Tag Archives: listings

Facebook just stepped into Aussie Real Estate in a BIG WAY

August 11, 2017 by Digital Marketing

It seems this is the week for big announcements with Amazon declaring it’s intentions to enter into the US Real Estate market and a number of the Aussie real estate groups have been a titter with the news.

But it wasn’t just Amazon stepping into the game, Facebook had a rather massive announcement of it’s own, however it hasn’t had the same hype around it as the Amazon one. Many agents have commented that the Facebook tech is in the USA only (ah….so is Amazon), so they won’t worry about it just now.

Time to set the cat among the pigeons….

The Facebook tech is here in Australia right now. My team and I are currently working with it and developing solutions to get it rolled out to our real estate clients ASAP.

Unlike the Amazon offering of referrals though, this tech from Facebook will deal with helping you sell houses and in so doing, list more as well. In fact it has the power to change how you go about marketing property – wait, yes I know, every freaking “disruptor” says that and you’re sick of hearing it, so am I. So instead of blathering on with marketing hype and jargon, allow me to explain how this tech works.

Firstly, lets take your personal branded real estate site that displays your listings.

The Facebook tech will require a developer and Facebook expert to set up (we happy to know a couple of good ones *wink*), but once it’s set up correctly this is how it will work:

  1. a buyer visits a listing on your site, but does not enquire or book an appointment
  2. Facebook analyses it’s data on that buyer
  3. Facebook then finds every other property on your site that is relevant to the buyer, (i.e what they’re looking for)
  4. Facebook then advertises all of your listings that may be relevant to that buyer automatically

 

In short, Facebook will turn your potential buyer’s Facebook feed into their own listing portal where the listings being offered……are yours!

Now of course there will be other ads among yours, the usual run of the mill stuff from a clothing company and Telstra or Vodafone’s latest attempt at convincing us they’ve gotten better. But for the early adapters and honestly, even those who might normally be late to the party, this Facebook tech will give you such a massive edge over your competition.

But wait there’s more and it’s not steak knives.

After this tech has been in play for a little while on your site, Facebook will then go and start marketing these listings to people who are statistically most similar to your current buyers. In lay-mans terms, Facebook will start marketing your property to people it thinks are most likely to want to buy it! (Initially, this feature won’t be available automatically but will need be set up manually – but it’s only a matter of time)

Now of course in the setup phase, you need to “teach” phase book what makes the properties similar, whether it’s price, suburb, bedrooms and that’s why this tech isn’t point and shoot.

After setting the tech up, this all happens automatically and all you need to do is set aside a budget for how much you want to spend on the ads each month.

So about those $2,000 premier properties on those portals you use, they suddenly look like a REALLY expensive way to blow a marketing budget don’t they?  Especially considering right now you can get in front of up to 5,000 buyers for $100 with a standard boost on Facebook (depending on what area you’re in) and these ads aren’t going to have any special pricing attached to them (based on current reports).

Add this tech into the equation and let Facebook do it’s thing and your ad spend is getting your listings in front of people that the data says is most likely to be interested in buying them.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Welcome to the game Facebook!

 

-JH

 

How Aussie agents are shooting themselves in the foot

August 1, 2017 by Digital Marketing

It happens every single day in my Facebook feed, another agent posts a property listing with a link back to one of the portals.

There is no better way to shoot yourself in the foot in the real estate industry than to send traffic to one of the portals instead of your own website.

There are a number of reasons, you don’t want to be sending traffic to the portals instead of your own website, firstly the portals use their traffic statistics to justify an increase in what they charge you each year. So by sending traffic to the portals, you’re essentially helping them charge you more.

But that’s just the tip of the ice berg. The biggest reason you shouldn’t be sending people to the portals is because when you do, you lose control of the data.

Now I get for many, data may be something that you really don’t care much about, you may even see it as belonging to the realm of the geeks and nerds – after all, that’s how it has always been.

 

via GIPHY

But times, they are a changing.

Moving forward, your profit (and I mean your REAL profit), is no longer in your product or service, it’s in your data.

Take for example the situation spelled out in this recent blog post.

The example spells out how when you post a property listing or video on Facebook, you can then re-target any person who engaged with that listing/video and market to them with any other relevant property and in time, turning them into a seller or buyer. (Hell if they clicked on a property on your site, you could put EVERY single property that you have listed in that same suburb in front of them – it’s incredibly powerful).

Had you directed that person to one of the portals, you would have lost that data. Actually it’s worse than that, you would have willingly handed that data over to one of the portals and instead of you re-marketing to those people with your properties, the portals could instead re-market your competitions listings to the people who were initially YOUR potential buyers.

Now for the double whammy…..it’s not just buyers who check out property listings and videos on your website and Facebook, it’s sellers too.

So that data that you’re handing over to the portals could very easily contain your next potential seller, hell it could contain your next 10 potential sellers. But instead of you being able to re-market to them, establish your brand, stay top of mind and become the obvious choice for those sellers, you’ve handed them over to one of the portals to do with what they will.

Coming back to the “data is for geeks” sentiment above, it’s important to note that is no longer the case. With a few clicks in your Facebook ads manager, you can actually create all the tools you need to manage and use this data  rather than be handing it over.

One of the best things Facebook has done, is created a straightforward platform that enables everybody to take advantage of their own data without having to wear inch thick glasses and have a degree from MIT.

It’s this alone that puts the power back into the agent’s hands.

So please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t post links from the portals – use your own website links instead.