Are you seeing all kinds of Facebook ads in your newsfeed and curious as to how to make Facebook ads for Realtors work?
This is article is about creating an ongoing Facebook ads strategy.
By the end of this article you are going to know how to use Facebook ads for Realtors for the long haul. Before we can get into that you must understand how Facebook is used in general.
Facebook is NOT a Classified ads section. It’s a social media site and people are not looking to see your ads. They are looking for relevant information THEY WANT TO READ, not intrusive self promoting classified ads. People don’t give a crap about how many houses you sold or how long you been serving your community. They care about things that are relevant to them at that given moment.
The key to running successful Facebook ads for Realtors is to make your ad very targeted to an audience that WANTS TO SEE it. Running Facebook ads is a lot like farming, but farming to an audience that is likely to need your services soon.
What you do not want to do is make your ad intrusive because you are more than likely wasting your money at that point. Before we get into the meat and potatoes let me first say that what was working 6-12 months ago is not working as well now and things are always changing. The key is to change with it.
I look at my fan page as a tool to reach a cold audience who I otherwise would have not known. In other words Facebook ads for Realtors is cold lead generation. In my opinion, and this is specifically for real estate, you are better off using Facebook ads as a cold marketing generation tool only.
What not to do…
I see many coaches advising Realtors to build up a ton of likes. They are promised if they post tons of content that it will lead them to greatness, but nothing can be further from the truth. The organic reach of a non-paid fan page post is very low and unless you are paying to reach those who like your page, the majority of your fans will not see your organic posts. Organic reach on your fan page means the number of people who would see a post you made in their newsfeed.
What To Do…
This is going to be more of a 1…2…. punch marketing strategy. We are going to use your fan page to target people who are likely to need your services, send them to some great content which allows us to identify those who “raise” their hands, and then retarget those very consumers to create a lead.
Nobody Cares About You
The biggest mistake I see being made by Realtors currently using Facebook ads is they are using a “bus stop” type ad that mentions how they are #1 in their market or how many houses they have sold. Nobody gives a crap about that.
Do you care about how many cars your local State Farm insurance agent insured last year or how many backs your chiropractor adjusted?
Create GREAT Content
If you want to be successful in Facebook ads for Realtors, you need to reach an audience that wants to hear what you have to say. You only want to create ads that people want to see. Start by creating content that can take the form of a blog article. Below are some examples of blog posts that I used in Facebook ads:
How To Get A Good Deal On A House
Top 5 Cheapest Home Improvements To Increase Your Home’s Value
Best Time To Sell A House…In Chicago
Low Appraisal On House? Now What…
How To Sell Your House By Owner
How To Sell A House Fast-Online Marketing
The Importance of Using Pictures & Videos
How To Position Your Home For Sale
All of these articles are relevant to what someone who is in the market to buy or sell a property might want to read about. This is referred to as content marketing. I am using the articles as a draw to get people to see what I am about and gain authority as the expert in their minds and drive them back to my home base, my website.
Know Your Product
People buy or sell a property on average every 5-7 years, but that number changes market to market. The point is that we don’t have a frequent customer base like a restaurant would or even a chiropractor so we should always be prospecting for new business. Our clients need our services once every several years so we should have a marketing strategy designed to attract ideal consumers who may be entering the market soon. Stats are showing the the average home buyer or seller start their information seeking as far as 6 months prior to entering the market, and this is the crowd we are trying to attract. We want to target that crowd with the information they are seeking.
If you are trying to use Facebook ads without targeting your marketing, be prepared to see dismal results. Why would we farm people who are not in the market for our services. Real estate is a highly talked about topic, but typically only when someone is approaching a buying or selling state of mind. If you are going to be a marketer you have to know your market and how to reach them.
You want to view using Facebook Ads for Realtors as a way to reach people who are likely to need your service much like you would view an expired or FSBO direct mail campaign by using Facebook’s EXTREME targeting capabilities.
Targeting
This is the part where many agents need assistance. You want your ad to be as targeted as possible and in the Facebook Power Editor you are able to do just that. You can target people who are likely to move, homeowners, vs. renters, precise location, and even income levels. Depending on who it is that you are targeting, you want to make that audience as relevant as possible to your ad.
Power Editor is the tool where you create, design, and target your ad. You want to make sure you know how to use this as well as use properly sized images in all ads. We won’t get into how to use Power Editor here as that is an entire course in itself.
I like to make Facebook ads targeted to my email list, past website visitors, and a very targeted audience I create in Facebook’s Power Editor. My strategy is to consistently keep relevant content in front of these three audiences in a sell without selling type of way.
My email list is made up of people whom I know personally and/ or worked with in the past. That is referral marketing. I want to stay in front of those people as much as possible to remain on top of mind.
Next, I market my Facebook ads to people who visited my website by inserting a tracking pixel on my website which allows me to retarget people who have visited it in recent months with FB ads. This group is more likely to be in the market to buy or sell since they have visited my website. This group is more likely to need my services.
The last group I target are people who are likely to move soon. This is more of a cold lead generation strategy. All of this can be done if you know how to use Facebook’s Power Editor.
I don’t really care much about how many likes I have on my fan page as a real estate agent, because I don’t engage on it like I do my personal page. I use my personal page for that since that’s where my referral audience is. Even if I did the amount of people who see my posts is minimal and I would be paying to reach complete strangers who are not ideal candidates to buying or selling a house right away.
Why You Want To Create An Audience Using A Tracking Pixel
I place a tracking pixel on the initial blog article that I am advertising. A tracking pixel is a small amount of code you can place on the page of your website you are sending people to. Facebook captures those website visitors for you and will create an “audience” of everyone who visited that page so you can retarget with better call to action ads. Don’t you think if someone visited that page that they are more than likely going to be more interested in your services than someone who did not?
This is where the 2nd part of this strategy comes in at. I want to make a second Facebook ad and target all those people who visited my original ad that posted content. This is important for two reasons.
- This allows me to retarget my ads to people who have already risen their hand, which is more likely to create a lead.
- This allows me to save money marketing a very targeted list vs. spend money on ads marketing to people who would not need my services whatsoever.
Ad #2-Retargeting Those Who Visited Your Website
Your second ad is used to target specifically people who took action by visiting your website on your first content based ad. This is the ad where you are more likely to use some kind of lead capture like a squeeze page. You could offer a CMA, marketing plan, or whatever is relevant to your original ad. Without having that in place there is no point to begin running ads. Now that you have identified an audience that you are more likely to create a lead with, it’s time to go for it. What do you want your recipient to do when they see your ad? Your ad should lead them to your desired landing page.
This is a dark post ad that I ran which showcased consumers who were very targeted a page I built on my website that educated them, on how to have a true online marketing plan. Once they clicked this ad they were immediately directed to a page where there is lead capture capabilities.
There you have it. This is the baseline for an ongoing Facebook marketing strategy. Hopefully this helps in your Facebook ad marketing strategy.
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How Do You Find More Clients?
Getting better at Facebook ads is one of the things you can be doing to increase online business, but it’s not everything.
Would you be interested in learning more about adapting a several marketing systems that work simultaneously in your business to create multiple lead sources? Do you want to run a business instead of being run by one? Do you hate cold calling or cold prospecting?