Real Estate Marketing: The Steps To Launching A New Funnel In 2018
Ready to launch a new real estate marketing funnel to drive in new leads this year?
Fall will soon be here and real estate investors, agents, and businesses are breaking the last of the ice off of their marketing machines and getting ready to heat them up before the end of the season. Many are realizing they need new and more effective marketing funnels to drive in the business. So, what steps should be taken to launch a new and profitable funnel now?
Research, Research, Research
If the key to investing in a good property is “location, location, location,” then the key to investing in a good marketing funnel is “research, research, research.”
Don’t just copy anyone else. You don’t know if what they are doing is really working for them, or will work for you. If you’ve been spending a lot of time with the blinders on in your own business, then you may not have a good handle on the market, competition, and consumers as you think. It’s an easy trap to fall into, and happens to the best and richest CEOs too. Facebook will trick you by feeding you ads and results on your searches, which may not be what your prospects are seeing. You may not be 100% alert to new players or new deals your competitors are using, or how buyers and sellers demands and tastes are changing. Always double check before launching a new real estate marketing funnel.
Specifically pay attention to who your ideal prospects are, their demographics, what they want and need, and where the best places and types of media are to connect with them.
Know what action you want them to take. What is the purpose of your funnel? It’s great if prospects have multiple options and can contact you in any medium they prefer, but what is your ideal? Will it simply be building a list? Calling your sales team? Submitting their details to receive a purchase offer on their property? Buying a property from you? Emailing for more information? Or sending you money to invest? Just like investing in any real estate, you want to know the desired end result first, and reverse engineer your funnel.
Review Current Marketing Assets
Before launching any new real estate marketing campaigns and ads, it is just smart to audit what you have already. Will what you have support your new efforts?
For example; will your new campaigns match up in look, messaging and branding to what you have? This applies to your logo, tagline, social media profiles and real estate website. There’s no sense in plowing time and money into drawing thousands of new prospects to your current assets if they are going to just lead to people bouncing away to the competition. You can have a beautiful ad, but if your website home page or blog is ugly and lacks credibility, don’t expect traffic to convert into deals. The same goes for the messaging. It needs to be on point for the leads you are trying to attract now.
Fix these areas first. Then launch your new campaigns.
Feeding the Funnel
It doesn’t matter how big your current list or database of past contacts and clients is, you constantly need new leads falling into the top of your funnel. Even a lot of successful real estate investors are facing this problem right now. They may have done great at building lists five and ten years ago, but they need fresh contact to keep income, deal flow, and business flowing and growing. You can only hammer the same leads for so long, and if you are doing your job well, unless you are staying way ahead of their needs, they won’t need you at some point.
There are many ways to feed your funnel and pipeline, including:
- Direct mail
- Email marketing
- Social media posts
- Paid Google and social ads
- Craigslist
- Real estate blogging
- Radio ads
- TV ads
- Handing out business cards
- Signs
- Networking
- Trade shows and events
The Landing Page
Where will your leads land when they click on one of your ads? This page is hugely important. It could be your home page or a targeted landing page designed just for that campaign or channel of business. In real estate investing you might want to have one for buyers, sellers, private lenders, and even renters.
It should look good. It should have a clear flow. It should solve branding, trust, overcoming objections, and fuel action all at the same time. You’ll probably want to have at least 3 calls to action and options for taking a next step in order to maximize conversions.
Decide whether this will immediately be your main sales page, or whether you’ll have a multi-step funnel which may invite them to a free download, content, or webinar first.
The Follow Up
There are three types of follow up to consider:
- Retargeting leads that didn’t act at first
- Following up with new contacts who reached out
- After sales follow up with new clients
Some will stop by but not buy yet. Keep nurturing them. Use Facebook retargeting ads, drip emails, new blog posts and social updates as well as local news and press releases to bring them back and close the gap.
Some investors want to fully automate everything, and will put their entire funnel on autopilot. If buyers just buy online they are happy, even if many fall through the gaps. This leaves a big door open for those who are proactive about responding via phone, email and social and picking up all those leads that actually want some service and interaction.
Then after a sale, be sure to keep following up to keep them in the game, upsell, generate repeat business and referrals, stay at the top of mind, and develop them into brand ambassadors.
