I recently had a conversation with Tom Toole, Jason Cassity, Robert Mack, and The Broke Agent about changes that are happening in real estate. From California to Pennsylvania to Connecticut, some of us are considered essential workers and some are not, but one thing is certain: we are all adapting to the times.
Keep reading for ways we are changing our marketing strategies to show up for our communities, or tune in to the entire conversation here.
Q: How has your marketing strategy shifted?
Tom Toole
You have to find people that are motivated. It’s all about how serious they are about transacting and getting better on your skillset, your questions, how you qualify folks, because if you’re not doing that right now, it doesn’t matter what the price point is.
To me, this is no different than the 2008 crash. It’s the same thing: you have to get back to basics. You have to ask the right questions. There’s gonna be people motivated at a million bucks, there’s gonna be people motivated at $300,000. In general, the meat and potatoes stuff is what’s going to sell. And that’s what you got to find. So you’ve got to over index on your skills.
Byron Lazine
Do you need to shift dollars in a different direction? If you see motivation in a certain area, how will you make that shift?
We all have a bunch of different ways that we market. For example, we usually do monthly direct mail, I completely stopped it. I get a certain amount of direct mail that I can put out there before I even have to put $1 in every single quarter. But we’re not going to do any direct mail until June. We’re going to load up on our entire direct mail budget in a short period of time, that one month of June when theoretically, things could start loosening up.
Other agents, competitors may have no money at that time, and it’ll feel like we’re blitzing the market because we’re going to spend a lot more in direct CTA type of advertising and direct mail and these forms of marketing. We’re going to push all of that into June and do only branding right now as we build up to that. So I’ve switched my marketing plan, basically, overnight and redirected dollars.
Jason Cassity
I did the same thing. We pulled our entire Zillow spend, which was $2,500 to $3,000. We reallocated it, and put the money into an advertising, Google pay per click and Facebook spend around our brand there.
We’re focusing on the inspiration to support the local small businesses, going out to the different restaurants, and promoting the things that are going on in your market right now. No, ‘What’s your home worth?’ marketing.
The messaging is how can we help? We’re out here in the community. We’re just building brand for the next three months so that once July comes, or whatever that month is, then we can jump back into it and you can reallocate.
Robert Mack
We actually put everything on hold as well. We stopped doing the direct mail. But then I was walking my dog in the neighborhood, and I had like three neighbors hit me up and they’re like, ‘Hey, what do you think’s going on with the market?’ I don’t even know them, and they’re like, ‘we get your mail all the time.’
And so that inspired me to put out a new piece. I’m working on a piece right now. We are putting eight restaurants that are open for takeout on this flyer and basically trying to support the zip code.
It’s not about real estate, but it’s about giving back to the community. These are restaurants that you can support during this time. So it’s just another way to get my face in front of everybody, so they don’t forget about me.