Why have so many businesses and brands turned to social media? They understand the influence it has in the marketplace and how much value it can add to their business. This is according to Iain McKenzie, CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, who adds that social media is a highly impactful marketing tool when used in the right way, focusing on a targeted audience.
“When it comes to digital marketing, social media is a key element for providing amazing results and is very beneficial to agents who wish to reach a larger targeted audience. Estate agents who are not effectively utilising social media as the profitable source it is, are missing out on marketing opportunities that could result in more income,” says McKenzie.
He notes that what can be tricky is finding the right audience to focus on. “With most marketing, the message needs to reach the right audience for it to have the desired result and impact on revenue. Serving up adverts to the wrong people is a massive of waste of time, money, and resources, and will actually end up damaging the business’s image. To ensure our Members are able to use social media effectively and reach the right audience, The Guild is introducing a buyer boosting product called Hooked, which builds a lookalike audience on Facebook from the agents’ database of buyers and serves them the properties on that agent’s book they are most likely to be interested in,” adds McKenzie.
He says that the Hooked platform uses information from Guild LeadPro to create the profiles for targeting. “Guild LeadPro tracks all applicants and records the type of properties they are interested in, including details such as price range, number of bedrooms, the desired location and any other specifics that might be important. From this information, Hooked builds a lookalike audience on Facebook. Hooked then looks at the agent’s website and sees when a new property is listed. The system will automatically create a bespoke advert for the property on Facebook and serves it to the lookalike audience,” McKenzie explains.
As a result, Hooked will allow agents to target Facebook users with their perfect property before they have even thought about moving! This will give agents the chance to not only increase the number of viewings on a property but also potentially gain new instructions from these unexpected buyers.
He adds that this will allow the generations of agents who are yet to embrace digital marketing a simple solution which they don't need to set up or even understand in-depth themselves. “Even if agents are tech-savvy and are one of the agents building lookalike audiences for your properties, the reality is doing it yourself can be time-consuming and diverts office time away from talking to people and building relationships - the real core of estate agency,” says McKenzie.
He concludes by saying: “The importance of social media and digital platforms in today’s market cannot be overlooked, especially with the majority of business now done virtually.”
Click here to find out how it does, in fact, get buyers hooked.
