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I can’t tell you how many times in the past couple weeks that I’ve been having this exact conversation with people who’ve been calling in. They’re asking us to do their video services, or they’re doing something with our isting advocate, and they’re talking about developing a unique selling proposition around their brand. It always comes down to the same conversation: advertising is not marketing and marketing is not advertising.
So what I want to do on this podcast is really explain the difference between the two, because they are night and day. Oftentimes, many of us in the real estate community lump them as the same activities. It’s extremely, extremely important to understand the difference between the two, because the truth is, regardless of what type of business you’re in, you should be doing a little bit of both. You should always be marketing your business and you should always be advertising it.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
- The difference between advertising and marketing
- How to advertise and market your unique brand accordingly
- Where business comes from for real estate agents or lenders
Resources
The Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)
Transcript:
So how do you attract new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust Most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It’s your job to remind them. Let’s get started.
What is up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. What is up everybody, what we’re going to be doing today on today’s episode is I’m not gonna bring bringing on a guest, we’re gonna actually go through and I want to teach today.
I can’t tell you how many times in the past couple weeks that I’ve been having this exact conversation with people who’ve been calling in and that that we’re doing demos, they’re asking us to do their video services, or they’re doing something with our listing the listing advocate, where they’re talking about developing a unique selling proposition around their brand. And it always comes down to the same conversation. And what that is, is that advertising is not marketing and marketing is not advertising. So what I want to do on this podcast is really explain the difference between the two, because they are night and day. And oftentimes, many of us in the real estate community lumpa mess are the same activities. And it’s extremely, extremely important to understand the difference between the two, because the truth is, regardless of what type of business you’re in, you should be doing a little bit of both, you should always be marketing your business. And you should always be advertising as such. So we’re going to start here is we’re start at the beginning. And I have to give you the why, before I could give you the what. And the reason, we’re gonna start with where business comes from, for real estate agents or lenders. In that case, and we’ll speak specifically on those two topics. Now. I’m looking at a chart right now on a computer. And what it’s telling me and this is a stat from Nara National Association of Realtors. And basically what it’s telling me is that 80% of closed transactions last year came from people you already personally met, they used you in the past, or you actually ran into them. Personal referral, personal acquaintance, they ran into your office. So it’s either people you meet, or you worked in the past, or people that were referred to you, period. Now, that’s where over 80 freaking percent of business comes from. So I want to take a sudden get out of the real estate industry, I want to talk about what I would do. If I started a new business, I want you to apply this concept to your business and see where you can fill in the gaps. First and foremost, have I started a taco stand very first thing I would do is say, where in San Diego, would I sell the most amount of tacos? Number one, why? Because I’m going to look to see where I could get the most amount of sales? Well, in your real estate business, you should ask yourself the same damn thing. Where am I going to get the most amount of sales. Okay, so back to the taco restaurant. If I’m in San Diego, I’m probably gonna end up putting the taco restaurant in like the PV area. Why the Pacific Beach area well, because there’s always drunk college kids there and those kids stay out till two o’clock in the morning, which means I probably have another three or four hours of open time to sell a bunch of more tacos, in addition to my whole daytime to a bunch of drunk college kids. Well, that’s probably the best location. So I know that I would probably open up my taco stand in that area. Now let’s flip back to real estate. In real estate, if we know that 80% of our business comes from the people we already know, we refer to her personally. But that means I’m going to plop my face in front of all of those people consistently. I’m not opening up per se a brick and mortar store to where they live. But I just couldn’t keep my face in front of them very easily every month in a consistent way because that’s where the majority of my business comes from. Now, that would be point one. Now in that if I wanted to generate more sales, then maybe I would start advertising and then maybe I would take out an ad in or maybe a radio ad just to bring more awareness that would be advertising I’d be come by my house come by my house I’m expecting or come by my tacos come by my tacos. I’m expecting somebody to take action on something that I am trying to do myself. So same thing with real estate, well I can buy Zillow leads, I can buy different types of business, I can buy certain other things. And with real estate, I could lead generate different types of transactions or anything because I am lead generating. So the difference between advertising and marketing is strictly on how you’re doing it. When I’m marketing my business. I’m fighting for attention and awareness. When I’m advertising my business, I’m fighting for action and leads as a direct result of something I met. Now, what surprises me so much in this business? Is that no matter where, where, no matter what I mean, I have clients all over the country. Now at this point, we have people from Florida, freaking California and North East northeast, and everyone has the same problem, guys, I cannot stress this anymore. Why aren’t you guys just staying in front of that 80% a lot more often? And what kind of aka marketing activities are you doing to accomplish that? Okay, so I’m going to speak to specifically on marketing first, and then we’re gonna go into advertising. In my opinion, if you’re a mortgage broker, and you’re a real estate agent, and you’re not marketing your local community, and the people you already know, you are losing money on a daily basis, we’re not necessarily losing money on a daily basis, what’s really happening is you’re logging on to Facebook, and realizing that there’s been a certain amount of people that are buying or selling without you because they forgot what the hell you do for a living. But guess what, it’s not their job to remember what the fuck you do. It’s your job to remind them. So one of the things and the most important thing you could do in this business again, in my opinion, as real estate marketing, dude, is market the people you already know, the problem is, how do you do that, Mike? How the hell do I stay in front of the people I already know, they don’t want to hear about market updates, they don’t want to hear about me just listed just sold. No shit, they don’t listen, if you keep talking about work all the time. And you’re always just talking about work, work, work, work, work, people are gonna tone you out, if all I did was talk about work with all my friends, they stop asking me to go eat dinner man. And their same thing happens to your database. But that doesn’t mean we stopped talking to them, you stop talking to your significant other, you’re going to get a divorce doesn’t mean so you have to carry on the conversation, you have to even market your significant other. So what I’m getting at here is that it’s very, it’s so important to maintain a consistent presence. And this is the reason why if most of the business already comes from the people that we know, like trust, and the ones that already know and love us, well.
We have to be conscious of that. Because the average number of transactions a human being does over the course of their lifetime is three to five. So what that means is that every single relationship you have in life right now, depending on your market, just what’s the average sale price of your market, and times up by three or four. That’s the value of a relationship for you today. So let’s just put that into context in San Diego here. Prices here expensive 801 point 5 million where we live at. And if I’m working just this market, well, I’m looking at somebody as Hey, I’m going to sell this person, every person, I know an average of 2.5 to $4 million over the course of their lifetime, do the math on that that’s roughly 75 to $100,000 worth of income. Now, the reason why though I can’t just put that price tag on them is because that individual has the ability to refer me three, four, or five and unlimited amount of people over the course of lifetime of a relationship that I could do the same thing with. So your relationships that you have in life, actually, I don’t think you could put a price tag on them. But if you wanted to be very, very safe, that would be the best way that you could approach that situation to determine how the value of each relationship is. Now, when we’re talking about people transacting in her moving, I know it’s a numbers game. It’s mathematical because 10 to 15% of the population will move each and every year and 100% of them will have a referral for me. If I’m consistently marketing, my database marketing my sphere of influence marketing, my email list marketing, my Facebook friends, marketing, my Instagram accounts, marketing my LinkedIn followers, marketing on tik tok, if I’m just constantly putting my face out there in the world and the universe, well 10 to 15% of the people see my content will be moving in 100% of them every referral for you. The problem is you don’t get referrals from strangers, you get them from the people you know, that’s why the number one database keep in touch in contact with the people you’d invite to your wedding. Funeral if you had an unlimited budget for both. That’s it. This business is not rocket science. Okay. question is how do you do it? Well, we own a video marketing company so I have no problem telling you how we do it. I would love to do it for you. But how we do it is we shower them with video content. We video email our databases once or twice a month with content that doesn’t necessarily have to be about real estate. Hey Johnny, do you guys see the new restaurant is open every neighborhood you should really go check it out. Their tacos are the bomb. Oh, hey, did you see the new property that the new development that just went out in our neighborhood? Guess what if you’re wondering how much those values are going for, they’re going for $500,000 that means your house is not worth this. Or Guess what? Did you see that in the state of California they just outlawed all the zoning requirements for single family homes. This means that your next door neighbor can build a four flat in section eight it. Whatever a value, sometimes it’s entertainment, sometimes it’s informational, but whatever a value is what you communicate. Oftentimes we just overthink the process what I say they’re gonna think I’m stupid. What I do here, do you actually overthink the process, when you pick up a phone call from a lead, or you talk to an old friend you haven’t spoke about in 15 years? Absolutely not. You shouldn’t overthink this either. See, to truly market your database, I always recommend taking on a multi pronged approach. The same reason why other retailers do it, I like direct mail in my database, I like video emailing my database. And I love being all over social media with my database. Why? Well 10 to 15% of them are gonna move. And the more they see me, the more likely I am to get that first call. And when I do 80% of the people will work with the first person they meet with. That’s why this is common sense. I’m not smart. I’m not doing anything or teaching you guys anything else that you don’t already know, on the inside, I’m just bringing it to light. See, the problem is, is that you have all these companies coming out here trying to sell you a bunch of fucking leads by this by that you got to lead generate, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell folks, a percent of the business, I just told you where it came from. So when you’re signing up for all these expensive platforms, when you’re signing up for the super duper websites and the email autoresponders, what you’re really doing is fighting for less than 20% of the actual population, where you could just be staying in front of the people you already know, like and trust, whether that’s 100 people, whether it’s 300 people, or whether that’s 1000 people, because within it the same numbers I just told you about are accurate. So what do you do? I promise you that content creation. it already is. But I promise you that consistent content creation and brand is the entire future of our business. And for those people that are going to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, it’s gonna get harder and harder and harder and harder, just like it is for the past 10 years, those who are that are cold calling right now. Was it easier to cold call a few years ago as it is today. Those of you that converting online leads right now, was it easier to convert online leads a few years ago than it is today. Those of you who went door knocking? Did you get less guns pull on you at the house or less pissed off people back then then you do today? Absolutely, folks, because consumer habits have changed. information gathering has changed. And what we have to do is change with it. Now, I’m not saying don’t advertise. But what I am saying is you should prioritize quote unquote marketing activities, content creation, bringing constant attention awareness to your brand, and staying in front of those people first, before you ever fucking think about spending $1 on advertising. The truth is you’re going to convert less than 5% on any advertising campaign and advertising is really expensive. If you don’t believe me out, go check your market. What’s your average zip code going for from our boys, Zillow? What is Zillow selling you the zip codes for all right, Johnny, you get X amount of leads per month. You know why? Because customer acquisition is always expensive, not just in real estate. But in any business. Do you know what these eye buyers pay for a seller lead? You know what investors would pay for a seller lead a lead someone that raise their hand just one lead an inquiry 180 to 250 bucks. In some cases, sometimes you go as high as $300 in different markets. That’s very expensive guys.
It’s very expensive to acquire a customer, it is always a lot less expensive to generate a referral or repeat business. It’s in any business. It’s not a real estate thing. It works in Zappos. It works in every single entity, and they’re doing it that’s why so many people have marketing plans. So I’m not saying don’t advertise. But here’s what I am saying about advertising. If you’re going to advertise, you better advertise to a niche or a niche it needs to be a very specific solution to somebody’s fucking problem. If you’re hitting like Every Door Direct Mail and you’re sending out what’s your home worth You are wasting your damn money in my opinion. Why do real estate investors never have a listing problem? Well, it’s because they know how to advertise. Why do these I buyers not have a listing problem or a home problem? Well because they know how to advertise. See what they do though is they buy segmented data or they put their offer or their solution. In front of the very people that really, really, really need it. That’s advertising folks. See, the reason why a lot of your Facebook ads are taken six to nine months, 12 months out, and people are getting frustrated with them is because you’re advertising in a platform that people aren’t necessarily looking for that information. That’s why the lead life and Facebook is a lot longer traditionally than any other source. But if you were to take that over to Google, for example, and advertise on, say, Google, people, were there expressing intent, they’re actually looking for the information or whatever the hell you’re selling? Well, that’s a lot better solution, don’t you think? So, what I’m saying is like, let’s just take listing lead generation, for example, we’re gonna start a big listing lead generation campaign here in San Diego a little bit. And I’m putting my team together here, and my job is gonna be to market and generate leads. And for me, here, I don’t have a database, I don’t have anyone to market, right. But I have a bunch of agents that I’ll be marketing their databases for them, because I always know that will bring in business, it doesn’t mean we’re not going to advertise, we are going to advertise. But we’re going to advertise smart, we’re going to advertise directly for seller lead generation. And to dial it down even further, what I’m going to be doing is buying a list of data from my friends over at geopoint data, go look them up, guys give Dustin a little shout out geopoint data.com. And when I buy that list of data, I’m going to buy landlords, people who have financial problems, probate, divorce death, I’m going to buy a list of people who are more than likely to sell their house, I’m not buying a farm, I’m not trying to build a brand. I’m trying to get a solution so I could sell some more damn houses. And if I want to minimize my spend, and maximize my ROI, the number one way you do that is by targeting the very right people, and then putting our solution right in front of those very people. That’s what advertising is. So I’m not saying don’t advertise, but I’m saying if you’re gonna advertise, you advertise that niche. You never advertise a generalization because when you advertise a generalization, you’re wasting your damn money. Buying Zilla leads is advertising a niche. Why? Because you’re buying specific conversations or inquiries of people who are inquiring about homes list or homes. That’s an advertising, right, you buy leads, you’re buying inquiries, hey, contact, put your information in here, and I’ll give you information here, that’s a lead. What I would never do, though, is like, personally, I personally wouldn’t buy the shopping cart ad, I personally wouldn’t buy the shopping cart ad at the grocery store. Now what else I probably wouldn’t do is I probably wouldn’t buy the billboard, I would do that more for branding and marketing. But when I had the dumb few money to waste, if I’m going to spend money on lead generation, I’m going to niche down, and I’m going to look for a very specific audience or segment that I have a solution for, and then I’m going to put my solution in front of them. That is the magic for advertising. But before I would ever do that, I’m going to go ahead and start marketing first. And I’m going to market the people who already know the ones I’ve worked with in the past, and the people that I’ve personally met, I’m going to do my best to stay in front of them, because 10 to 15% of them will return to me or will be moving in 100% of them have referral for me. And the more content I create, the larger that email list grows, the larger that social media reach grows, and then the more opportunities that fit that exact same formula also exist. So folks want to keep it short and sweet today, I want you to break down your business. And I want you to look at it in two ways. I want you to look at what you’re doing. As in terms of marketing activities. Are you doing client events? How you stand in front of your peeps? Are you consistently sending emails? Are you direct mail in your database? Are you kidding me? are you creating content on social media to remind people you’re doing and if not put the pen to paper, this is the fourth quarter launch next year with a marketing plan that will actually pay you.
On the other end, I want you to look and say hey, what is my niche? What’s the one problem I could potentially solve for people? And then look at your budget. And then say, Okay, if I do this, what can my ROI be? your ad spend will always be higher on lead generation or advertising than it will be on marketing. It’s just the way it is. It’s a lot less expensive to stay in front of people than it is to try to get new people to inquire with whatever type of food you’re serving. So I want you to take what we have here today. Listen, and list out both of what you’re doing at each side of your business and dwindle it down. You don’t need to be doing a million things you need to be doing one thing really damn good. Once you accomplish that, then go on to the next thing and start doing that really damn good. Then you go on to the next thing and then you start fucking doing even better at that. You don’t approach multiple leader advertising campaigns until you master the first one you work on. That’s how you run a profitable ROI and scale up your business. But the Easiest way to start is by starting by the lower hanging fruit. And by hitting the people you already know and creating a marketing plan before you ever start advertising I really hope this message resonated with you today. Folks if you need help creating a marketing plan, hire a real estate marketing dude. Visit our site we create content we keep you in front of people and will turn you into local celebrity if your market if you’re looking for a unique selling proposition, visit our website listing advocate comm where it’s a multiple seller option solution, we’ll start selling something in your market, then nobody is and we appreciate you guys following the show leaving us comments. And please go ahead and subscribe to our channels and post some messages send me some love. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, I appreciate each and every one you guys thanks for listening to show for the last four or five years. Really appreciate you guys. Keep it going. And I’ll keep trying to bring fire police have a good day like thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at www dot real estate marketing do.com we make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule a time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.