SLIDE 2:

I’m Ceilidh MacLeod, VP Growth at RESAAS. For those who don’t know, RESAAS is a global social platform for real estate professionals to connect, share listings, & exchange referrals. I’m here today to try and unveil the beauty of online marketing. Quite frequently I hear people talking about it as if it’s a scary foreign place, but hopefully you’ll leave this room with a new perspective (unless you’re already hooked like me) and also a desire to explore online marketing even more.

SLIDE 3:

My job at RESAAS is to acquire traffic to our platform, convert them to users, get them to engage with our platform and keep them retained.

SLIDE 4:

This isn’t all too different to what a Realtor does right? You want to acquire leads, convert them to clients, maintain a relationship with them & then hopefully convert them to a repeat customer.

SLIDE 5: As VP Growth at RESAAS I lead the growth team, which is focused on key concepts of Growth Hacking. Growth Hacking is a new marketing technique that has been

developed by tech startups. It combines creativity, analytical thinking & social metrics to sell products and gain exposure. So, when I was asked to talk today I immediately thought to myself, how can Realtors start growth hacking?? Clearly our goals are in line – we want to sell products (for you, it’s houses) and we want to gain exposure. So, I’ve been asking myself, why hasn’t anyone growth hacked real estate before?? Getting an answer to this isn’t actually too hard for me. That’s because my Mom is a Realtor.

SLIDE 6:

This is my Mom. She just moved to a new brokerage and is much more independent than she was in her previous one where they shared all clients and deals. She’s basically starting fresh and is building a new client base from scratch. Building a presence offline and online is up to her. I’ll admit she’s pretty much nailed the offline strategy. She’s great at networking, always on the phone, she’s rocking the newspaper ads… But, when it comes to online strategy she begins to look a little less like this lovely lady..

SLIDE 7:

...and a little more like this terrified baby.

So, when I ask her what her barriers are I get the same general answers –

SLIDE 8:

It takes too much time and too much money. Yes, you could waste a lot of time and money online, but with the right plan and strategy in place you can actually end up saving a lot of time and money.

SLIDE 9:

Today I’m going to sharing 6 recommendations to getting started with online marketing & one formula to maintaining an online routine. I hope that you walk away from this presentation with some actionable items and feeling unintimidated by online marketing.

SLIDE 10: 92% of homebuyers use the Internet in their home buying process. Real estate is the 2nd most searched thing online (after porn), infact Google searches for real estate related terms has increase by 253% in the past 4 years. So you want to make sure that you’re hogging all the search result space possible. First things first. You need to have a website. You’re website is your home within the Internet world. It’s the place where you can control all your content,

your brand, your contact details, and any other personal information. 72% of agents say they have a customized personal website. That’s up 21% from the year before. Clearly agents are moving in the right direction, but if you don’t get on top of this early enough you could find it even harder to compete later on. If you don’t already have a personal website then I highly recommend you put this at the top of your list of things to do.

SLIDE 11: There are website services available for everyone, depending on the level of customization or control you’d like to have. There are agencies that can build a customized website with MLS integration for anywhere from $300 to thousands of dollars. There is other software out there with listing integration that can provide you with templates that are more self-serving as low as $50. And if that’s still too much you can setup your own website on Wordpress for free.

SLIDE 12:

Here is my Mom’s website. We bought a template for $70 and monthly hosting costs $3. Not too bad for a decent looking website. The best part about her website though, is her blog. Blogging is my 2nd top recommendation for all

of you. Having a website is great - you’ve built your home, but to get your home on the map (ranking high in Google search results) you need to keep it up-to-date. Adding a blog post every 2 weeks and keeping your listings up-to-date will help significantly in ranking higher on Google searches. Google’s algorithm now puts even more emphasis on up-to-date content.

SLIDE 13:

If you don’t believe me here are a few stats. 90% of consumers find blog content useful. 78% believe the person behind the content is interested in building good relationships. 53% of website owners found blogging to be the single most effective SEO tactic.

SLIDE 14:

Here are a few examples of what my Mom has on her blog. Keep the topics engaging such as this one about how “Almost every housing prediction was wrong” and become an industry leader by providing market updates - these can be taken from your local real estate board or any other market analyst.

SLIDE 15:

What good is all this great content you’re creating if you aren’t sharing it?

SLIDE 16:

Twitter has 228 million monthly active users, Facebook has 890 million daily active users and 70% of consumers are utilizing social media throughout the home buying & selling process. So having a presence in the top platforms can be very beneficial. There are many social networks out there where you can create your business accounts, however, at the minimum I suggest setting up a Facebook business page and a Twitter account. Having these accounts set up will also mean that you can fill out and rank higher in Google search results.

SLIDE 17:

Check out Ronnie’s page for example. Over time she’s managed to gain thousands of followers and her page doesn’t only act as a channel to push her listings and blog posts. It’s a place where people can rate her service and ask her questions. I also love how she shares personal experiences with clients - demonstrating that this isn’t just a real business, but there’s a real person behind it too.

Once you’ve setup your Facebook page make sure you invite all of your friends and clients to like it - these are the people that will be your biggest advocates and having them engage with your content will bring you exposure to all of their networks too. This is a powerful word-of-mouth

technique to gaining referrals.

While Twitter can also act as a great platform to share your updates, it’s also a place for you to connect with local people and businesses. Twitter isn’t really a place where people plan to find an agent or listings, but if you maintain a presence you can find clients in unexpected areas.

SLIDE 18:

Take Ricky Chadhe for example… Ricky sent out a tweet about a great pizza he had in a local restaurant in Toronto and a chef in Nova Scotia saw this tweet, responded and they started a dialogue. It just so happened that the chef was planning his move to Toronto and Ricky ended up selling him his home. Perhaps this is a rare example, but such an easy thing as a tweet can result in new clients. By sharing all your local expertise you can stay top-of-mind to those who are ready to make a move.

Again, there are other great platforms out there like Instagram and Pinterest, but I’ve picked these two as platforms to get started on.

SLIDE 19:

So, now that you’ve got custom content on your website, you’re sharing it on social media, & you’re getting traffic

back to your site, what’s next? You want to make sure that you’re capturing leads.

SLIDE 20:

You can do this easily by setting up a popup or widget somewhere to ask for visitor contact details in exchange for market and listing updates. This could look a little something like this one on my Mom’s website.

Ok, so there is something big I want to emphasize here. Your email list is your gold. It is extremely valuable. Your website is a great place for you to display your listings & knowledge, your social accounts are key to getting new leads to your website, but your email list is your database of warm leads. This is the most likely source for getting new or repeat clients.

SLIDE 21:

Emails are 40x more successful at acquiring new clients compared to other online marketing tools. Emails also generate 6x the clicks compared to posts on social media. In addition, they generate a 66% higher purchase conversion rate when compared to social media, direct mail & more. I’m not trying to undermine the value of the other recommendations I’ve made, because they are all necessary to complete your online marketing funnel, but your email list is definitely the most important component.

SLIDE 22:

According to the Nielsen Norman Group, newsletters are still considered a great way to grow or maintain relationships, even during times when people aren’t actively making purchasing decisions. So, if you’re wondering what to do with your email list then my next recommendation is to create a monthly newsletter.

Mailchimp is a great email marketing tool and is free up to 2000 subscribers. They allow you to easily build beautiful emails that are optimized across devices and platforms.

SLIDE 23:

You can even setup your email popup on your website to feed that data directly into a list in Mailchimp, so they’ll be in your monthly campaign automatically.

SLIDE 24:

Here is the newsletter I set up with my Mom using Mailchimp. There were 3 key things we wanted to provide in my Mom’s newsletter. The first was a personal message like this one...

SLIDE 25:

...the second was updates on all her listings...

SLIDE 26:

...and the last was some market knowledge. Throughout the email we made sure to have great photos and clear call-to-actions (buttons).

If you’re looking for a template to try out then I’d recommend giving this one a go.

SLIDE 27:

73% of people that were sent the email opened it and of those 31% clicked through to her website. Those are incredible rates considering industry norms are 22% for open rates and 2% for click-through-rates.

SLIDE 28:

Now, here’s a summary of all the recommendations I’ve made so far. 1: setup a website, 2: setup a blog, 3: create your Facebook page, 4: create a Twitter account, 5: setup a lead capture form and finally 6: setup a monthly email newsletter. Once you have those in place all you need to do is develop a routine for maintaining your online presence. To do this I’ve developed a fairly simple formula.

SLIDE 29:

First thing you probably do when you get into the office in the morning is check your email. This should fit nicely in line with that routine. Open up Facebook and Twitter, post one Facebook post, one tweet and then follow 10 people on twitter. Twitter makes recommendations as to who you should follow (try to stick with the local people), so that’s pretty easy to do. Then follow up with any new followers with a standard direct message sending them back to your website. Something like this usually works well. This should take you only 30 min.

SLIDE 30:

Every 2 weeks I recommend you add a new blog post or market update to your website. Talk about something local - why living in your area is so great or you could simply pull the latest report from your local board. This will also act as additional content you can share in your weekday routine! Depending on what content you decide to go with, it should take an average of 1-2 hours to put together.

SLIDE 31:

Finally, at the beginning of each month you’ll want to send out an updated monthly newsletter. This can be really easy in mailchimp because after setting up your first template you can just duplicate it and then update the

content. And you already have your list of leads already in the system. This usually takes around 1-2 hours to setup.

SLIDE 32:

I’ve added some final tips here to keep in mind. Make sure to have engaging images in everything you post - you’ll get a better response. Share local updates/restaurant recommendations/favourite spots/etc. to stay ahead as a local expert. If you want to get a little deeper with your tracking then use bit.ly for your links that you share. They’ll tell you where the clicks came from (aka. the online source) and the geographic location of the person. Try to link all posts back to your website! If you’re struggling to come up with content for your Tweets and Facebook posts then you can install buffer which will allow you to share or schedule content as you come across it easily. If you’re looking for more intense scheduling you can use Hootsuite to schedule all your Facebook posts and tweets for the week in advance. And if you’re feeling real techy then install Google Analytics on your website so you can track where all you traffic is coming from, how they are interacting with your site and where you are losing them. Some website platforms have their own basic analytics already integrated. If you’re looking for help in setting any of this up, there are plenty of how-to videos you can find online.

SLIDE 33:

Now, to conclude! Looking back at those common complaints that online marketing takes too much time and is too expensive, I think I’ve done a pretty good job at proving that wrong. Based on the recommendations I’ve made this strategy could take you as little as 9 and a half hours per month and could cost you nothing!

SLIDE 34:

And lets just take one last look at those stats again. 92% of consumers are using the Internet in their home search process. 90% of consumers find blog content useful. 70% of consumers are utilizing social tools throughout the home buying & selling process and emails are 40x more successful at acquiring new clients than other online marketing.

The stats are there, you have all the steps and you have your routine formula. If you follow this it will only get easier and more efficient over time and you’ll be sure to build an online presence as a local expert in real estate.

SLIDE 35:

You’ll be able to find all of the information I’ve talked about today at academy.resaas.com. That concludes my presentation, does anyone have questions?

Resources:http://www.internetlivestats.com/http://www.6smarketing.com/blog/infographic-canadian-internet-usage-statistics/http://www.realestate.com/advice/real-estate-marketing-spending-money-to-make-money-18627/http://www.inman.com/2014/05/19/nar-many-real-estate-agents-spend-their-marketing-dollars-in-the-wrong-places/http://activerain.trulia.com/pdf/real-estate-marketing.pdfhttp://www.ihouseweb.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/RealtorMarketingSpendSurvey-Spring2008.pdf http://cursivecontent.com/10-stats-that-prove-content-marketing-is-the-key-to-success-for-real-estate-agents/http://www.realtor.org/field-guides/field-guide-to-quick-real-estate-statisticshttp://www.realtor.org/reports/home-buyer-and-seller-generational-trends http://cursivecontent.com/10-stats-that-prove-content-marketing-is-the-key-to-success-for-real-estate-agents/

http://maximizesocialbusiness.com/savvy-real-estate-pros-use-social-media-7194/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmt_BhSgJus http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/real-estate-agents-find-home-tweet-home-in-social-media/article5087300/https://www.facebook.com/realtorronnieontiveros https://twitter.com/Your416 https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/real-estate-email-marketing-build-list/ https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/4300/email-marketing-statistics