All Forum Posts by: Tony Rappa

Congrats on your first deal! The marketing beast can be a difficult one to tame. There are so many avenues that you can walk down and so many ways to spend money that you could go broke trying to figure out the best solution. Much of the advice already given is excellent and I think the biggest take-away is that you are in a referral (relationship) business. 

So, you'll want to put the bulk of your efforts into hyper-localized relationship building. What the heck does that mean? In general, it means that you want to make sure any advertising is targeted to very specific demographics & psychographics if/when possible. So, before deciding what forms of media you want to use, I would highly recommend understanding the following:

- Who do you want to target? Start with your demographic. Where do they live, how much do they make, how old are they, married or single - etc. Be sure to include psychographics - the attitudes and beliefs of your target. It would be a good idea to write a quick avatar for your customer.

- Who are you? You'll want to think about your differentiation. What sets you apart from all the other agents? You might want to spend an hour or two doing a little research; because you don't want to say something everyone else is saying. Don't say that you give more attention to your clients - everyone says that. Maybe it's that you cater to a very specific market. Perhaps it's simply that your process is a little different. Whatever it is - use it.

Once you have these couple of things figured out you can determine what media you want to use and how you want to use it.

1. Print is still very powerful and with the above two things figured out you can send the right kind of print materials to the right people. Just make sure you have a plan and that you're consistent. Sending out one post-card one time won't do much for you. 

2. FaceBook Ads are great for short-term growth and allow you to select your demographic for advertising. Just keep in mind that you have to build the relationship once you get the lead.

3. Don't use social media like most people. Most people just post memes (I'm not saying some memes are bad, we do that) and other posts they think will entertain. Some of this is good - all the time, that's bad. You want to post things that will get engagement. Ask questions and anything that will get people responding. BETTER YET, respond to other posts with good advice and anything that will help other people. 

I'm treading on a full blown blog post here; so I'll stop with that. I hope this helps. :)

I've been in the RE industry on the technical side for most of my career. There are so many options out there that it can be really overwhelming. Honestly, I think the biggest problem is determining what you can afford and what you want to learn based on where you're at in your career. Obviously, I can only give you advice from my experience with other agents and you'll need to do a little digging to determine what you want. However, here's what I would suggest:

Just Getting Started: If you're just getting started you want something that's not super expensive and has a lower learning curve. Additionally, you want something that's already focused on RE. So, I would recommend LionDesk. The learning curve to get started is pretty low. Notice I said "get started" - because they offer a ton and you can get buried in details. Don't do that. :) Just get it up and running and use the basic features. You can learn more as you go. If you just really need to jump into something fast and you don't need RE focused items - try Zoho CRM. They have a ton of products, it's always free to get started and they're stuff is super easy to use.

Been around a bit: If you've been around a bit and you really need something super robust that will work for a team you might want to try SalesForce. It's complicated and expensive. But once you're past the learning curve and if you can afford it; there's nothing on the market that compares. They have tons of support, lots of plugins from other developers, and the level of customization is out of this world. 

Something to note, before you make a decision on a CRM I would highly recommend asking these questions:

1. What kind of support is offered? This is really important because if you can't get them on the phone or via chat your life is going to be really difficult.

2. Do they have a Zap available? These days this is considerably important because you'll want to tie in other services eventually and having a Zap (zapier.com) available will make your life super easy. 

3. How long have they been in business and who uses them? This isn't the most important factor, but it's important. If they've been around less then 3 years; think twice. Also, if they don't have at least a few big names using them - it's not a solution you'll want to be tied into for too long.

4. What training resources do they have? These should be publicly available and either docs or videos that can help you with the learning curve (whatever it may be). No training - no go. Trust me :)

I hope that helps.

I agree with everything Alisha said in that response. That's some great advice to ensure that you're spending time and money on the right market. I would add, and perhaps it was mentioned in the thread and I missed it, that social media should get a pretty significant part of your attention when determining how to market to your target. It's not a fad and it's only getting bigger and more important as it progresses into a fully formed marketing platform. That being said, I would like to offer a few bits of advice to get anybody new, or newer, to social started:

• Don't start your social en-devours with paid. Social is all about building actual relationships and interactions are key. So, you'll want to start with organic social interactions. 
• Be sure to do a little research to determine what social channels are a good fit for you. The advice from Alisha is key here because you'll need to know your target before you can decide what channels to use. You don't want to spend a bunch of time on TikTok unless you want to reach a much younger audience, as an example.
• Respond! Ok, I'm not yelling there - just really making sure you know how important it is to respond to posts. If you spend more time responding to other posts than posting yourself - you're probably winning. Remember, this is about building actual relationships; it's not about showing off how great you think you are. Let other people determine that by your responses to them.

There's a ton more I could say about the social-sphere. Just know that ROI = relationships. This is a long-tail strategy and will pay off huge if you're consistent. Don't worry about how many followers you have, how many likes on your posts, or how many times someone is sharing your stuff. None of that really matters when you're getting started. Be able to answer this question: How much value am I providing to my potential clients over social?

This is just advice from experience and education, so take what works and throw out the rest. I hope this helps.