Setting up your social media channels
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat are all effective ways to promote your business. Personal branding is important. Set up business pages for each of these so that you can promote yourself, your properties, and your successes.
Take a small ad budget, and promote your brand in the area. It may not turn into business right away, but your branding and exposure on social media can provide, within any budget, an effective tool to get your presence in the marketplace.
One caveat: Plan your social media content in advance. Don’t spend too much time away from the most effective dollar-productive activities that prospecting and meeting with potential clients provide.
Real estate is a relationship business; all of the social media attention in the world will not work if you don’t get people on the phone and help resolve their housing needs voice-to-voice and then face-to-face.
Circle Prospect
Reach out to homes in the neighborhood where a home sold for more than the list price, and indicate you have interested buyers (those who lost out on the multiple offer of the sold home).
Create a lead/prospect pyramid
The quality of the lead and the timing of when that lead is ready to buy or sell is very important. Note that someone ready to list or buy right now should be contacted and communicated with now and as often as possible.
While someone who is waiting till their kids graduate high school in three years who wants to downsize once the kids are in college doesn’t need to be contacted as frequently.
Use a basic system to categorize your leads
Level 1: These are the least important. This is the general population in the local area. All of the property owners and people who have the potential and financial ability to buy a home.
Level 2: This is the group of people that you’ve uncovered in your cold prospecting that said they might do business with you in the future. These are people you contact a few times a year. You can email them frequently, you send mass texts on occasions.
Level 3: This is the level of your sphere of influence (SOI). These are the people you try to personally interact with at least quarterly if not once a month (four to 12 times a year), be it phone calls, pop-bys, event invites, coffee dates, or handwritten cards. Your goal at this level is to foster a deeper connection with this group of people. Build a strong bond and connection with this group through interpersonal action so that if and when the time comes you are top-of-mind and the go-to agent in their lives.
Level 4: These are people you’ve moved through the system, and they are about to enter into the buying or selling window. You know these people, you know their needs, and they’ve raised their hand to signal they are preparing to be ready. This is the time to step in with resources and information regarding the market and strategies to succeed and fulfill their goals as they prepare to buy or sell.
Level 5: These are the people who are looking to do something in the next two weeks. Set the appointment to sign that listing, or take them out to show properties. This is the smallest group of the pyramid, but the eventual destination if you want to actually have clients and make money.