Most marketing advice you find on the internet is just plain bad.
People are quick to give you the same generic tips such as:
- Start a blog
- Go to networking events
- Cold call
- Build a funnel
And so much more…
Now, before we proceed, we’re not saying these don’t work.
We’re just saying that too many people focus on tactics instead of strategy.
You see… all of these things are just one piece of the puzzle.
They’re not the “missing ingredient” to your marketing.
If you go out into the marketplace and put them in action, with time, effort, and dedication, they are going to work.
However, what happens when the tactic stops working?
Since every realtor has access to the same information, they’re bound to implement the same tactics too.
Over time, enough people will use it and it’ll become ineffective.
This is the problem with all the marketing stuff you read online.
It has you chasing a new “shiny object” approach every time.
That’s why we believe in taking a completely different path from the mainstream.
We believe in creating a long-term and sustainable marketing plan.
One that doesn’t rely on the latest marketing hype to be profitable.
This requires you to develop a different mindset when it comes to marketing.
We developed what we call 80/20 marketing for real estate agents.
The strategies we are about to share will help you attract high-quality leads based on a series of time-proven principles.
What is 80/20?
This concept has been around for hundreds of years and pretty much explains any form of distribution.
In simple terms: 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the inputs.
For example:
- 20% of the market produces 80% of the properties.
- 20% of your customers give you 80% of referrals.
- 20% of your marketing gives you 80% of results.
To take you even deeper down the rabbit hole - 80/20 has multiple layers to it.
You can 80/20 what you already 80/20 to get better results.
Crazy, right?
That’s exactly what we’re going focus on in this post.
We’re going to show how you can choose a few marketing channels and extract the most results from them.
Takeaway:
- Analyze your business right now find where you have 80/20 in action.
* Note: 80/20 is everywhere, so there’s no excuse for not finding it inside of your business.
1. You need a filtering system
One of the most hated activities in the real estate business is prospecting.
Let’s take cold calling for example:
- You get a list of leads;
- You make 100 cold calls a day;
- You get yelled at and hung-up on by 97 of those people.
- The 3 remaining people agree to an appointment.
- 2 of them aren’t qualified and 1 seems like a good fit.
No wonder people hate this so much...
It takes 100 phone calls to get 1 person that’s interested!
That’s why the industry says there’s a massive “motivation” problem.
That people “quit too soon” or they “don’t stick at it long enough”.
From our experience, it’s not a mindset problem - it’s a “talking to qualified prospects” problem!
Anybody would want to quit if all they did was low-level work to try to find the right people to talk too.
When you’re sitting across a person who has a genuine need for what you offer, selling becomes easy.
They have a problem and you have a solution.
There’s no need for sleazy sales tactics when you have that in place.
That’s why you need a way to disqualify people.
The first step is to have a tool that sifts through your leads and gives you the good ones.
Here’s how you can do this:
- Identify your target audience’s most painful problem;
- Give them a resource that solves their problem for FREE in exchange for their contact information;
- Keep in touch via email drips/calls/texts and provide value throughout every interaction.
Remember: The most important asset you have is the positive relationship you build with your clients.
2. Traffic + Conversions = Profit
The next step of the process is to get people to sign up for your offer.
To be successful with internet marketing you only need 3 things:
- Traffic: people need to see your offer;
- Conversions: people need to sign up for your offer;
- Profit: you need to gain something from this (information or money).
If you can get traffic to convert and make a profit - you win.
Then, you reinvest your profits back into this process and it becomes a loop.
That’s why the essence of marketing is how much you are willing to pay for a customer.
For example: If you run a direct mail campaign for $1000 and land a $10,000 deal, you can repeat this process over and over again since it’s profitable.
That’s why finding the right people is one of the most important things you can do.
And again, you do this by disqualifying the wrong people.
Here are some things to look at to weed out all the bad leads:
- Do they have the money?
- Are they the decision maker?
- Do they have urgency?
- Does your offer make sense to them?
- Does it solve their problem?
If your prospect says no to any of the above, chances are they are not a good lead.
3. Always Keep Testing
With online marketing, you can always do better.
There’s no such thing as failure in this space.
You simply find out what works and what doesn’t - and you do this by testing.
Now, to keep things simple, there only 2 things that matter.
CPA: cost per acquisition (how much it takes to get a customer)
AOV: average order value (how much that customer spends on average)
If you can make your CPA lower than your AOV, you are guaranteed to be profitable.
In simple terms: If you can acquire customers for less than the amount they give you, when they buy from you, you are guaranteed to be profitable.
That’s the secret.
Now, to know if you are on track to achieving this, you should always aim for at least a 2 to 1 return on ad spend.
So for example: If you are trying to get $3,000 deals, then you should spend at max $1500 to acquire a new customer.
Here are some of the benchmarks you should aim for:
- Landing Page: 20% conversion
- Sales Page: 1% Conversion
- End Goal: 2 to 1 return
As long as your within these metrics, you are guaranteed to be profitable.
Final Thoughts
What we have shared with you are time-proven direct response marketing principles.
If you can understand these concepts, you will never have to rely on the latest marketing trend to be profitable as an agent ever again.
By applying these into your overall marketing strategy, you will know how to approach each platform you advertise on.
Here are the concepts in a nutshell:
- Choose a platform (20%) that will give you 80% of the results.
- Create a filtering system to disqualify bad leads.
- Understand that all profitable marketing is a result of traffic, conversion, and profit.
- If you can acquire a customer for less than the amount they gave you, when they bought from you, you are guaranteed to be profitable.
