This discussion covers real estate lead generation with facebook ads complete with tips and ideas that are working in 2019. I interview ads expert Obi Okere (a fellow New Jersey native) who's spent over 5 million dollars in ad spend on Facebook in the last 3 years.
We cover 3 main topics in today's Facebook Ad Lead Generation Ideas Q/A Session.
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Real Estate Advertising Followup and Automation
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Real Estate Ad Targeting and Attracting Your Ideal Clients Using Facebook Ads
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Writing Effective Facebook Real Estate Ad Copy/Content
Resources in the episode:
- Zapier
- Manychat
- AdEspresso
- Social Media Examiner
- Aweber
- Facebook Ads Library
- New Construction Marketing Mastery Free Training
Damon : Every one on Damon Greene here with
Damon: the iconic agent. Today we'll be talking all things real estate, Facebook ads. And today I have a special guest with me. A Gentlemen I met about three weeks ago at a marketing conference. I like to say, not only do I teach this stuff, mentor and train myself, but I also go and I am mentored and go to trainings. Consistently. I Met this awesome gentlemen, Obi Okeei. We had dinner during one of the breakout sessions. We got to spark a conversation. I found out this guy has spent a whole lot of money on Facebook ads. So we chopped it up Facebook marketing and marketing in general. So I wanted to bring him on as another Facebook ads expert to kind of answer questions. We've got a poll that we took. We're going to cover the poll questions for the, about the first 15 minutes. Ask questions on the Facebook page as they come and we'll answer those afterwards. So Obi, thank you for joining us and just give us a little insight on yourself for folks that have never heard of you or don't know who you are and what you do.
Obi: So to everyone that's never heard of me. My name is Obi Okere and I have been in digital marketing for the last five years with a specialty in Google and Facebook ads. To date, I've probably spent over $6 million on Facebook and ecommerce, real estate, and all types of lead generation, you name it, I've probably done it. And so, I'm happy today to be on this call. Thank you Damon, for inviting me. And I'd love to share some insights that I've learned over the years of running Facebook ads, especially as it relates to marketing real estate listings and just things that I found work currently right now in the market.
Damon : Awesome. Awesome. So let me see. I want to make sure that, uh, let's see, we're here a lot to make sure. Okay, let me, I got to post this link really quickly in the group on the Facebook. Let's see on the Facebook events page just in case folks can't find it. Then we'll go ahead and get started. While I do that. We took a poll and one of the public free Facebook groups that I have…all around new construction marketing for real estate agents. And we sparked the conversation and ran a poll around the top five things that you, the audience wanted. And the top three were followup and automation was number one, number two was ad targeting and finding your ideal client. And of course number three was ad copy and messaging. So Obi…I'm going to go ahead and paste this link over here real quick. As far as your expertise, give us some insight on ways that real estate agents can use follow up automation…however you interpret that follow up automation and then I'll come back and kind of give some advice. In the new construction marketing mastery program, we've got a complete system set up with followup automation. But I know you have spent a whole lot more money on Facebook ads than I have, so I definitely want to get your insights.
Obi: So one of the things that I've really found to be effective for followup automation on a Facebook ads are leveraging Facebook messenger ads. So basically what that looks like is somebody clicks on an ad and then they, the response goes into messenger and they get put into an automation where they have the opportunity to be fielded some questions that allow the realtor to qualify that potential client with a number of questions. For example, you know, what you looking for, are you looking to buy or rent, how much is your budget? All questions like that, that allow that realtor to qualify the prospect. So that then after the automation is done, that real estate agent can then step in as a human within Facebook messenger to contact that person, in Facebook messenger or over the phone. So that as far as I've seen, that's probably the most innovative or the newest innovation in the market right now, leveraging Facebook messenger to do that automation.
Damon : Okay. And yeah, I totally don't know why I hadn't thought about that because I actually use the bots in my own marketing. That's definitely something that folks would want to look out for. Now one of the other things that I do at ties along with what Obi said, and you can combine the two together… If you use tools such as Zapier, which is basically glue, I consider Zapier glue, it ties everything together. You know we use in the new construction marketing mastery training, we use Zapier , call fire, slybroadcast and then your choice, we use a Weber, but your choice of email autoresponder to instantly send text messages as soon as leads come in. If you use a Bot, you qualify them, then you instantly send a text message, because you're 90% likely to lose that lead If you do not reach out then five to 15 minutes or 15 minutes on the high end.
Damon : We also instantly send a voice broadcast to that lead. And then you'll also want to obviously send them an email as well. So that's the general follow up and automation. And as far as automation between the many Chat Bot, is that what you use Obi? Between the many Chat Bot and Zapier, they all tie together. You can put all this together to good package and really almost have yourself like an ISA when your leads come in. One of the biggest problems that I see agents talk about, number one, their followup is horrible. No offense to you guys that aren't, but if you know, your follow up is horrible, these help, but you still need to follow up. And leveraging these tools will help you instantly follow up.
Damon : But when you sent a text message, you send an email, each one of those, the whole goal of that communication should be to get a response. So a lot of agents say, Hey, I get crap leads. These leads are no good. They're just looky loos. And yes, that is the case, but eventually they will probably convert. But if you don't have the tools in place and you're not trying to weed out those folks that are ready now, you're not going to get as good a result. So for instance, the first email goes out and says, Hey, Mr Lead is lead. My name is Obi. I sent you some information on this project. When is a good time to talk? Now you're leaving the ownness on them. So when we're talking about follow up and motivation, you always want to use your automation to follow up to get a response.
Damon : And then you, you want to leave me the heck alone, call me at five. I'll be ready next week. I'm just going. But you want some response because those people respond. Now you can engage and start a conversation because all of this is digital. It's not completely digital. Even a text message follow back and forth. The testaments jtext messages say, Hey, I just sent you information over if what's a good time to talk? They can respond back to you and you can start a conversation and then you work your magic as a real estate agent from there. Let me see if we have any questions on there. What tool do you prefer for Facebook messenger automation? Nicole, we just thought about that many chat. It's free or $10 a month unless you're doing insane amounts of traffic, then I think it's a couple dollars more of it. but many chat is a really easy to use tool it's literally drag and drop. What else do you uh, use for automation or recommendation? Obi.
Obi: Many chat and Zapier. Those are my two go-tos. And then any email, ESP, email marketing tool that you prefer to use that for after that? Those are, those are my three main. Okay.
Damon : Okay. All right, cool. Now here's the one that everybody kinda falls over …Ad Targeting. Now I'll say first and then I'm gonna let you go Obi because I know you've got a lot more data behind this than I do, but when you're targeting ads, there's actually, this isn't a question, but it's something that came in. It talks about Facebook recently removed the likely to move behavior from their audience, options, behaviors, demographics…what interests and all that work for buyers and sellers. Now, the first thing I'll tell you, which is what 90% of real estate agents don't do. You do not serve everyone or you serve no one. You have to determine who is your ideal client. Literally take a pen and a paper and just right down who your ideal client is…when you know your ideal client with… For instance me in the real estate niche, you're reading this transcript or watching this video because you are more than likely my ideal client, I found out how to reach you and I put a message in front of you that resonated.
Damon : That's exactly what you need to do from a high level. So you need to know who your ideal client is. I talked to people strategy calls, a couple dozen people a week and who do you serve? I serve everyone. Anybody you can't have that. You can't do that. You have to serve a specific person and when you determine who your ideal client is, you just find out where more of those people are. Everybody else really doesn't matter. Now that probably doesn't answer the question as far as targeted specifically, but it actually ties in with the next discussion. We're going to have however Obi… Go ahead and give your take on that.
Obi: Alright. So targeting is a really interesting thing when it comes to Facebook ads on, um, when you're marketing a new development or different listings. This is something that I learned while running actually ecommerce campaign for a major sock brand. And during black Friday we spent $1 million just on black Friday and $1 million on that Saturday, Sunday and `Monday. And the craziest thing was, which was counter intuitive to what I ever thought is to basically use your ad as a weed out tool. So whoever you think your prospective client is, you'd put that into your ad copy. You could take that into consideration as you put your ad copy together and you market to a specific zip code as a whole. And so that will be everybody within that specific zip code, within your ideal ages that you're targeting and you just let the campaign run.
Obi: It's worked very well for me for some of the new development ad campaigns that I've ran where I've seen the leads that came in at a five to $10 cost per lead. And it's, it's really interesting because basically what that does is allows Facebook to do the work in terms of determining who to show your ad to especially those who are already in market to move or in market to buy or in market to rent. And so it, it's it, I didn't understand it but when I started to try it and test it out it, it works very well. Um, and something else that you can also a/b test against that strategy is to leverage the detailed targeting box at the ad set level. And let's say for example, you know that your target customer, they're interested in maybe entertainment or you have a target customer that's more family oriented. If they're entertainment, then you would want to check that entertainment box within the detailed targeting area at the asset level. Or if let's say you're targeting families, then you could target people who live in a single family home and you can geo target two zip codes that are near schools or that have a shopping amenities nearby. Those are some other things that you can leverage to a/b test against just blasting out to everybody within a certain zip code.
Damon : let me stop you real quick and I ask you something. Sure, sure. I know what it is, but just to be clear so they understand what is a/b testing?
Obi: Okay. So Ab testing is basically, taking two I to ideas. You have a hypothesis that this may work or that may work and you can try both of them against the same audience to see whether or not which idea or hypothesis will be more effective. So you can do that with ads. You can take, u two different ads and run it against the same target.
Damon : So you could take like a, a video ad and an image ad and test those two against each other to see which one resonates best has a lower cost per lead or the best reactions, right?
Obi: That's right. Or you can take the same ad and target and run it through two different areas to see which area, uh, resonates more with that one ad. And so that's ab testing in a nutshell.
Damon : Okay, cool. And yeah, and to add to that, and this actually ties in very close with the next, you know, ad copy. But as far as your ideal client, one area, if you're looking for high end clients and $250,000, is not high end, but that's kind of the start. And luxury is subjective depending on the market. But if you're looking for folks that have money and you're tired, you lose test out. It's not guaranteed to work in every market. Cause every, you can go from Tampa to Orlando and it can be completely different results. That's why you have to test. But try within your targeting …American Express. Because folks that like American Express are typically folks that have American Express cards. And if you have an American Express card, it means you have good credit, you have good credit, it means you're probably able to buy a home.
Damon : So that's a little small nugget to test out. But also ask yourself, and you know, we have a guided questionnaire that I'm actually putting in one of the trainings that I have, which is as far as your ideal client, ask yourself, what do they read? What types of publications, what types of books, what types of magazines, what types of websites do they visit? What kind of movies do they watch? What are their interests? Are they interested in golf? Are they should in boating? Are they interested in race, car driving? Are they interested in shopping? You want to get with your ideal client, kind of build those things out. You know, are they sending their kids to private schools? Is there a local private school that they'd send them to? Or, you know, there's so many things that you can dive into that will help you get in the mind of your ideal client.
Damon : And then you can use the audience insights tool, which I don't hear too many people talk about much anymore, but you can actually use the audience insights tool in Facebook in your Facebook audience dashboard type of few of those in and get some more interest as to what folks like …now you can group your ads, your ad groups together and see, hey, let's see if this works. The main thing you have to do the homework up front and you've got to know who your ideal client is. You mentioned something and this is kind of going to the next topic….videos.
Obi: I have some other the ideas to share. So another thing that's available within Facebook is being able to target, how by household income. And so you can target a specific area by zip code city or states and within the detailed targeting box…If you type in income, you should be able to get the option that will show up for you to choose people who have a certain household income. So you can target at the highest threshold or at the lower threshold.
Damon : They do have those thresholds. But you gotta be careful with real estate ads because sometimes you can get them through, but sometimes they'll tag you as being being discriminatory. I've had ads go through and some not. So that's something you'll have to, you know, give a try to. Yeah, because they took those away, these specific zip code pin dropping they're a little funky there. But that's why knowing your ideal client and using other targeting strategies, things they like, things they read, TV stations, shows, news sites, American Express, things like that. And you can really kind of hone in on on that. Now there's also social media examiner and adespresso, they have really good case studies and articles on Facebook marketing and also they have Facebook case studies where they have different audiences, but it's all about testing.
Damon : There is no one size fits all. I've seen things work in California that don't work in Florida or some works in Tampa that doesn't work in Miami. So you have to be the expert of your area. That's why it's important. There's no cookie cutter system…you can't be lazy with it. There's no cookie cutter. You've got to put the work in. But once you get something working, it's great. And the other thing, and I'm going to let you touch on this too Obi…the key is you've got to keep running your ads because what you're doing, if anybody's a chef out there, anybody cooks. I love cooking because I love the heat. So cast iron skillet, you get your cast iron skillet. Like if you've got grandma's care started skillet, nothing's will taste better than anything off of that cast iron skillet because it's been seasoned those years of cooking.
Damon : And the oils and the essence of the food has been cooked on their drip, then that's like your Facebook pixel. So the more you go, as long as you're targeting, right, Facebook gets smarter and says, okay, we need more of these people. So the other thing is you have to run ads consistently. You can't spend $50 and think, oh, I didn't get any leads and shut it off. You're not going to see results, you have to run. Not, I'm saying you have to run $1 million, like Obi but you've got to run consistently and get something good going and then it gets easier in time because you're literally seasoning that Pixel. And on the flip side, I know we talked a little earlier before we got on this call about remarketing. So as far as targeting, what are your thoughts on video remarketing and the types of remarketing that you are able to use if you have those resources.
Obi: So in terms of re marketing, one of the things that I like to do is to remakret to those who visited either the landing page or clicked on the ad, but didn't actually convert, and I'll create an audience with that for anyone did that in the last seven days. And I would just run the same ad to them because sometimes people are in a hurry, they click on an ad, they look at it, they say, oh, that looks nice. I'm, I'm interested, but don't have the time to actually input their information. Or they might've gotten distracted, whatever. Something prevented them from actually following through. And what I like to do is to remind them about their original intention because they did raise their hands and say, I'm interested because they went onto the website or clicked on the ad and I'll just show them the same ad again. If you think about it, how many times have you seen a commercial the first time? And said, that's it. That's an interesting commercial. And then you see that same commercial four or five times. Then you, by the fifth time you're thinking, you know what I, I think I might need that. So there's nothing wrong with just showing the same ad again to the same person who is already showing that they're interested.
Damon : Okay. And to tie to that, we do have a question. How do you use Facebook ads to target prospects who have visited specific Google ads, builder pages and other locations effectively? Now Nicole , I know you are in the new construction marketing mastery program, that is actually something we will be covering very soon. But basically when you set up the Google ads or you have your own pages, just like you drop the Google Pixel, you drop the Facebook Pixel, now you can create a remarketing audience to follow them around the Internet, anywhere, Facebook, Instagram, CNN, Fox News, ESPN. Because you had those two pixels, you can follow them around and we're going to go deeper into that with a step by step and show you how to do that. But that's an awesome question. And actually you're the first person that asked that. I've, I've been talking about that. That's actually something that we will have coming up. So let's see, we've got about six minutes left. So let's dive into ad copy. What are your thoughts on ad copy?
Obi: Ad copy…what I like to do before I write anything, I like to research all of the community groups, message boards and just read about, um, what people are talking about in the neighborhood. And I think that's really important because what it does, it just puts you in the shoes of your target customer or the community that you're looking to market. And it just envelops you and follows you in the whole experience. And so once you are able to really put yourself in their shoes and engage in that experience, it puts you in a better place to actually write ad copy that you know, would be appealing to your target client. And that at a high level is the approach that I take to ad copy. It's very important to be able to empathize with your target client.
Damon : Yup, and I'm going to tie it to that because one thing I would say is whoever your ideal client is, if you, if you're a new agent, you'll probably have to talk to a veteran agent, but if you're an agent has closed several transactions, go back to all those folks that you close and talk to them and say, hey, how was the experience? You know, what were your fears? What were you afraid of? Get to know them. And I'll give you a perfect example with me. I speak to dozens of real estate agents weekly. I take notes on every call. I have two or three pages of notes after each call. I take the notes, I'm listening to what they're saying to see if they're a good fit because I don't let everyone in the program, but I've got hundreds of these notes from folks that did join the program and those that weren't a good fit.
Damon : Regardless…I go through every probably quarter and I literally just dive into, because these are my ideal clients. I dive into the pain points, what were the challenges they were having, et Cetera, and then that's what I used to extract new Ad copy. Something else I highly recommend and you tell me your thoughts on this. I'll bring it from a real estate perspective. Use Videos, whether it's you on video or whether it's a walk through video, because most real estate agents, number one, they're afraid of doing video two, they think it's more difficult than need to. All you need is a modern smart phone and a good mic, that's all you need. Use video because Facebook favors video. With video anybody that watches your video for say 25% of the video or 50% you can then do what Obi talking about earlier. You can remarket to them, but video is huge and if you're on camera, I can speak to you on video like some of you have seen my videos and are seeing your own videos now on Facebook and Instagram. I'm talking directly to you. I'm asking you questions. I'm saying, hey, does this message resonate with you? If it does, then you give me your name, email and phone number. And we get on a call, we talk where you watched the training. So that is something that you can do. What other tips do you have around ad copy?
Obi: One of the things that I like to do to add some structure is I build out a grid. And so at the top of the grid it would say their present state and the future state after they moved in to the t to the property. And then for each particular row I will list the, the current features, present state and the future state of what I'm marketing. I'll list the status, because status is something that's, that's keen to people. A lot of people want to raise their status. So you want to consider how will their status be raised as a result of the property that you're marketing, how will their day to day change? And that's something to consider. One of the new developments I was marketing was by a lake.
Obi: In the ad copy I wrote, imagine waking up to the sounds of birds chirping and sounds by a lake… Something to that effect. It, I wrote it much better than I'm actually saying it. Yeah. And that's the day to day. And so I, I that into the ad copy and then you also want to include the emotion, what's the current state that you think they're in and then what would be the future state that they would be in as a result of moving in. And so once you fill all those things out, if you combine the features status day to day and the emotion, you should be able to come up with something pretty special in terms of ad copy. That's something that I found to be really effective and learned it from a really great copywriter.
Damon : So basically if you really want to see successful Facebook ads, you've got to do the homework. It's not…buy a Facebook course just do what the cours says like every other agent. I've had agents tell me that specifically. I bought this course on Facebook. I went through it, I did it, and now I'm seeing every other agent in my area has the same ads. Duh. You gotta be creative. You have to dive in. You have to be createive…and also if anybody saw the email that I sent out, if you Google Facebook ads library, it'll show you anybody running Facebook ads and you can use that for inspiration. Don't do what I just said and copy and paste. Exactly. But that'll give you some inspiration. You can get some statistics on some of the ads and see which ones are doing better than others. But keep a swipe file. A swipe file in, in high school or college used to be called cheating, but it's like an open book test. Any ads you see…screen, grab them, stick them in a word document for inspiration later. That's what you should do. So you can see what other people do. And I'd say the best thing you can do with that is go outside of real estate, see what other people are doing, and then bring that into real estate because then you know nobody else in real estaete is doing it and you're zigging and zagging.
Obi: I do that all the time. I'm spying on everybody all the time. Yeah.
Damon : So all right, I know you got to go Obi, but tell everybody how they can get a hold of you. I know you've got an ads agency, if you want to kind of give them your URL. I don't know if you're accepting a consultations or clients, but just tell them a little bit of how to get ahold of you. And then we'll go ahead and get off here and you can get back to what you gotta do.
Obi: So if you want to reach me, you can email me. And that's a Obi at accelerated growth, digital.com (obi@acceleratedgrowthdigital.com) . So that's the easiest way to reach me. I'm pretty fast to respond. If I don't respond immediately, it's usually within 24 hours.
Damon : Okay. Awesome. All right, everybody, and I am Damon Green with the iconic agent (https://www.theiconicagent.com) , and the new construction marketing mastery training…With some quick Facebook tips just to provide some value from a Facebook ads expert. Hopefully Obi…We can get you back on sometime soon and a even dive deeper. We only had 30 minutes today to really get in but I think this is really valuable. It looks like folks who are appreciating the conversation too.