Expert Tips From Real Estate PPC Pros
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is the digital compass that will guide your property listings on top of search results. It provides agents the unique advantage to place their website right in front of potential buyers and clients who are actively searching online. This results in reaching the correct audience and gaining quality leads. Overall, PPC is essential for real estate agents because it increases your visibility, and gives you control over your budget, who to target, and where your ads will show. Furthermore, you have the flexibility to adjust your campaigns in real time. Google Ad's dashboard. Cost and Budget The cost of PPC campaigns depend on keyword selection, competition, and the platform used (like Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media). It is crucial to pick less expensive but effective keywords like long-tail keywords to lower your expenses and strengthen your PPC campaign. Don't forget to optimize your bidding strategies, ad copies, and landing pages to increase your return on investment. In PPC, you get charged every time someone clicks on your ads, which makes setting a clear budget very important. PPC is also essentially a bidding, but the highest bidder doesn't always emerge victorious. Platforms like Google Ads consider the quality of content, relevance of the ad, and which ad will offer the best answer to user queries. Target Audience Understanding your target audience is essential for your PPC campaign to be successful. This involves demography, their needs, pain points, and where they are in the buying or selling process. You also have to create detailed personas based on research and feedback from previous campaigns. Don't forget that there are existing restrictions in terms of targeting based on some demographic information like age, gender, ZIP code, parental status, and marital status. Landing Pages Your ads landing page is a crucial part of your PPC campaign. Your landing page should be relevant to your ad's promise, contain an effective call-to-action, and be mobile-optimized. Moreover, the design and user experience should be focused on. A clutter-free and easily navigable page encourages visitors to remain and engage. Selecting Keywords Keywords are the words or phrases that users choose when searching online. As mentioned above, long-tail keywords are more targeted and less competitive, which give you successful results. Try using "2-bedroom homes for sale in [specific location]," rather than general terms like "homes for sale in [specific location]." Always remember to also utilize local keywords, exclude negative keywords, and use Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer for research and analytics. How long-tail keywords perform on search engines like Google. Conclusion In the real estate industry, you have to arm yourself with the right strategies to stand out. Ultimately, your goal is not just to showcase your listings, but to form connections and turn each click into sales. PPC advertising is a powerful tool that can help you with these, so learning how to effectively use it is a game changer. Alternatively, you can also reach out to Real Estate Webmasters to get professional support from PPC experts. This is a summarized version of a blog that was previously posted on Real Estate Webmasters' website. Thank you to Real Estate Webmasters for sponsoring this article on RE Technology.

How to Improve Your Touchpoints for Even More Organic Leads
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 40% of all homes sold in a year typically close between March and July, and the busiest home-selling months are May, June, July, and August. That means most brokerages' busiest months are about to start! April is an excellent time to make sure all your lead touchpoints are optimized so you can tap into your brokerage's entire sphere of influence and keep the leads flowing! How to optimize real estate lead touchpoints There are so many different ways to make contact with potential homebuyers and sellers. Making sure each of these methods is working optimally together (and apart) is crucial if you want to make sure your brokerage is maximizing lead capture. The most common sources of real estate leads With Millennials comprising the biggest homebuying group today, digital touchpoints are more important than ever. However, the typical agent is between 55 and 60 and not exactly a digital native. The average home seller skews older, too, and seller leads are extremely valuable! For brokers and agents, this means that digital touchpoints are just as important as traditional analog ones to capture a maximum number of leads and keep their funnels full. Let's look at some of the most common lead sources brokerages typically rely on and how to make them work better together. Word of mouth Word of mouth is still one of the most important sources of leads. Are you likelier to try a new restaurant in your neighborhood because you saw it on social media or because your best friend told you they loved it? Nine time out of 10, you're trusting the recommendation. The same is true for real estate brokerages! The best way to optimize word-of-mouth leads and get people to sing your praises is to make sure everyone your team interacts with has an amazing customer experience. So many factors go into a top-notch customer experience: responsiveness, accurate advice, service, and ultimately a successful close. Technology is an amazing asset to improve every aspect of the customer experience, and the right combination of front office tools can help. More on that below. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns Maybe one of the easiest ways to get leads is to buy them. Companies like Market Leader and Offrs let teams fill their funnels by purchasing monthly subscriptions to lead feeds. PPC campaigns are a very common method many brokerages use to supplement their organic lead efforts. Over-reliance on PPC could handicap your brokerage in the long run, but adding it to the mix can help keep your streams diversified and flowing. Yard signs and flyers It may sound counterintuitive, but maybe the most traditional lead-gen method in real estate, the yard sign, is still a great way to drum up leads, especially those valuable seller leads! Brokers can optimize their yard signs by integrating recent technological innovations, like scannable QR codes, and other curbside marketing techniques, like text and voice codes for automating listing information sharing over the phone, to make it easier for leads to respond and for agents to capture leads' contact information (and interest). Takeaway listing flyers are another analog and low-budget way to get your name out to both buyers and sellers. Agents can distribute them via flyer holders on yard signs or at open houses. The biggest drawback is that branding, formatting, and printing flyers takes time, so brokers can optimize this touchpoint by automating the first two tasks and giving leads multiple ways to get in touch, including the same QR codes and phone numbers as yard signs. Digital touchpoints Now let's look at your brokerage's digital touchpoints. If your lead initially found you using one of the analog touchpoints above, you can be sure that the next thing they'll do is Google you. The rest of your leads will find you online from the start, probably by typing, "Homes for sale in…" into their favorite search engine. This means your online presence and digital touchpoints need to be spot on to make sure leads not just find you, but fall in love with you! Brokerage and agent websites Your website is your digital storefront. You want to make sure it lets you put your best foot forward and showcases your team, your listings, and your expertise in your market. The first key to any website is making sure people can find it. You could have the best, most stunning website in the world, but if it never shows up in search results, you won't see the leads you're expecting. This is where real estate search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. There's a lot you can do yourself to boost your site's SEO, but the best thing is work with a website partner who really knows how to help your website rank higher, so you can focus on why you have a website in the first place: attracting and converting leads. Once you've gotten traffic to your website, you'll also want to make sure it has plenty of ways to actually capture leads: savable property searches, free home valuations, recommended properties, a real estate blog, buyer and seller guides or other downloadable assets, contact forms, and more. Each of these resources speaks to a different kind of lead, so the more you have, the likelier it is that this particular touchpoint will result in more leads. Social media Social media is an incredible source of organic leads, and a great way to showcase your brokerage with minimal investment (after all, social media accounts are free!). But consistent posting is essential for success, and social media is time-consuming for already busy agents. Plus, the typical agent might not feel comfortable putting themselves out there on social media or reposting content from other sources. Social media publishing is an easy way to boost the effectiveness of your social media strategy without spending a fortune. Giving your team access to a digital marketing suite can also help them automate their posting on all their favorite platforms, including posts for their active listings, scroll-stopping homebuying tips, industry news, and more. That means every agent can have a consistent social media presence that serves as a foundation for their own unique content. Plus, with the right tool, each post can also be branded to your brokerage, letting your brand and expertise shine even more. Getting all your lead touchpoints to work together A well-balanced mix of lead sources means the top of your funnel will always be full. But no matter how your leads come in, it's important to action them quickly and efficiently and make sure none of them fall through the cracks. For that, you need an effective CRM that allows you to: Respond to leads quickly Most leads will go with the first agent who responds, so ensuring your team can follow up fast is crucial for making sure you get the lead instead of someone else. Responding within the first minute increases conversion exponentially! Route leads to the right agents Responding quickly is important, but so is pairing each lead with an agent who has complementary skills and expertise. This is where lead routing can be very beneficial, because if the lead doesn't feel like their agent is the right fit, they'll take their business elsewhere. Customize your nurtures So, you've captured the lead and paired them with the best agent. Great! But online real estate leads can incubate for anywhere from six months to two years! You also need robust nurture features to keep your leads warm and your brokerage top of mind. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Reveals New Global Brand Identity
Ahead of its 10-year anniversary, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices unveils a bold new look. Celebrating the success of the past decade and expansion to more than 12 countries, 1,500 offices, and 50,000 real estate professionals, modern design paired with sophisticated and vibrant colors brings a refreshed new identity to a brand founded on the principles of trust, stability, integrity, and longevity. "Our refreshed look pays respect to our past and our core foundations of who we are as a brand and perfectly positions us for the exciting future ahead," said Christy Budnick, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. "We are a brand that stands apart due to our guiding principles and commitment to excellence, and this contemporary new design aligns with our goals as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary later this year and begin a new decade in a pivotal time for real estate companies." The Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices style evolution is centered on the needs of real estate professionals working within a business that is driven both digitally and with an emphasis on personal connections and relationships. A striking new brand logo, refreshed color palette, and modern typography will be showcased throughout the world and via the millions of marketing pieces, digital impressions, and brand awareness campaigns generated each year and proudly displayed on company and agent websites, yard signs, marketing collateral and more. "The refresh of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brand was a thoughtful and strategic undertaking that was executed with care and consideration," said Wendy Durand, SVP, Global Marketing and Communications. "The re-envisioned identity will live beautifully in digital and traditional marketing spaces and incorporates an invigorated collection of colors and designs. Of course, we made sure to include Cabernet—our iconic hue that is distinguishable the world over." The Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Luxury Collection also reveals a new look today. Luxury Collection Specialists comprise an exclusive group of real estate professionals and an unparalleled portfolio of the most magnificent properties around the globe. Designed to personify the qualities Luxury Collection Specialists conduct their business, the new look of luxury is contemporary, yet classic, and always refined. "The new chapter for the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Luxury Collection had to reflect the high quality of properties and the unparalleled level of innovation and sophistication our Luxury Collection Specialists bring to their work every day," said Laura Stace, VP, Global Luxury Marketing and Communications. "I am so proud to unveil an elegant new look for the Collection as our Specialists continue to raise the bar in the industry and provide expert service for those seeking or selling luxury homes. This initiative as whole has been a true testament to the strength and creativity to all at the Global Headquarters—working together for our incredible network." Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and franchisees will incorporate the refresh look and feel in a phased approach with the environment and economics being important considerations of a project of this magnitude and scale. To view the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices new look and for more information, visit www.bhhs.com/refresh.

NAR Announces New REALTOR Benefits Partnership with Arcadia Publishing
The National Association of Realtors announced Arcadia Publishing as a new partner under NAR's REALTOR Benefits program. Under this agreement, brokers can receive a free, fully branded brokerage promotional publication. "Many of our members run progressive and dynamic businesses, and they strive for their marketing collateral to match their experience and expertise," said Rhonny Barragan, NAR vice president of strategic alliances. "We're excited to announce this partnership with Arcadia Publishing to bring free access to high-quality publications to our broker members and their agents." Arcadia Publishing will work with interested brokerages to create a fully branded "Guide to Buying and Selling Your Home." The guide includes custom information about the brokerage and features best practices on the home buying and selling process, such as advice on financing, moving, home staging and more. Arcadia Publishing manages all aspects of the publication process, including design, printing and delivery. This is done at no cost to NAR members through the inclusion of specific, industry-supported advertising. "The final product is a beautifully designed best practice guide to help consumers achieve their goal of buying or selling a property," said Ray Ingleby, CEO of Arcadia Publishing. "Although digital marketing has revolutionized the media world, we recognize that many Realtors® want to complement their digital initiatives by providing their clients with impressive, quality printed materials." To claim this benefit, NAR members can visit this page and use the promo code NARAP1 when filling out the form.

Delta Media's 'Fresh' Take on Real Estate Advertising
Every so often, a real estate-related advertising campaign emerges that cuts through the clutter to make a strong audience connection. Not too long ago, Zillow, like the old AT&T TV ads, tugged at our homeownership heartstrings. The National Association of Realtors' ads used fictional Realtor Phil Dunphy from Modern Family to make us laugh. Go back 30 years to find the groundbreaking Great Western Bank commercials featuring Dennis Weaver. These brilliant TV ads spoke to both a B2B audience (Realtors) and B2C (consumers) with the same powerful "use a Realtor" message. My favorite one has Dennis walking in front of a gorgeous house. Like the accompanying print ads at the time, he conveys the message that, "Looking for a home without a Realtor is looking for trouble." The camera pulls out, and we see the beautiful home Dennis is standing in front of is a Hollywood facade. The current real estate-related ads that breakthrough all the noise are the Tracy Morgan ads from Rocket Mortgage. Comparing "pretty sure" versus "certain" to illustrate the competitive difference between getting a preapproval from Rocket versus a competitor makes these an instant classic. Rocket uses powerful and extreme examples to make these ads both memorable and highly effective. Delta Media Group's new "Delta Fresh" ad campaign was inspired by the Rocket Mortgage ads. It accomplishes the same clutter-cutting effectiveness. What's smart and clever about these ads is how it completely breaks the tradition of just about every other B2B tech ad. Delta's new ad campaign is all about real estate technology, yet it does not feature any technology! Like the Rocket ads, these ads use extreme examples to contrast Delta's competitive advantage versus its competitors. In addition, the images in these Delta ads are beautiful, colorful, and powerful in conveying a tech message without standard tech imaging. See all the "Delta Fresh" ads available at Delta Media's website here. Delta Media uniquely has its own channel to distribute these print ads broadly. Delta publishes a print magazine – Real Estate Marketing & Technology magazine – which goes to thousands of agents and brokers subscribers who are also Delta clients. The first of the new "Delta Fresh" ads debuted in its October issue. You also can find a digital version of the magazine online here (page 45 for an ad sample). Full disclosure: WAV Group worked with Delta to execute this campaign, so we have a built-in bias. Here is the news release announcing this new campaign. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Top Real Estate Teams Ditch the Big Portals for Their Own Branded Google PPC and Social Media Lead Generation Campaigns
If real estate agents and brokers received a dollar for every lead generation sales pitch they hear, they could retire from real estate. While that might be a slight exaggeration, it illustrates a reality: the market is overrun with multi-billion-dollar companies trying to sell them leads. Those leads keep growing more expensive, or come with hefty referral fees, or are sold over and over again. Because they're generated from web traffic and consumers surf multiple sites, they're often delivered to multiple agents simultaneously. If you're not the fastest phone in town, you lose the deal. This combination of factors squeezes potential return on investment to all but nothing. The situation evokes a commonly heard question: "How come I'm the only one not making money in this scenario?"

REAL Trends Case Study: Agent Churn 42% Lower with Adwerx Automation
Attrition, turnover, churn. Whatever you call it, nobody likes losing their employees, period. In real estate, the agent churn rate is insanely high. Here are a couple of tidbits about the average agent tenure: Tom Ferry: 87% of all real estate agents fail National Association of REALTORS: Median tenure at a firm has dropped to four years Combine those industry stats with the fact that the average employer spends about $4,000 to hire a new worker, and we're painting a pretty bleak picture. In any economic climate, the logical question becomes "How can I retain more of my agents?"

5 Reasons Every Real Estate Professional Needs to Be Advertising on Facebook
Tell us if this sounds familiar: you created a Facebook page for your property management or real estate business and posted a few times a month. But as time passed, you did not feel like the page was boosting your lead generation. As more people use Facebook to post content, there is exponentially more competition for your target's attention. It is not enough to write a post on your page and hope people find it. Facebook ads ensure that your content reaches the right people at the right time. Below, you will find five reasons why you need to be using Facebook advertisements and several great services to make the most out of your investment.

NP Dodge: The Oldest Dog Has New Tricks
After over 100 years serving homeowners, NP Dodge has followed marketing trends in the real estate community as they transform over the decades--from newspaper notices to postcard announcements to online ads. Today, most homebuyers begin their search online, which creates the necessity for digital marketing expertise. Rather than allocating valuable time and marketing budget towards web-based advertising training for busy agents, America's first brokerage has partnered with Adwerx to offer automated digital marketing for agent listings. Picture this: you've just posted a home for sale in your MLS. Rather than painfully constructing online ads by hand and individually contracting with different websites to promote the property, digital elves descend upon your new listing, gather property details, a listing photo, and agent contact information. The sprites then build a beautiful ad displaying this information with broker branding, automatically fielding the ad to potential homebuyers in your area via high-traffic websites like YouTube, The Wall Street Journal, and social media, with ads typically gaining 7000+ views. This is not a dream, this is the reality of the Adwerx integration for broker platforms. Read more about the service that received a standing ovation at its announcement, and constant praise from agents since its initiation: Download the case study now!

How One Brokerage Gets More Listings and Referrals with Online Branding
Robert Slack, LLC uses branded property portal and retargeted ads to attract clients, recruit agents, and win listing presentations. In this interview, Robert Slack, Founder and CEO, and Dan Walters, Partner and COO, share their secrets to online marketing success.

Everything You Need to Know About Retargeting
Let's talk digital marketing strategy, and more importantly, why your business should have one. Whether you're a savvy digital user or you identify as technologically challenged, it's always helpful to think about how to allocate your advertising budget and reach your target audience online. If you're new to the world of digital marketing or want to use your marketing dollars more efficiently, the first thing you should think about is retargeting. When implemented properly, it is a foundational piece of any marketing plan.

How to Work with Facebook's Changes to Target Options for Real Estate Ads
Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitzmetrics, explains how to work with Facebook's changes for targeting options for real estate ads. Facebook no longer allows real estate advertisers to select specific ages, gender or zip codes for real estate ads to prevent discrimination. Dennis shares what it means and provides a strategy to handle the changes using simple, but effective creative way using 1-minute videos you can make using just your phone and letting the FB algorithm work to find the people who want to see and hear from you.

Facebook Ad Changes for Real Estate: What Agents and Brokers Need to Know
Facebook is removing age, gender and ZIP Code targeting for housing, employment, and credit-related ads. It will also impose a 15-mile minimum radius for geographic ad targeting for housing ads. The Facebook ad platform offers an unrivaled rich, diverse, and deep level of ad targeting options no other advertising platform can provide. These changes will not impact those agents and brokers that have been effectively using them to date and may reduce blatant discrimination.

Old School Is... New School?
When a real estate brokerage, team or agent is asked about what they are doing regarding their own individual marketing efforts, the answers might surprise you. The majority of agents in the United States have an almost even distribution of their marketing dollars between print and digital marketing. To shed some light on how agents spend their precious marketing dollars, it is important to identify exactly what constitutes print vs digital.

How Subsidizing Agent Ads Will Boost Your Brokerage Biz
When you think about how you're going to grow your brokerage business in 2019, what are your key initiatives? Recruiting new agents? Gaining more market share? Making your existing agents more productive? Whatever it is, it comes back to building your brokerage's value. It's all about your brand. Why would someone work with your brokerage over another one? Why would they choose an agent because they're associated with your brand?

Last-minute Ad Blitz for Open House Nets 200+ Leads
Are open houses useful? That depends on what you mean by 'useful.' If you mean attracting the eventual buyer of a home, that's debatable. But if you mean, Are open houses useful for filling my sales funnel? then yes, absolutely. That's what Steve Ford, a Keller Williams agent, discovered when he was assigned to hold an open house for another agent's property at the last minute. With just 24 hours before the event, Ford had to think fast in order to generate interest—and ensure that anyone showed up at all. He turned to the Open House Toolkit from Listings-to-Leads, which lets agents quickly market their open house with Facebook ads, landing pages, single property websites, and more. Ford ran the ad below for the 24-hour period leading up to the open house to impressive results. So what can a Facebook ad do in just a day? Here are Ford's results: Over 230 leads captured from his Listings-to-Leads open house landing page (here's an example), which were then funneled into his CRM and assigned to a drip campaign. Six new pre-approved clients who responded by email and gave Ford their phone number Six more families who came to the open house after seeing the ad Ford ran the ad in four different locations: his Facebook business page, a Facebook community page for his area, Facebook Marketplace, and as a shared post on his personal Facebook profile. Here's a breakdown of how each performed: Facebook community page: drove 70 percent of leads from ad Facebook business profile: drove 20 percent of leads from ad Facebook Marketplace and Ford's personal profile: drove 10 percent of leads from ad Ford paid paid $50 to run the ad on the community page, $25 on his business profile, and nothing on Marketplace or his personal profile. That's $75 for more than 230 leads--or a very impressive (and budget-friendly) 33 cents per lead. Tip: Notice in the ad above how Ford doesn't mention the listing price? Instead, he holds back this information in order to encourage lead conversion. On his landing page, leads can get the price, property photos, and more in return for their contact information. Test this technique out for yourself to see if it earns you more conversions. So next time an open house is looming, don't panic. Just turn to Facebook for an efficient, affordable, and very effective way to capture new leads and drive traffic to your event. Brokers, arm your agents with the tools they need to win more commissions. Learn more about Listings-to-Leads today.    

'Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee': The Power of a Good Brand
I've been thinking a lot about brands lately. Why do some brands do better than others? Some flounder, some transcend—and it's not always a reflection of effort or innovation or value. Brand success can seem random. But that's the genius of a good brand; it should be so effortless that it makes you think, 'obviously!' The quality of a brand is determined by many factors—logos, voice and tone, vision etc.—but what interests me the most are the oaths, the mantras, the mission statements that yell the brand from the rooftops.

How Do the Top 20 Sites Manage Digital Search Advertising?
At WAV Group, we like to look under the hood at what the top property search sites in America are doing to engage consumers and boost performance. In some cases, we work with the site owner and have access to their analytics. In other cases, we use benchmarking tools like Hitwise and ComScore to get a glimpse into what these top performers may be doing. The results are interesting. In the snapshot that we took, the nation's leading portal – Zillow.com – is benchmarked to be the top search site with 36 percent, and also the top investor in paid search. Their paid click share is 35 percent of their search traffic and 36 percent of their search traffic is organic. Overall, Zillow acquires 5 percent of the paid click traffic. Zillow's Click-Through Rate (CTR) on paid traffic is 5.33 percent.

Discover the Next Big Thing in Real Estate Advertising!
Banner ads and the internet have a long history together. But with banner ad blindness becoming an increasingly common problem, it's time for real estate professionals to find a better way to reach buyers and sellers. Luckily, there are other advertising options—more effective advertising options. Chief among these are native ads—advertising so helpful some buyers may not realize they are ads at all.

SEO vs. PPC: Which is best for you?
Ask any digital marketing expert, and you'll quickly learn that both search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) are effective real estate marketing tools. After all, a beautiful, information-rich, mobile-friendly real estate website is only an asset if your audience knows where to find it! Both PPC and SEO are geared toward making sure your website shows up in a prime position in search engine results—the real difference comes in how that goal is accomplished. Let's take a closer look at the perks of SEO and PPC to help you identify the most effective marketing tools for your real estate business.

4 Tips to Get Free Advertising for Your Real Estate Business
What could be better than an advertising opportunity that allows you to showcase your brand, share your expertise, and build your authority as a local expert? Well... accomplishing all of those goals without paying a penny would be a good place to start! There are plenty of free real estate marketing opportunities to take advantage of close to home, and in many cases all you'll have to invest is a little bit of time. The trick is in both knowing where to find free advertising opportunities, and understanding how to take advantage of them. Advertise for Free: 4 No-Cost Real Estate Marketing Tactics to Grow Your Brand

Real Estate Definitions Handbook for Sales, Marketing and Tech Terminology
If you're a real estate professional in today's digital world, it's crucial that you adopt the technological solutions that are available to you, since we're living in an increasingly technological world. By arming yourself with a knowledge of relevant tech terms and tools, and harnessing the power of these solutions to improve your business, you can make processes simpler and more successful — both for you and your clients. A knowledge of tech terminology can also help ensure you stay on-par (or ahead!) of your competitors. Here are some of the most important terms you should know.

The Do's and Don'ts of Real Estate Landing Pages
A Closer Look at Unbounce's Conversion Benchmark Report We all know that in order to succeed in business, you must market yourself. You post to Facebook consistently, write blogs, send emails and even cold call. You're a marketing machine, but you're still not bringing in as many leads as you'd like. If you're sending your audience to your homepage, that might be the reason why.

CFPB Investigating Zillow – Brokers Consider RESPA
Inman News journalist Andrea Brambila broke the story on Thursday that Zillow is under investigation by the CFPB. Apparently this has been happening for two years. According to Brambila, "The program, launched in June 2013, allows 'Premier Agents' who pay for advertising on Zillow Group's apps and websites to invite lenders to share marketing costs by paying Zillow Group to appear as 'Premier Lenders' in advertising alongside the agent." What Should You Do? Brokers should take immediate action. Agent activities are supposed to be supervised by the broker. We do not know who is going to become the target of the CFPB. That is the funny thing about regulators. Perhaps they find Zillow complicit, but I would expect that there is a possibility that they pursue the mortgage company and the real estate community who are also knowingly involved in the practice. Brokers need to establish a defensible position, especially if you are a large firm. Here are a few ideas. Be sure to document your efforts in the even that you need to defend yourself against the wrath of the CFPB. 1. Send notice to your agents alerting them to the concern 2. Have office meetings to educate agents about the concern to educate agents on RESPA

Where is Everyone in Real Estate Spending their Marketing Dollars?
This month, we published the results of our extensive study, Generating New Business in Real Estate. We polled nearly 400 brokers, agents, marketers, and owners to discover exactly where they invest their marketing dollars, how they generate new business, and their best marketing practices. Read our full whitepaper here. In this post, we'll take a closer look at the marketing budget of a typical real estate business. Where is this group spending their largest portion of marketing dollars and where are they seeing the best results? Looking at the Group Overall We asked the group to rank their marketing spend based on 10 categories, with no. 1 being where they spent the most marketing dollars and no. 10 where they spent the least. The choices offered were: Social Media Marketing Flyers Mailers Maintaining / Updating a Website Purchasing Leads Branding Drip Marketing through a CRM Pay-Per-Click Advertising like Google AdWords Other types of Advertising Other We then paid close attention to which segment was ranked no. 1 in the group, implying that this category received the largest portion of their marketing budget. Here are the results from the overall group.

Facebook Advertising and Seller Lead Generation
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 10:00 AM PDT You will learn how to use the tools in Listings-to-Leads to: How to market listings on Facebook for buyer and seller leads. How to advertise on Facebook for Seller Leads. Other tips on using social media, email, blogs and more to generate seller leads. Register now!

Real Estate Service Sampling -- Are You In?
Sampling is one of the most proven marketing strategies for increasing sales, and is one of the leading trends successful real estate professionals subscribe to. Like the frozen food peddlers at your buying club, giving potential customers a taste can lead them in unexpected directions. And though not quite as simple and attention grabbing as those tangibly tasty puddings and pies, sampling your services is still just as easy to implement – and equally effective at boosting sales. Sample packaging Sampling your knowledge can instill confidence in homeowners that you can meet their buying and selling needs, prove your enthusiasm and authenticity, and boost comfort levels and trust. But what you're sampling should depend on the modality. How can you give customers a taste? In-person The single best way to sample your service is a 30 minute face-to-face where you can show your expertise, authenticity, passion, personality, and compassion for clients. (In real situations – not cold-calling, door-knocking, or "schmoozing.") Let those you connect with know you'll refer business their way when the need arises, and if you meet anyone who can meet their needs, you'll connect them as well.

How to Use Facebook for Your Brokerage: 4 Tips for Success
Facebook for brokerages can be a powerful tool. But don't just use it for the sake of using it. Really think about the end results you want to drive from Facebook and then dedicate the time and resources accordingly. 1. Create and Manage Your Page The first step on how to use Facebook for your business is to claim and manage your page. If you haven't set up a page, here's a quick tutorial: Go to this page (you'll have to be logged into your Facebook account) and select the type of business you're in and fill out the appropriate details. Finish your "About" Section with 2-3 sentences that best describe your business. Don't forget to put a link to your website, if you have one. Upload a profile picture that you want to represent the business. The ideal size is 180 x 180 pixels, but nearly any square photo will do. I recommend making it as clear and good looking as possible. Add a cover photo. The official photo dimensions are 851 x 315 pixels but you can crop any wide-angle photo you may want. This is the larger photo that will greet visitors when they visit your page. Start sharing content. If you need to claim your page, you can do that here. If somebody else has created a page for your business and is in violation of your intellectual property or trademark, you can make a complaint here.

Ad Networks: Low-risk Marketing Value for Brokers
Profitability is an abiding problem that every real estate broker faces. It takes constant focus and jockeying to squeeze every last penny out of revenue opportunities. While growth strategies always carry some risk and vary on their return-on-investment, advertising networks like those listed in our annual Technology Guide can deliver a comparably low-risk revenue stream to a broker's consumer-facing website. With ad networks, brokers can select diverse online format options, convenient passive earning programs, and distinct targeting abilities. Many ad networks offer native advertising, or customized content that suits a broker's brand image, website style, and outreach strategy. Depending on the goals, content can be delivered in a variety of different styles, including banners, pop-ups, interstitials, audio, and video, and interactive ads. That way, the ads match the form and function of the broker's website. But, while there isn't much consensus on which type of ad is most effective for lead conversions, the best ad network will regularly review the broker's website analytics and adjust the style and content for optimal revenue gain. An ad network's visitor data analytics enable them to gather detailed market intelligence and deliver content targeted for individual brokerages and the regions they serve. As a result, a broker's website displays advertising content that is segmented according to their specific audience's geographic location, demographics, lifestyle preferences, and even the primary time of day for online activity. This allows a broker to run relevant ads from high-quality advertisers that will positively reflect their brand image.

Using Targeted Facebook Ads to Fill Your Pipeline (9/29)
Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 2:00 PM PDT What if you could predict when someone may be ready to buy or sell a home and target those people to fill your lead pipeline? With Facebook, you can! Join us to learn how you can leverage Facebook to create targeted ads to reach your ideal audience and generate leads. In this 30 minute webinar, you'll learn: How to use specific life events to target potential buyers and sellers Tips for capturing and converting a greater percentage of these online leads Register now!

How Data Mining Makes Facebook the Most Cost Effective Advertising Channel
Facebook is a treasure chest when it comes to identifying potential sellers and buyers to advertise to. Facebook will help you figure out a person's location, age, marital status, company, position, salary and, believe it or not, even if they are likely to move. How do they do this? It's easy: data mining. Since the birth of social media, we've all become accustomed to over-sharing just about everything online. While Facebook doesn't necessarily care about the photo you posted of your amazing steak at Delmonico, they certainly are listening and cataloging everything else you are writing about. For instance, what about that new work promotion a friend posted about? What about the ultrasound that shows "It's a girl"? What about that job position your cousin just got and was so excited to tell everyone about? Yup. They are tracking all of that. So if you have access to a platform that is cataloging the life events of every single prospect you have in your marketplace, and pointing you directly to others that fit into the category of your "perfect client," why are you still refusing to advertise on Facebook? Frankly, given the cost of even hiring a marketing firm to run your ad campaigns versus other traditional forms of real estate marketing out there, I find it almost impossible to figure out why EVERY agent or broker doesn't have some sort of advertising strategy on the Facebook platform. If we can agree that the prospect of getting way more for way less is a compelling argument, let's examine two fantastic reasons that Facebook should be a part of your marketing campaign strategy.

Using Targeted Facebook Ads to Fill Your Pipeline (9/8)
Thursday, September 8, 2016 at 12:00 PM PDT What if you could predict when someone may be ready to buy or sell a home and target those people to fill your lead pipeline? With Facebook, you can! Join us to learn how you can leverage Facebook to create targeted ads to reach your ideal audience and generate leads. In this 30 minute webinar, you'll learn: How to use specific life events to target potential buyers and sellers Tips for capturing and converting a greater percentage of these online leads Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (9/1)
Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (8/25)
Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

Facebook Campaign Templates and Checklists for Real Estate (8/4)
Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 9:00 AM PDT This year at our brokerage in Austin, Texas, we've taken our Facebook marketing efforts to new heights... and the results have been awesome! In fact, with just 3 simple Facebook campaigns any agent can use, we've been able to find more new customers than ever before AND we've turned our open listings pages into the most popular pages on our website! If you want to learn the exact 3 Facebook campaigns we used to get these results AND how to find new customers, stay in touch, and promote your listings like a pro on Facebook, join us this for our live training webinar. Here's what you will learn: Facebook marketing best practices, featuring our top lead generation strategies and tactics Step-by-step examples of the 3 highly-effective Facebook campaigns we're using RIGHT NOW in our brokerage to generate a ton of new leads! You'll learn how to use Facebook the exact same way we've used it to DOUBLE traffic to our website and open listings pages How we're using Facebook to become a listing leader in our market, and how you can too! Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (8/18)
Thursday, August 18, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

Demystifying Facebook Advertising: How to Turn Ads Into Leads (8/2)
Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 11:00 AM PDT Have you ever thought about running your own online ad campaign to generate leads for your own business? Complicated, right?! Once you dive in, it can be a little bit overwhelming. Google Adwords and Facebook advertising, if done correctly, can massively increase the volume of leads for your business. If done wrong, it can suck up your advertising budget and your time, with little to show for it! In this webinar, Shaun Nilsson, Co-Founder of CityBlast, and CityBlast Leads Expert Chris Hapke will show you how to create your own online ad programs, designed to drive more buyers and sellers directly toward your business. In this webinar you'll learn: How to set up a simple, yet powerful, Facebook Ad campaign How to decide what your ads say, and who to target for best results How to adjust your ads based on their performance to make them even better over time What essential tools you need in order to make sure your ads work What types of ads perform well and what consumers respond to most How to build lead- capture pages that convert interest into dollars How to follow up with a drip campaign to capture any leads that don't convert right away Q&A with the CityBlast Experts! Even if you're just a casual Facebook user, this webinar will really help you understand the how-to of online advertising. And as an added bonus, you'll receive a handy set of cheat sheets you can use to get underway even faster! Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (7/14)
Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (6/30)
Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

Adwerx: Real Estate Advertising for the Digital Age (6/16)
Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Join our weekly webinar to learn why real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and how you can stay ahead of the competition with smarter local marketing from Adwerx. Register now!

The Guide to Launching Your Real Estate Marketing Mix
Building an online presence — in other words, a core foundation for your online real estate marketing — is just the first step in your overall marketing plan. Once your website is live, it's on you to kick your digital promotion up a notch. That means forming an email marketing blueprint, developing a social media footprint, and diving into the world of advertising (both online and offline). Together, all of these channels and tactics add up to one thing: a comprehensive, omni-channel marketing strategy that allows you to effectively reach, inform, and nurture your audience and — in time — convert them into new business. So what exactly is an omni-channel marketing strategy? Also commonly referred to as multi-channel marketing (though you'll hear some say the two are different approaches), this method of brand promotion entails the utilization of several online outlets and techniques to enhance one's reach to a targeted, niche audience. In the case of real estate, that means implementing a marketing strategy that incorporates the base infrastructure of one's online presence — the almighty website — and then building on this foundation once it's optimized accordingly (e.g. numerous landing pages that offer resources and brand information are built out, several blog posts have been published, and listings are frequently updated across each page). Once you feel comfortable augmenting your site with plenty of relevant, local market details and your industry expertise, you can enter the next phase of your omni-channel scheme: Developing an organized lead management plan (complete with prospect-scoring and monitoring capabilities) Building out an email marketing plan (preferably starting with pre-written, automated drip campaigns for your different lead segments) Expanding your reach through targeted advertising (e.g. pay-per-click ads via Google AdWords, targeted real estate mailers) Broadening awareness of your brand on social media (organic and paid publication, and regular engagement with your audience)

Make the Most of the Summer Selling Season! (6/2)
Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 9:00 AM PDT News of this week's online training session is causing the real estate rumor mill to spin, so let me end the speculation right now... Yes, it's true. Thursday's webinar is going to feature 3 of the easiest-to-use campaigns we're ever discussed publicly. It's time to make the most of the summer selling season, which means you need to sell properties fast, find business in your sphere, and get more listings ASAP. Agents love easy, which is why we're expecting a huge turnout for this one. Here's just some of what we're going to cover with you: 3 New Sizzling Summer real estate marketing campaigns to fill your pipeline with red-hot leads while other agents struggle to gain traction An amazing new Facebook feature that is revolutionizing the way agents do property tours The little-known secret to bring life back into any expired listing, along with quick-and-easy scripts you can use to win the listing and close the deal Live Q&A session with two industry experts so you can get your most pressing real estate marketing questions answered Register now!

Why Your Facebook Video Ads Should Be Silent
The best places to advertise are where consumer traffic is heaviest. That's Advertising 101. In the electronic world, there is no heavier consumer traffic than on Facebook. But before you rush onto the world's busiest platform with your ad, there are some recent changes involving Facebook video ads you should be aware of. Facebook is now asking businesses to develop video ads that don't require audio. There's plenty of other video content that includes audio on the social media giant, but Facebook says this move is designed to protect both them and their advertisers. The concern is that the audio of an ad could begin playing loudly at an unexpected moment. The research Facebook commissioned revealed that four out of five people would have a negative reaction should that happen, both to the social media platform and to the advertiser. But while advertisements can't include sound anymore, Facebook announced it will soon offer an opt-in to businesses that would automatically enable captioning for advertising videos. That should save advertisers some money, since they won't have to add captioning themselves.

What Is a Brand and Why Is It Important?
Between tradeshow speeches, product pitches and feature articles, you might be sick of hearing the word "brand." Maybe you've heard it so many times by now that it doesn't even register – it's all about your brand; your brand should attract top agents; does it align with your brand? The popularity of the subject alone alludes to its importance in the real estate industry, but do you really know what a brand is? Do you understand its importance? Above all else, what is your brand? At one point in time, brand was simply a name that replaced the generic name of something. Take laundry detergent for example; the generic name, laundry detergent is known as Tide, Gain, and Cheer – the brand. Over time, it became evident that there was more than a name that went into the perception and distinction of a product. Better yet, marketers learned that they could create different perceptions of their brand and, to a certain extent, control the perception of their products in clients' minds through various means – the evolution of brand.

How Distraction Real Estate Marketing Pieces Help Your Farming Efforts
Real estate postcard farming is a difficult thing for many real estate professionals to swallow. First off, you are spending your own hard earned money on it. Secondly, geographic real estate farming is a process. It takes many months to build your brand awareness and start to pick up measurable results. It also requires lots of planning, ensuring that you truly understand who your "ideal client" is, and what materials and content would not only appeal to them most, but also make them consider you the thought leader in your marketplace. That planning the content part is where many quickly figure out that the devil truly is in the details. Even if you avoid the traps of making your marketing about yourself only, and inconsistently hitting your farm area with marketing pieces, even the very best content can fatigue homeowners, thereby working against your plans and reducing the chances that you will become dominant in your marketplace. The question becomes, what do you do? The answer is simple: To effectively keep the attention of homeowners in your marketplace, you have to sometimes give them a "shock to the system." The easiest way to do this is with a distraction marketing piece.

If Your Firm Has a Story, Now Is the Time to Tell It
One of the most amazing business events of 2015 took place in Orlando, Florida in mid-October when over 2,500 of the most creative minds and imaginations in North American commerce gathered to conduct the annual Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference. The meeting was alive with new ideas, old relationships and new challenges. It was a good decision to be there. Even more interesting was the meeting's similarity to that held by the REALTORS® in San Diego. The marketing culture and the REALTOR® culture find themselves in very similar situations. They both find themselves being violently disrupted by forces far beyond their control and influence. If you heard the story in San Diego, then you also heard it in Orlando and visa versa. The consumer is now in control. They have elected to reject and be combative with respect to the thousands of unwanted, intrusive, arrogant, and wildly expensive advertising messages marketers hurtle at them each day. Consumers are communicating in a loud and clear voice that they do not want to hear the voice of any meaningless, irrelevant message. They are using every opportunity to "ad block" or "ad skip" to block the din. Regardless how advertisers attempt to mask their brand message with emotions, humor or even patriotism, consumers have developed an almost sixth sense about who is attempting to fool them. Consumers are rejecting these messages and are increasingly punishing advertisers who assume such a childlike consumer response. Consider Delta Airline's childlike, if not overwhelmingly naïve, belief that by adding humor to the pre-takeoff message, passengers will somehow become transfixed, suffering through its robot like wording without recalling that the aircraft is dirty, the staff is nasty and punitive and the flight is going to be 30 minutes late for reasons that everyone understands were the direct result of arrogant management.

Real Estate Tips from a Marketing Director
Michelle Costa has been the Director of Marketing for Showing Suite for the past five years. She has over nine years of experience in internet marketing, sales, and web development. Successfully marketing multiple companies of various sizes, she knows her way around the marketing world and all the various facets of it. Hashtags – do or don't? Hashtags are great and can help you find people to connect with who have similar interests and ideas as you. However, make sure they're relevant to what you're posting and don't overuse them. For example, do not hashtag every single word – #real #estate #is #cool. When was the last time you searched for the hashtag "#is" to see what other people were posting? In this case, #realestateiscool would be a much more relevant hashtag. Put the REAL in real estate REAL engagement is important. Even if you're going out of town, stay away from automated social posts. It's always obvious and defeats the purpose of social media. Posting is best when done organically to show what you're up to/thinking in that moment. The point of social media is to learn more about who follows you or your brand and to give your followers something of value. Don't just post for the sake of posting.

How to Advertise Your Listings and Services on Facebook
With more than 1.4 billion users and 900 million visits daily, Facebook ads can give you access to many different audiences. The possibility of super-targeting users by demographic, location, language, age, gender, relationship status, education, interest, workplace connections and more makes Facebook a great real estate promotion tool. But what's the best way to advertise on it? How can you best use Facebook for real estate promotion? Don't Use your personal page. It is unprofessional, and violates Facebook's user agreement against using the platform for personal or commercial gain. Post listings directly on your business page's wall. Your page will be viewed as spam. If you can't help yourself, you can get away with a few each week (that means 2-3!) with a single, eye-catching photo. But there are more professional ways to handle it. (See the next page for details.)

Should You Put Advertising on Your Broker Website?
In an effort to boost their bottom line, some brokerages are looking for ways to generate revenue without increasing the percentage they're taking from agents' commission. One solution that brokers are embracing is placing ads on their website. This can be as simple as using Google AdSense or turning to real estate specific ad networks like Aculist, REALM, or a revenue sharing service like Nest4Less. Regardless of which option you choose, it's critical that you evaluate the impact ads may have on the user experience of your website. With website advertising, it's easy to cross the line from mildly distracting to outright tacky. The former may not drive consumers away, but the latter certainly will. Advertising most likely to be deemed as tacky or offensive to website visitors are those that directly interfere with the user experience of your site. This can be pop-up ads, audio or video ads that autoplay, or ads that block the user from continuing until they find the (often tiny) 'X' to close it out. Even ads that just sit on the side of your site can be jarring if they a) clash with your branding, or b) are so numerous that they overwhelm the page. When evaluating an advertising solution, ask the following questions to determine if it's right for your company: What is the revenue share? Is it based on CPM (Cost per Thousand), CPC (Cost per Click) or CPA (Cost per Action), or a flat fee? Who will the advertisers be? Ideally, you want services that relate to homeownership, like home improvement store and lenders, that don't compete with what your firm offers. Are you able to exclude certain advertisers from appearing on your site?

Where Brokerages Can Find Non-Traditional Revenue Streams
Yes, your broker website is where consumers can search properties and learn about your company, but it's also a tool that can support your current and past clients. Unfortunately, there are few options available to brokers that helps you supports your clients during or after the transaction with non-transaction based information. For example, imagine you're a buyer considering a home and you want to know the logistics of moving into this home--what moving company to use, who the local cable company is, etc. As a broker, it's easy to fail that buyer as a resource for information outside your direct purview. However, as a customer service provider, you become more valuable if you offer this information or at least link out to resources that your buyers and sellers will find useful, and answering any questions that will help guide their decisions. What's difficult is figuring out what kind of information is valuable to consumers between transactions--and that also continually reinforces your usefulness to your customers. In the offline world, it's common for homeowners to contact their agent if they need referrals for home services. Where real estate firms fall down is in providing an online resource that consumers can consult on their own time. Some brokers will debate this, saying that they enjoy taking calls from their customers and answering these questions. However, as much as you enjoy those calls, you're limiting your communication channels to one. Most people will just search the web rather that contact you by phone.