In this post I want to show you 4 ways your business can be marketing to Realtors so you can form quality relationships with them.
What would you do without Realtor’s referrals or production for your business?
You have two choices; you can market your business to the mass public or you can be marketing to Realtors?
The truth is that is is more profitable with a higher Return on Investment to be marketing to Realtors.
Think about it…
How many referring Realtor relationships do you really need to make a big difference to your bottom line?
You don’t need a ton of Realtor relationships you need loyal and profitable ones. We want to focus on the quality of Realtors you work with, not the quantity.
The first thing to do is to think outside the box. I don’t care how long you have been in the business, there’s a HUGE paradigm shift happening right now! The truth is that Realtors don’t give a crap about your programs, brand name, or customer service.
THEY EXPECT ALL OF THAT TO BE FINE AND DANDY BECAUSE…
Buyers and sellers no longer choose their Realtor because of who they work with. They choose them because of who they are.
This is why Realtors today care more about what your business can do for their bottom line.
It’s 2016 and if you want a long lasting career based on Realtor referrals, then it’s time to start serving them.
The formula is simple and no different in any business:
- Identify Your Target Audiences #1 Problem– Realtors are you target audience and their #1 problem is lead generation and marketing.
- Create A Solution- Share various lead generation and marketing platforms to “break the ice” and get the attention of potential new Realtor relationships.
- Host/Own The Solution- You need to position yourself between the service being provided and the Realtor so the service becomes a value added service to doing business with you.
TIP* When marketing to Realtors do not lead in talking about your company. The services I’m about to outline here are what I suggest leading in with. First, focus on getting their attention and building a relationship. The best way your business can be marketing to Realtors is to focus everything around RELATIONSHIP BUILDING.
Let’s take a look at some examples shall we…
4 Ways Your Business Can Be Marketing To Realtors
Video Services-It’s the year 2016 and video is here to stay. All agents should be using video. The problem is that videos can be expensive. What if you had an in house video dude? Talk about an ice breaker to relationship building! Don’t market your business to Realtors, market your video services instead that is hosted by your business. Do you think you could get in front or more Realtors with this approach?
If you are a mortgage broker, real estate broker, or title company pay close attention. There is a mortgage company called Neighborhood Home Loans in Chicago that has a video guy in house solely for serving their Realtor referral partners. They also have Matterport in house as well as of recently. They fully understand the concept to creating a solution for their Realtors and then hosting it.
Matterport and their video guy are the services they are marketing to Realtors. They put their brand behind that.
It’s too expensive…
If that’s what you are thinking you need to read the introduction above again. Why couldn’t you have the video dude charge the agents directly for their services so there is no cost to you? Your job is to provide an environment in which your Realtors can succeed in, not do it for them. You own the relationship with the video dude (See Step #3 above).
I can tell you that the Realtors who use video are probably the ones you want to form relationships with because there is a direct correlation between Realtors who use video and their production. Do you want dead beat agents or ones who are killing it?
Application: Let your video dude host several lunch and learns with real estate offices and begin introductions or host a video training event and get traction that way. I can’t believe how many brokerages don’t offer video services for their agents.
Marketing Training- Agents like training and staying afloat of what’s going on. The real estate business is not what is difficult. It’s getting the business that separates top producers from the average agents. Are you hosting consistent marketing training events for your referral partners? What if you could provide valuable training for them and re-launch the same training once a quarter to bring in new blood?
Put the focus around the training and use it for marketing to Realtors.
The truth is that real estate marketing has entered another dimension and with the average agent being 56.5 years of age, they just simply have not kept up with the technology. For example look at this stupid Pokemon thing.
People are going crazy about this game and there is a way to use this for business, but have you figured it out yet? Hosting a training event titled, How You Can Use Pokemon Go For Your Real Estate Business would most likely fill the room. Stay on the latest trends and continuously use these educational events for marketing to Realtors.
Training events put you in front of Realtors, but you have to own the training solution. That can be one of your own people doing the training or having guest speakers come in to do it. The key here is setting up a consistent schedule of hosting training events and sticking to it. I would find a Pokemon expert and have them do one on one consultations for Realtors who attended the training and wanted to try to do something more with it.
It’s like what I teach and preach to Realtors about referral marketing efforts. If you only send out one direct mail piece and one email a year to your database, it’s not going to work for you. You need a system behind it to make it effective.
The KEY: Hosting a training event is great, but the focus on the training should always be to a service you provide. For example, I would host a training event about how to use video for Realtors, but at the end of the event I “soft” pitch the videos services we host in office. Just doing a training event is great, but you will lose much traction to it if you are not using the training event to offer a service that you provide as a benefit to doing business with you.
Does This Look Familiar? Are You Doing Enough To Attract New Agent Relationships?
Social Media Services– Social media is here to stay, but Realtors still don’t know how to fully use it. What if you had a Facebook ads guy in your office? Think about it…
Realtors want to run Facebook ads, but 98% of them are throwing their money out the window by not having a strategy behind the ads they are placing. If you are a lender wouldn’t it be in your interest to help generate buyer leads from Facebook with a Realtor who can close? If you are a title company wouldn’t you want to be generating seller leads for Realtors who use your service to close? If you area brokerage wouldn’t you want to be attracting both so that your Realtors close more deals?
The Key: Here’s the key to Facebook ads. You need the agent the leads are going to have the ability to close. I would only suggest running Facebook ads for agents who have a proven track record and ability to produce business. The entire point of doing this is to create more transactions so that they turn into closing for you indirectly.
Not every agent is equal and the truth is many of them are not going to be right for this, but the good news is remember what I said earlier. The absolute key is to be working with profitable and loyal relationships. You will gain loyalty by providing this service for them, and the ones who produce will become a better source of deals for you. You’ll weed out the non-producers simply by their own performance.
I would host a training event for agents on how to use Facebook ads the right way, then take names for a done for you Facebook ads service. You need to find the Facebook ads guy or sign up for my shit.
Tools, Gadgets, & Software– What kind of tools do you have that you can use for marketing to Realtors? If you said none then go get some because it’s an ice breaker. There are several lead generating tools you can use such as property websites, CRM softwares like Attracktor (shameless plug), and even document storage types of platforms.
So let’s do a small recap. Everything I just showed you is what I call taking a content marketing approach to forming Realtor relationships. Focus on serving them first and not yourself.
This is a principle taught in the bible. Serve others first and it will come back to you in some way shape or form. More importantly is that when your focus becomes on serving others, your retention rate and Realtor loyalty will increases because there is no worst feeling for a lender, title company, or real estate brokerage to have other than when they learn one of their Realtors who suddenly decided to start doing business elsewhere.
What did you think?
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