It’s important to keep in mind that all business relationships are a two-way street. If they’re not, well … as they say — all bad deals will come to an end. In addition to being awesome at closing loans, one of the best strategies for mortgage originators to attract and keep strong referral partners is to help them grow their business with new leads.
Mortgage originators can add real value for their referral partners by helping them improve their lead generation so they can win more deals that you can work on together. Not only will you be helping them grow their business, you’ll build trust along the way so that you can eventually handle all of their referral business.
This sounds great, but where do you start? Right now, one of the most important lead-generation channels to be in is video marketing on social media. The great news for you is that almost everyone’s video marketing can easily be improved, and what makes it really exciting is that marketing opportunities have never been better than they are right now due to laser-focused, ad-targeting capabilities.
This represents a unique opportunity for you to become known as the “video marketing expert” and show all of your new referral partners how to make more money by using video to grow their business. Do you not consider yourself to be a video marketing expert or aren’t totally up to speed yet? Don’t worry. Here are some easy strategies that you can use to help Realtors with video marketing (or do it better if they’re already doing it) as well as how to improve your own direct-to-consumer marketing.
Distilling the pitch
Helping your referral partners clarify their sales message or value proposition in a video can be a powerful lead generator, as well as being a huge overall help for them in their daily sales activities. The unfortunate reality is that most salespeople can’t quickly and clearly verbalize the three most important reasons that potential clients should choose them.
The idea is to help your referral partners do a sales video that focuses on their unique selling points. These are the three main things that make them unique and set them apart from other Realtors, outlining the main reasons why potential clients should choose them as their agent.
These points should be based on what’s most important to potential clients in terms of buying decisions, and they should be presented in terms of client benefits. Once you have these points created, condense it all down to one summarizing sentence, or what’s called the main hook.
Keeping it simple, you’re simply encouraging them to introduce themselves, tell the audience why they’re awesome (the hook), present the top three reasons why the client should choose them as their agent (unique selling points), and then state who they work for, where they’re located and how to get in touch with them. Finish with a strong call to action.
Once they have this in video format, encourage them to attach it to everything they’re doing — their website, Facebook pages, single-property sites, etc. Every time someone calls or texts requesting information on a particular house they have listed, the client is getting to hear and see the killer pitch that you helped them create.
Filming and editing
One thing every listing agent should have is a separate site for each one of their listings that includes a video walk-through of the property. Having a page dedicated solely to each of their listings is a powerful lead-generation tool.
This is where originators come in. You point them in the direction of, or even help them build, a single-property website through a website builder (such as Leadpages or Squarespace). It’s easy to set up and it enables them to fully leverage the marketing possibilities.
The purpose of these pages is to “squeeze” information out of prospects by encouraging them to fill out a form, which is what creates the lead (and is why these pages are typically referred to as “squeeze pages”). Offers of more information about the property, along with notifications for newly listed comparable properties, are the best ways to squeeze out information.
Once the site is up and running, encourage Realtors to do a video tour of each property so they can showcase it on the website. The idea is that you’re encouraging them to walk through the house with their camera-equipped phone, just as if the person watching was right there with them, so the agent is effectively giving them a quick virtual tour.
The tour doesn’t have to be scripted or perfect. In fact, it’s probably better if it’s not. People like to see real and what you’re going after here is just that. The agent doesn’t even have to be on camera if they don’t want to be — it can just be their voice narrating the inside and outside walk-through of the home.
Once it’s done, they might need some easy-to-use software to do some basic video editing. There are many great options out there that are user-friendly, such as iMovie for iPhone or CyberLink PowerDirector for Windows. Now that the Realtor has a video sales pitch and a video-driven webpage for the property, they’re ready to push these out on social media in the form of free posts and/or targeted ads.
Explaining the details
Facebook is becoming more important by the day for the mortgage and housing industries, but many real estate agents don’t know how to properly promote themselves or their listings there. Even fewer are leveraging the platform by doing the kind of marketing they could be doing.
The reality is that Facebook is the place to be in terms of real estate marketing. You can help your referral partners take a big step forward by aiding them in the creation of their own Facebook business page, posts and ads, which will open up additional marketing opportunities for them.
Most agents rely on their company-provided website or Facebook page because they don’t have their own. Encourage them to have their own so they can have full control and properly market themselves. This also can be important down the road should they ever decide to leave their current company, since their social media followers need to go with them.
If they don’t already have one, you can help them set up their own Facebook business page so that they can begin pushing each of their individual properties via free posts.
They will be pointing traffic from each of the posts back to the “squeeze page,” or individual property page, that you created earlier.
Once you have that up and running, you can then help them set up simple Facebook ads that target homebuyers who are looking to buy in that area. The idea is to drive traffic back to the individual property page so that the prospect gets to see more info, the walk-through video and the video sales pitch. Facebook ads are pretty simple to create and there are tons of resources out there to help with proper setup.
Even if clients don’t take action or become a lead right away, you can continue to show them different ads and listings of similar homes in the area that they may be interested in through a powerful option called remarketing. This is simply a different Facebook ad campaign that will keep your ad in front of everyone who has previously engaged with your business in some way.
This powerful targeting tool also allows you to target a “custom audience,” which could be a past client list, prospective buyers list or any kind of data file of self-generated leads. The beauty of remarketing is that it gives you the ability to target only those people who have interacted with your business in some way.
One final tip: As you help your referral partners get up to speed, don’t assume they know everything, including the basics. Walk them through each step of the process, as this is one way you can build trust. Explain the intricacies of video to them, such as the importance of views rather than comments or likes. Also, show them why it’s so important to post multiple times on social media so that it doesn’t get lost or pushed down the page.
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There has never been a better time to grow your own business by becoming a trusted marketing expert for your referral partners. Video marketing is increasing in importance by the day, yet many Realtors aren’t leveraging its full lead-generating potential.
By providing expertise, clarity and assistance, you can clear the path to a whole new channel of leads for your referral partners using video marketing. You’ll grow your own business in the process as you create more loyal referral partners who view you as their trusted expert
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