EDITION 04
Read time: under 5 minutes
Welcome back.
We’re curious…
Will you be throwing a Super Bowl party at your open house this Sunday?
If so, send us some pics…mainly of your food spread as that’s our favorite part about the big game.
Good luck to whichever team you’re rooting for or any crazy prop bets you might be hoping to win (P.S. - the Gatorade will be blue).
We have some great stuff for you this week (at least, we like to think so).
If you missed our previous editions (there have only been 3 so far), you can check them out here.
Or, if you’re caught up, let’s jump into what we have for you in our 4th edition.
Scroll down for one actionable tip, one handy tool, and one essential news story that will impact your lead generation efforts.
A Simple Lead Magnet That You Probably Already Have, But You Aren't Using Properly
We can’t talk about lead generation without talking about lead magnets.
If this is the first time you've heard this phrase, then here’s a quick explanation:
A lead magnet is a free incentive to offer your website visitors in exchange for their contact information. It acts as a valuable "hook" to attract potential leads and entice them to enter your marketing funnel.
For a lead magnet to be effective, it must meet the following criteria:
Be free (or very inexpensive) and frictionless (easy to access)
Tailored specifically to your target audience
Designed to provide immediate value
You’re probably already using some version of a lead magnet (e.g., Market Analysis Report, Recent Comps, etc).
The problem with these common lead magnets is that they’ve become commoditized by existing online tools. In other words, they’re not enticing enough to convince most people to offer up their personal info.
The good news is that you’re probably already sitting on one of the best lead magnets you can offer. And this lead magnet is something that none of your competitors can offer.
We’re talking about your personal, vetted list of providers and resources.
These are the relationships you’ve established with vendors, contractors, companies, and specialists who help streamline the process of buying, selling, and improving a property.
Your list is yours and yours only. But don’t just dip into that list when someone asks or when you need something.
Instead, make it available to prospective and existing clients to solidify yourself as your community's best authority, resource, and connector.
How to Use Your Preferred Vendors as a Lead Magnet
Follow these simple instructions to make your preferred vendors your most effective lead magnet:
Make each provider aware of your intention to refer them business. Not only will this prime each conversation they have with your referrals, but it might open up possibilities for shared incentives.
Create a professionally designed, branded resource with your list of providers. A PDF works great for this as it allows you to offer a downloadable version from your website that can also be printed so prospects and clients can keep it for future reference.
Create a landing page for this lead magnet on your website. This page should explain the value of your vetted list while also requiring that the visitor provide their email address so you can email them a link to download it.
Link to your lead magnet landing page from all of your digital assets. Update your email signature, social media profiles, local business listings, etc. with your landing page URL.
Run paid ads on Google, Facebook/Instagram, and LinkedIn to drive traffic to your landing page. You can’t expect people to know about this; plenty of people are actively searching for vetted providers.
Create content around each vetted provider and drive traffic to their websites. Video content works exceptionally well for this, but a longer-form article about your experience with each vendor will do great, too.
Leave each recommended provider a testimonial on their local listings. Besides validating your support of each provider, these testimonials will give you and them more online visibility with prospective clients.
Keep this list current and send updated versions to those who’ve opted in from your landing page. This is a great reason to email your list, which keeps you top of mind for their next real estate transaction.
If you commit to this and make your recommendations a foundational resource of your lead generation efforts, it will pay you back many times over.
You will get asked for these recommendations at some point. So, before sharing contact information piecemeal, have this lead magnet ready so you can send a lead-generating URL that will build your email list and your business.
Create Better Lead-Generating Content with a Personalized News Feed
You cannot become an authority in your community without staying on top of the latest and most pertinent news, laws, updates, and trends.
Doing this requires following the right sources, checking them consistently, and figuring out what to do with all of that information.
If you don’t have the right tools or process, this information avalanche will overwhelm you and, more often than not, lead to inaction.
This is why we highly recommend a powerful news aggregation tool that you’ll actually use on a regular basis.
Overview: feedly is a robust RSS reader and news/article aggregation app that gives users control of their news feed.
Helpful Features:
News Reader: Follow the news you care about it, all in one place.
Market Intelligence: Stay on top of competitors, industry trends, and breaking stories.
Threat Intelligence: Be alerted of potential malicious cyber attacks or activity that could cripple your business.
Consuming information is only one part of an effective content marketing strategy that generates leads.
You also need to digest this info and then translate it in a way that solves problems and answers questions for your audience.
Here are a few ways we like to use feedly for content marketing:
Create a weekly (or daily if there’s enough new info) email and social media update on the latest stories that affect prospects and clients
Take top trending articles or news stories and create content (articles, videos, podcasts, etc) giving a more nuanced take or angle
Monitor relevant brands, companies, or topics to create timely content that journalists might want to cover (a.k.a. newsjacking)
Don’t let your current newsfeed, which is probably akin to a bunch of out-of-control fire hoses spraying water everywhere, distract you.
Take control of the news you consume to stay educated and filled with limitless content creation opportunities that can generate leads for your real estate business.
Meta Leads the Charge in Labeling AI-Generated Images
Meta recently announced that they will label images detected as AI-generated.
“In the coming months, we will label images that users post to Facebook, Instagram and Threads when we can detect industry standard indicators that they are AI-generated.”
This move is, of course, influenced by the upcoming presidential election that has brought the threat of fake or AI-generated content to the forefront of voters’ concerns.
Even without that, someone needed to establish national (potentially global) standards. Meta is the perfect company to do that as it serves almost half of the world’s population, with its leading apps in Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
What does this mean for you?
As a consumer/user of these popular apps, you will be able to discern between a real image and one generated by AI. This insight can help you identify opportunities for authentic image creation (publishing professional photos of a community that is only represented by poor Wikipedia images or “fake” AI images).
As a real estate professional, your expectations for AI-generated images (and potentially even copy) should shift. In other words, if you’re one of the Realtors relying on AI tools to generate your blog posts, social media posts, images, and videos, then you could be affected by their dwindling impact as consumers prefer real over fake.
All of this said we want to be clear on this…
We are not inferring that AI-generated content is bad, and we are not recommending that you avoid these tools.
We think there’s a place for this content and are optimistic about the potential opportunities that generative AI tools will create for Realtors like yourself.
We’ll leave you with this…
Test these tools (Google just released its newest version called Gemini), get familiar with them, and use them to free up time you should spend with your prospects and clients.
Don’t expect them to replace you or an experienced marketing person/team. At the end of the day, you’re in the business of establishing and maintaining personal relationships. No AI tool can replace you there.
What did you think of this week's email?
Thanks for reading.
See you next week.
The Real Estate Marketing Update Team @ imFORZA