attend real estate conferences and events. Many agents already implement this tactic, but are they positioning and marketing themselves as effectively as they can? If you’re going to spend the time and money to attend a real estate event, make sure you’re doing everything before, during, and after to optimize your experience and get the most out of their marketing ploys. Here is our list of tips for real estate agents to accomplish that when attending real estate events and conferences:

1. Collect numbers, not business cards.

Business cards create clutter, are ineffective at establishing yourself in the memory of your cohort, and generally yield very low call back rates. Instead, offer to exchange your phone number and email by creating a new contact in your phone on the spot. Then, send them a short, personalized email or text right away. They’ll be more likely to respond and remember you if you use this practice instead of being one of the hundred other agents that handed them a card.

2. Find the bar and stake it out.

Rather than trying to meet people by approaching groups or actively seeking certain individuals, get a space near the bar. You can strike up conversations with any agents who go to order a drink more innocuously this way. For those that have ever attended a real estate event or conference, you know you can expect a lot of agents to patron the bar.

3. Leverage the event to boost your social media outreach.

Post about the event before, during, and after on your social media channels. Be sure to include tags relevant to the event and referencing it so any agents searching for information about it see your posts. Your posts can be as simple as a photo of a speaker or a new insight you gained at the event.

4. Build a website page exclusively for the event.

Another good post you can promote on your social media channels is your personalized website page about the event. This is a good way to improve your website SEO for anyone interested in the event and is a good way to directly provide value to attendees searching for information about it. A call to action on this page like a newsletter signup or an eBook download. This will further help you stand out and increase your connection rate with attendees.

5. Research sessions beforehand and come prepared with questions.

Know what the topics of discussion will be so you can anticipate how you can better be proactive and participatory during sessions. Asking good questions can help you get noticed and increase the interest of other attendees in connecting with you.

6. Follow hashtags for the event on social media.

Another good way to stay on top of sessions and topics of discussion is to follow the event tags on social media. This will allow you to better provide value on your own posts and take advantage of any offerings or promotions advertised by the event hosts.

7. Learn about new developments in the industry and blog about them.

If you’re strapped for blog post ideas, this is a good opportunity to gain insight into changes in the industry or new technology being introduced. This will help you establish yourself as a real estate agent with their finger on the pulse of the industry, making you stand out to fellow Realtors and potential clients alike as a reliable, knowledgeable source for all things real estate.

8. Use name association to remember people.

You’ll meet a lot of people and remembering all of them can be difficult if you try to rely on your memory alone. Associate their names with unique physical features to improve your name retention. For example, if someone you meet named Dan has curly hair, use a simple word association process to connect his curly hair to his name. Curly hair -> curling iron -> iron man -> man rhymes with Dan.

9. Follow up afterwards.

Finally, to cement the connections you make at the event, be sure to follow up with new contacts after the event. Try to work in a reference to something that was brought up in your conversation with them to help them remember who you are, and convey that you were listening and care about this new relationship. Alternatively, you can send them an article that discusses solutions for any issue that in the industry that was referenced in the conversation.

 

Real estate agent conferences and events are great opportunities for networking and learning about new industry developments like REBO’s flat fee outsourced transaction coordination service. Sign up with REBO’s white-glove concierge service and let us handle all the paperwork and communication involved in a real estate transaction from offer to close!

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Event Marketing For Real Estate Agents – Step by Step Guide

Event Marketing For Real Estate Agents – Step by Step Guide

An often-overlooked marketing opportunity for Realtors is the power of hosting local community events.

Hosting community fundraisers or events is a great way to rub elbows with your neighbors and get your name known.

This demonstrates a philanthropic inclination on your part and will make your clients feel a sense of attachment to your charitable contributions by signing with you.

You can inform surrounding community members of the event by going door to door, which is a time-tested lead generating technique. However, since you’re going door to door to promote a charitable event, it will come off as less intrusive.

Hosting an event is one of the best ways Realtors can establish themselves as the local go-to real estate market guru in their community.

However, event hosting tends to fall off the map of viable marketing techniques for Realtors for one reason: it’s hard.

The amount of energy and resources spent successfully organizing, marketing, and executing a community event can appear to be a daunting obstacle.

Despite the work involved, the windfall of new business resulting from this more than offsets the woes experienced during.

This topic has enough moving pieces and creates so much opportunity for expressing your personal brand as unique, it could be an eBook in and of itself. Making the details specific to your brand and community is largely left to your discretion, but here we will outline the basic stages of pulling such an event off.

DETERMINING EVENT LOGISTICS

When deciding what activities, speakers, performers, and hooks you will use for creating an event with a favorable turnout, keep in mind the ultimate goal of the event: generating, nurturing, and converting leads.

Nurturing and converting patrons of your event will rely heavily on how you display your brand at the time of the event. Generating these leads will be done largely through marketing leading up to the event. That being said, a crucial component to generating leads at the event depends on your ability to incite guests to provide their contact information.

Before we go any further, understand that setting up the event will require a decent amount of leg work on your part, so learn from the mistakes of Fyre festival founders, and give yourself enough time to arrange all necessary amenities. Schedule your event at least ten weeks out from when you begin marketing.

Type of Event

Consider what type of event you want to host for your community. Your idea should include activities that require guests to provide contact information before-hand to secure entry like contests, raffles, talent shows, trivia competitions, or auctions.

Choose a charity to sponsor and advertise that proceeds will be donated. By adding a philanthropic aspect people in your community will feel more inclined to attend and participate.

Both the type of event you choose and the charity you support will depend largely on your audience. Consider the demographics and interests of your surrounding community to help you decide what these themes should be.

Fundraising for a local cause or organization is a good way to kill both these birds with one stone. For example, you could do a fundraiser for the local football team and hold football related competitions like NFL trivia or combine events. What you choose should not only reflect community interests, but your personal interests as well to ensure passion and knowledgeable delivery.

The decisions you make here will likewise guide your decision for time and location of your event. Since you’ll be marketing to a large number of people in your surrounding community, make sure to secure a location that is flexible with regard to maximum capacity. The last thing you want is to have more attendees than your location can handle.

Choosing Co-Hosts/Sponsors

It will be difficult to pull off a venture like this on your own, so secure help early in the process. The help you employ should be both active in the community and ideally, local idols that embody your selected charity and activities.

If it’s a fundraiser for a local school, ask teachers or prominent PTA members. If it’s a sports team, ask coaches or team administrators. If you are promoting and raising money for a local organization, the chances are good that anyone involved with the organization will be eager to help.

These will be essential contacts for helping with set up, spreading the word, and offering insights to best execute your event.

Performances/Speakers

The co-hosts and sponsors you select for the previous step will additionally make good speakers at your event, particularly if they’re already well known within the community as the local arbiter of your event theme.

If you want to utilize performances, try to employ performers that likewise are representative of your theme in the minds of the local community. To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg as to why FaceBook became popular, “people don’t go online to look at people. They go online to look at people they know.” Performers that are personally known by attendees will be a cheap and effective way to engage your audience.

Reach out to those you know personally in the community who are capable of participating in whatever activities you have planned. Tell them to share their participation on social media to attract other potential contestants.

MARKET YOUR EVENT

Now that the event location, time, and logistics are in place, you’ll want to market the event for a few weeks leading up to it to achieve maximum reach and attendance.

Brand Your Event

Before distributing any marketing materials, it’s a good idea to brand your event with custom logo and slogan.

Your logo and slogan should tie together the symbiotic relationship between the organization the event is helping, activities involved in the event, and your personal real estate business.

Independently contracted graphic designers are cheap on Fiverr, and with guidance, can help generate a totally custom logo for your event.

This logo can be printed on T shirts, flyers, and any merchandise you may be giving away at the event, increasing awareness for the next time you host it.

Your slogan should be something catchy and easy to remember. Have it in some way convey the contribution of your personal real estate business to the event as well. Additionally, you should also connect the slogan geographically or by a local indicator if you can for SEO improvement. For example, if you’re raising funds for the local school soccer team by hosting a musical talent show, try something like, “Support Leighton Soccer by Judging Rockers! –  an event powered by Jane Doe Realty.” This is a good opportunity to express your creativity and make the event unique to your personality.

By branding your event successfully the first time around, if/when you decide to host the event again another year, you’ll have the advantage of having an already established recognizable brand within your community.

Traditional Marketing Tactics

Marketing your event is a good excuse for going door to door and introducing yourself as the local Realtor. Make flyers or brochures to hand out to neighbors when you do this.

If you really want to go all in on this, invest in display ads at local grocery stores or park benches. Traditional real estate marketing will work better if you’re advertising an event than the typical Realtor photo and phone number technique.

Local media spots also provide good reach at relatively low costs within your community. Get a local DJ to advertise your event on air or buy newspaper ads in your neighborhood paper.

Keep in mind the audience likely to see your ads based on where and what platform they’re being deployed. Adjust your advertisements accordingly to speak more directly to your audience.

Notify Leads

If you’ve been employing any of the lead generation techniques we’ve discussed in prior posts, you probably have the contact information of a set of warm leads in your local community. Use your event as an opportunity to engage another touch point and connect with them. If you advertise the speakers, performers, or other people they know in the header of your email you’ll increase the chances they view it and attend.

Hyper-Local Influencers

Hiring social influencers to promote your business or event can be costly and won’t necessarily reach the ideal target audience. However, if you can hire people within your target community with large local followings on social media, you can better target your audience for a cheaper price. They may not necessarily have done any social media influence work in the past, and will probably be excited by the opportunity. These people can be the heads of local clubs or organizations, including people involved in local civic groups, schools, churches, business owners and nonprofit (nongovernmental) organizations. 

If one of your co-hosts or sponsors fits the bill for a local social influencer, be sure to ask them to promote the event on their social media channels as well.

Blog + Podcast

Earlier we discussed setting up and gaining a following for your personal website’s blog and podcast. Event marketing provides relevant content to your audience and promotes your event. It is a perfect content piece to blast out from all your marketing channels.

Keep in mind the keys to improving your SEO score when constructing your articles promoting your event. Use local words, include the names of all co-hosts and sponsors, performers, speakers, organizations, and clubs involved and tie their names to your local community as often as you can to see to it that any Google queries remotely related to your event returns your article at the top of the list.

Social Media

Sharing the content created for your blog and podcast on your social media channels is just the first way to promote your event over social media.

It’s also imperative that you create an “Event” on FaceBook and invite your contacts to join. Be sure to include organizations and people being helped, organizations and people helping to administer the event, activities to be held, prizes to be won, handouts, performers, and any other relevant information to the event. Allowing people to see everyone else who has been invited and who has responded to the invite will not only help establish credibility for your event in the local community, but instill a sense of ‘FOMO’ for those on the fence about going.

Be sure to use this medium as a way of accepting applications to perform or speak as well, (after they’ve provided their contact information of course!)

After posting articles and other advertising content on social media, boost your ads and set your target audience to make sure your ads are seen by local residents repeatedly.

Include a “tag” to be used in every social media post so other people can easily post about the event and refer back to it. You may want to use multiple tags so you can direct some tags at the event activities, performers, etc., and at least one that’s directed at your real estate business.

Partner with Local Businesses

Allowing local businesses to participate in the event will not only help provide more merchandising and event activities, but open the door for cross promotion.

In exchange for allowing participation, see if local businesses will help promote your real estate business in their facilities. This will bulk up your event for free while simultaneously promoting your personal brand.

Incentives and Free Giveaways

Everyone loves free stuff! Be sure to include some sort of giveaway for a raffle, or prizes for competitions, and advertise exactly what merchandise attendees will be getting in your social media posts, flyers, articles, etc.

The merchandise and prizes to be given away can include your personally branded logo and slogan. This will serve as a reminder to patrons of the event that you are the local real estate guru for as long as they keep their prize or gift.

Your event should be free entry, and this fact should be advertised as well. Remember, you’re in the business of generating leads for your personal real estate venture. You’re an event planner only as a means to accomplishing this, not generating revenue.

Leverage Other Events and Public Forums

Anytime there is a gathering of local residents, this is an opportunity to promote your event.

Ask your local church if they’ll allow an announcement. This can also be done at PTA meetings, sporting events, etc.

ENGAGE GUESTS AT YOUR EVENT

There are two focal points for when your event is taking place to be used for the purpose of generating and nurturing leads: Getting guest contact information and capturing new content.

Capturing content at the event will allow you to market yourself further long after the event has ended. This is content that can be reused in your social media marketing, blog, podcast, etc. It will also provide marketing materials for when you decide to host an event again. There are several ways to create this content:

Encourage Attendees to Share Their Own Content

One way to maximize your reach at your event is to create circumstances in which attendees will capture their own content and share it on their social media channels. Offer post-event prizes to whomever captures and shares the best photo of an activity or event with the predetermined hashtag attached.

In a previous article about how Realtors should advertise on digital platforms, we talked about utilizing Snapchat Geofilters for community events. Implementing Geofilters through Snapchat’s advertising platform and informing guests of this feature, they’ll send out snaps to their friends using your branded advertisement.

Hire a Professional Photographer

You’ll want to additionally employ a professional to capture fun moments from your event. These will be better quality and better for sharing than any content generated by attendees.

If you really want quality video to share, get a drone to capture aerial images and footage of your event. This will help convey the appearance of professionalism and legitimacy of any event you decide to host in the future.

Collect Contact Information

You’ve already collected contact information from your marketing efforts for the event, but the event itself presents an opportunity to gather even more.

Don’t charge fees, but rather require contact information be provided for entry into any event performances, giveaways, donations, or general queries. These can be added to your CRM later, one of the ultimate goals of hosting the event to begin with.

FOLLOW UP

Use the contact information you’ve gathered to probe for suggestions, reviews, and feedback for your event. In addition to growing your customer database, you can use replies to refine any future events to provide an even more beneficial experience for you and attendees at your next year’s event.

These contacts can also be used as a foundation for employing hosts and sponsors for your next event. Ask if anyone has or knows of any other reputable organizations within the community that could benefit from an event like the one you just hosted.

The extra data you’ve acquired from attendees can also be used for more relevant retargeting of event guests that visited your personal website either before, during, or after the event. More specific ad retargeting is a great way to funnel warm leads into conversions.

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