Digital Marketing and how Real Estate Agents Can Generate More Leads to Earn More Deals with Nick Markman

Brokerage Insider

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone. And welcome to another episode of brokerage insider. This is the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and real estate technology. My name is Britt Chester. I'm the host of today's episode. I'm also the director of client success here at TRIBUS.

We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and provider of custom brokerage technology to small, medium, and large brokerages all over the world today on the show, we're going to be talking about marketing and specifically digital marketing, and we're joined by Nick Markman.

Principal product strategists at vocalize. Nick, welcome to the show. Hey, Britt. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I think digital marketing is a really exciting topic right now, as we enter this kind of like, I don't want to say post COVID, but this, this next phase. But before we get into it, Nick, tell us a little bit about a vocalize as well as a little bit about your.

Yeah, absolutely. So a vocalize we're collaborative marketing platform. So we basically enable local, small and medium businesses to easily execute sophisticated digital marketing. And we do that by partnering with their, either their national brand, like their. Where we partner with technology platforms, you know, like try this or other CRM website providers.

And through that collaboration of partnering with the what we call the sponsoring partner and the data that they have and, you know, getting a marketing platform, that's integrated with the tools that those agents and brokers are using. We're able to accomplish marketing outcomes on behalf of the, those users that they wouldn't be able to achieve with.

That collaboration and also saved them a lot of time. You know, we'll talk about this, you know, I think throughout the conversation, but the reality is that, you know, local and small businesses some of them may be great marketers, certainly. But to be an expert in, in digital marketing, certainly requires a lot of time and resources to truly be an expert at.

And a lot of those businesses that they just don't have that, right? If you're an agent or a broker, you're going to be spending most of your time selling houses and managing your relationships. So our ideas that we want to be that digital marketing easy button that allows them to still get all the performance that they want from digital marketing leads, revenue.

But by spending a lot less time doing so. And doing so in a, in a really seamless way where they don't really need to set anything not bright. So by doing that, we've seen, for example, in real estate agents and brokers go from spending nine hours a week, marketing their business to nine minutes. And we've seen dramatic performance results as well, seeing 400% stronger performance than when they're doing it on.

Yeah. I mean, I, I know real estate agents are there's, there's so much of an ask on a real estate agent today, right? Like there's so much expectation as to the service that they're, that they're meant to provide. And, and whenever I'm, you know, working one-on-one with either agents or brokerages, it's always a matter of looking at, you know, how much time do we have in the week and how.

Can we really allocate to not just learning and understanding digital marketing, but also deploying that and seeing a solid return there. So I think, you know, tools, you know, I know at Tribus we've, we've partnered with a vocalize and I think that this partnership has been, you know, just in its infancy right now.

One of our, one of our more exciting ones, just because it provides new opportunities for us. To, to put their face out there to put their name out there, to put their properties out there. So we'll, let's, we'll get into that here in a little bit. But before we do, I'd love to kind of jump back to the, the the, the benchmark, right?

Like the mile marker in all of history right now that everyone talks about and looking at the trends pre. Right. Like what did digital marketing, what did that landscape kind of look like inside of real estate before? You know, the, the, the great, the great flattener. So Nick, from your view, and then from that of a vocalize, what were some of the trends that y'all were seeing and that y'all were kind of focusing on prior to this, this big change.

Yeah, absolutely. I'd say, you know, there's certainly a thread there that is the same when you compare pre and post. And I totally hear you. It's safe to say we're post COVID. It's not, not accurate right beforehand. I think there was a lot less variety of. Marketing touch points, ways of communication. Honestly, I, you know, as I think about certainly real estate, that landscape pre COVID, it's really commoditize, you know, a lot of listing ads, which we still see, that's what, you know, bread and butter stuff, very important in the listing ads.

But COVID, and you know, the shift from high. In-person touch points to primarily digital or online ways of communication really was a, I think, a forcing function and innovation in terms of how agents and how the industry was using digital marketing and just digital channels in general. So I, I think you, I think that was one big change is that, that lack of variety.

Whereas now you see a lot more seller leads, home valuation you know, video ads, 3d tours. It was a little more stagnated is probably too severe, but it is a little more standardized, I think. So, so there was some good, certainly that, that, that came out just in terms of. But innovation of using some of these tools and services.

Another thing that I, I would add there, you know, in this as both a kind of COVID theme, as well as just what we have seen in the. Real estate market. You, you know, when you take a look at things like the low inventory levels, that was starting to happen, certainly pre COVID, but was not where it is at certainly now.

So it was a lot stronger focus. I think, you know, pre COVID on, on that buyer lead generation, we saw more of that. Whereas now it's a lot more blended or even a heavier focus or interest in seller leads. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember I was sitting I was at an IMiD connect event in January of. 2020. And I was interviewing all these agents and you know, marketing executives and admins, and I was attending all these you know, these sessions and listening to everybody make their predictions for 2020.

And you know, I, I go back and I look at some of that footage and I look at some of those interviews and I think about those sessions and it was like, wow, we were all entirely blindsided. Right. I think like a real obvious comparison, like you said, that that humans touchpoint, right? Open houses you know, before we're a staple and now they're, they're almost like a, and I don't want to, I would never call an open house, like a novelty, but it's like, we've got a virtual tour, a port, a drone video.

Everything had to get migrated very quickly to the internet, right? Like suddenly like everyone, is there, all of your, your internet traffic started spiking. I mean, I think we saw. So much just traffic there. So, so I guess kind of that, that leads perfectly into the next question. Like, you know, what did, what did COVID do to real estate marketing and like digital branding and how are we like, kind of like shifting with that because it's changing every single day.

Right. And, and I, I love the innovation in this industry and I love the opportunities for interview innovation as well, but I guess, how are we kind of like shifting with that, with the agent marketing like that one-to-one. You know, what does, what does that transition kind of look like from, from your standard?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think overall certainly from the marketing perspective whether it's digital or other channels, you know, COVID and some of the changes that came out of that I think were, were largely positive. I'll caveat that by saying this has been an incredibly tough time. So as I talk about that the upside or the positive that we results, we're saying by no means, are we saying it's been easy for agents right on the ground.

Obviously this has been hard for everyone, but, but truly in terms of the innovation of ways to communicate with your customers that we've already talked about, and I'll go in a little deeper, but also just on the performance side it was unprecedented times in, in a positive way. I actually think as we reflect on the past, What year and a half to two years.

So I'm just doubling down on, on again, what we mentioned, you know, it was real estate and especially agent interactions with clients has been such a heavy in-person form of communication. So that was immediately stripped away. So we saw these digital channels, especially things, you know, like Facebook, Instagram, Which are so visual and can be great channels for assets like videos via adoption and usage of those platforms really increased in innovative way.

So we've already talked about, you know, 3d tools obviously was huge and you see that both from the platform side and the Zillows and the realtor dot coms of the world, and that reports all making a heavier focus on that kind of content. But we saw the best performing agents also. Pulling that through to how they market, even if it's just them recording a video of themselves, walking through a house, and then sending that out over email, posting that on, on Facebook, running a video ad or even doing, you know, market updates in that format.

You know, we think of a lot of these channels that you can still have. Personal touch in terms of how your broadcasting you're communicating your brand, but also who you can target. Right. I can get in front of my customers pretty easily. I can target my local area with this message or this, this listing.

So again, that, that forcing function of, of being innovative in how agents and brokers, they're talking to their customers. As one thing. And then on the performance side, you know from a vocalizes perspective we're, we're in a, you know, a lot of industries, real estate is, is, is certainly a key one for us.

And so as soon as you know, COVID really started rewinding back to March, 2020, We wanted to start really looking at the data. Right. We have an interesting purview where we have, you know, millions of ads we can analyze and, and a lot of spend behind that. And so starting in March, we did monthly and quarterly updates, just looking at the performance going on in the industry and just some interesting things that, that all share that came out of that.

I think the overall theme, as I mentioned, right. It was an unprecedented time in terms of strong performance in these channels. So just a few things, things that I'll share real quick here. So one thing that we noticed when you looked at 2019 to 2020 CPMs which that means cost per a thousand impressions, basically a metric of how much your need to pay for your Media.

You can almost think of it as like a gasp. Or some degree for your food for your ads gets used so often. So thank you Pedics for that explanation. Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's definitely one of those, you know, maybe lesser known metrics, but basically just the call, you know, how expensive are your ads basically that decrease every 20% year over year 2019 to 2020.

So just the ability for agents brokers to. In front of people, more affordably, get more eyes on their ads and their messages for, you know, fewer dollars. We saw a dramatic change there but then also on the intent and performance side, when we look at things like lead generation I think the most shocking thing that we saw and we saw this just to continue to increase month over month throughout COVID, but lead conversion rates.

So if you think of someone that clicks on your. And then someone that submits a lead, what percentage of the people that click on your ad actually go to submit a lead that's the lead conversion rate that increased 658% from March, 2020 to March, 2021. So people that were interacting with these ads and digital formats.

More than we'd ever seen in any of our data. We're submitting leads at an increasingly higher rate. So just was a sign of really strong consumer intent in terms of not just seeing an ad and clicking on it. But I actually, you know, I'm interested in this. I want to submit my information. I want to start this conversation.

I'm in a relationship with. Yeah. And I think that's definitely reflected across the industry as well. Right? I mean, I think people who might've been shopping for homes you know, one year in advance in March, April and may of last year, they bought in June and July. And I think that's a direct result.

Of of those ads and have that, like, you know, that, that increase in marketing and, and agents and brokerages kind of, you know, realizing like how quickly we have to shift. And we have to adapt this model. If we're not able to get in front of our agents face to face, we have to meet them where they are. And so I think that that was like, that's a very that's a pretty exciting metric because it, you know, it speaks exactly to what we're talking about, right?

Like the, the value of marketing is to get in front of where your audiences and. That that is reflected in the stats. So it's the lead conversion rate increase 600, I think he said 658%. No, I think we can look at last year's sales. And you know, I think everyone was a little scared in March and April, but we saw a spike in real estate.

You know, we saw more listings, home values increased across the country and, you know, everyone was selling it more people were buying. And so I think that's, you know a direct reflection of that. It also kind of makes me think about like, what is, and when we, when we, I say post COVID and I hate to say that because.

It's more just like COVID acceptance at this point. And like, you know, like from there and then moving forward, but I wonder what is going to be like, what, what is the backside of this look like if we were at the top of that curve you know, what is the backside look like in the sense of like the next 3, 6, 9 months?

Right. And, and how can we. And how can agents and how can brokerages really start to kind of prepare for, for what that's going to be? Because there are people that might've been in their pipeline that were looking one and two years down the road that bought last year, and now they're no longer in that pipeline.

And so how can we or how can agents really start. You know, prepare for that. And what should their marketing plans kind of look like? Because, you know, we're seeing, I'm getting a lot of questions about, you know, SEO and you know, I want more, more traffic on the site and, you know, we, we could talk all day about SEO and SEO strategies.

Really, I want to know, like, what can we do? You know, how can we prepare for this and how can we kind of get that strong foundation? Both with marketing, with our, and with our digital presence. So I guess, you know, Nick, from your view, and then from that of a vocalize, what, what are your kind of like best practices that we can kind of start to implement now?

And what tools do we start using? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the word, you know, foundation that you just threw out is, is super appropriate because we've been talking a lot about marketing and the marketing aspect of agent or real estate business successful agents and successful tools have that company.

Deeply integrated with everything else that the agent or business is using to run their day to day. It's not on, on an island, right? So having your marketing and advertising, that's integrated with your CRM, that's connected to your website. That's set up in a way that you have that foundation, that infrastructure for driving your business so that marketing can actually.

Help drive real business results in a way that is valuable to you, but also in a way that you're not spending tons of time, you know, downloading leads from Facebook or Google and manually uploading those to your CRM. You don't want to worry about that. Hassle as agents, we're already doing this, the best tools do this today.

And that's what gets us so excited about. You know, our partnership with Tribus and the engage platform in particular is it does exactly that, right? Try this engage is integrated with, with your core products, there's CRM, is there, it has all your listings. It's easy to, to, to pop in there. And run your listing, automate your ads, have everything updated in real time, in a way that you know, saves you a ton of time and hassle, and you don't have to set up Facebook ad accounts and Google accounts and worry about that.

Everything is, is deeply, deeply integrated. And we see that trajectory in the industry is increasing there's. There's already tools that do it today, but agents are going to start demanding that if they aren't. You know, no one likes meeting to use five different log-ins, you know, multiple different tools just to run their day to day.

They want a one-stop shop. How can I manage my leads, manage my listings, advertise and promote my business. And, and we think of Tribus as being an awesome example of a tool that can. Yeah. I mean, and I think you, again, kind of jumping back to that word foundation and I liked what you said about like being deeply integrated.

Because I, something I run into sometimes is that, you know, like you know, agents will be talking about marketing and we'll think like, You buy an ad and we're done, like, I washed my hands. I I've put the ad out there, but it's important that all of those things are working together. And so it's almost like, you know, the ad is, is a component of not just your, you know, not just your, your marketing or, or, you know, if we're pushing a past sale or if we're trying to find buyers, whatever the ad, whatever our goal of that ad is.

But it has to be working with your CRM, with your website and all of that messaging kind of has to be cohesive. That's something that I, that I always encourage them. I'm a big proponent, you know, my background's in journalism. So I'm a big proponent for content creation whether it's blogging or social media organic and paid, you know, all of those things because to me those are, those are that's killing 2, 3, 4 birds with one stone.

If you, if you write a blog or if you're, you know doing that content and you are putting it out organically and you're buying an ad like that, that just pays dividends so much down the road because. You can use it, your, your, your lift is the content creation, and then you're deploying it across your entire network.

So you're sending it out to your CRM, you know, via email marketing. You're sending it out to your social networks organically you're paying and, and targeting audiences with those ads. And that kind of, you know, again brings us to that next point about like the value of, of an importance of those audiences.

I think. A lot of, a lot of times we run into like, you know, we're, we're boosting these and promoting these on Facebook, but there's a difference between a boosting and promoting an ads. Can you kind of talk about, you know, what the difference is there? The value of like making...