What The Best Digital Contact That Can Get You Quality Leads in 2020?

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Johnathan: Welcome folks to the Mail-Right Show, this is episode 258. This is going to be an internal discussion between me and Robert. What we’re going to be talking about is content and we’re going to get a bit more specific because we talk a lot about content and so do our guests. We get a lot of guests that specialize in different types of content or technology, but we mentioned content a lot. But what kind of content can you produce or should be producing for your digital outreach to get the kind of quality leads that you’re looking for? That’s what we’re going to be discussing in this show. I think it’s going to be an interesting discussion. I’m going to introduce my great cohost, Robert. Robert, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to new listeners and viewers?

Robert: I’d love to. So, I’m a 13-year veteran of the real estate marketing industry. I have worked for a lot of major real estate marketing companies, and I have found a real estate marketing company that focuses on getting lead generation through SEO. And you can learn all about me and the company and everything else at my website, which is inboundrem. That’s the word inbound rabbit, Edward, Michael.com.

Johnathan: Yep. And I’m similar to Robert. I’ve been involved in the building of websites for over 15 years, specializing in WordPress, and about three years ago, I started developing Mail-Right. And what is Mail-Right? Well, Mail-Right is based on WordPress technology, but it uses also the power of Facebook advertising. Then it goes into a really easy to use CRM system and then we actually send out to your prospects, text messages, emails that we’ll try and get them to do the one thing you want to, do reply back. And then you can engage them in a one to one conversation and then they can become a quality lead. So, let’s go straight into it. So, where do you want to start with this subject Robert, about content? Where should we start?

Robert: Well, today, we’re going to talk about, instead of talking about all the broad categories, John, what I want to talk about today is that over the last… I think it’s been about a year and a half since we specifically talk like ideas about content. In that year and a half, I’ve watched a lot of our guests that we had on here producing various types of things, such as videos, images, tours and I followed up with those agents and brokers and I have discovered which of those things that they’re producing is actually generating them leads and to the best of my ability, I’ve identified why. So, today we’re going to talk… I would like to talk a little bit about content that’s producing bankable results. And I also have done a little bit of research on some competitors and I’ve seen what’s working for them in terms of stuff that we don’t talk about that much, such as just a straight-up text-based blog post with no video on it which still does work. So, let’s kick it off with the video because we had a former guest that I’d like to plug right now and you’re familiar with them. Matthew Lawson, I think it is. Am I getting his name right, John?

Johnathan: Well, I’m not great on names.

Robert: I know, I don’t know why I’m asking you. Okay. So, he runs a YouTube group…

Johnathan: I love you as well, Robert.

Robert: He runs a group called The Real Estate YouTube Mastermind, everybody writes that down, The Real Estate YouTube Mastermind and they actually talk about what videos that they’re producing and there’s 2000 members to this group and they’re all producing video on YouTube and they’re all real estate agents. And what they talk about a lot, which I love is which videos are making them money and getting them inquiries. And that’s what my favorite part about being part of this group is, is that it’s a great, huge petri dish of information about video that produces results. So, John, what do you think the number one video is that actually produces leads? Take a guess.

Johnathan: If it’s not the class, you know, it could be just the classical walk through a really hot property maybe. Or it could be just an overview of particular areas. Let’s go just for the classical walk through of a really hot property.

Robert: Good guess sir, you would be wrong. The number one universal piece of content that is on that produces leads is relocation to, or living in videos. Believe it or not, those are what really produce leads because the number one audience that goes and uses YouTube for real estate right now, and it’s not to say it’s the only audience because it’s not, but the biggest audience are people that maybe have not put boots on the ground of the area that they’re thinking of. And so, if you’re here in L.A and it’s an hour away, you might very well watch some video about Pacoima because I am not getting in my car and driving an hour to Pacoima. Now it is technically driving distance and aren’t going to catch me driving there though. And then in other areas bigger areas, you’re going to have, or if you’re moving from out of state, of course, you’re going to do some research on YouTube and you’re going to try to find what the pros and cons are about living in that particular area or see what that particular area looks like.

And consistently, I mean, we’re talking all across the country, those videos are producing results. According to the people in this YouTube Mastermind, at least.

Johnathan: I think that’s really fascinating. It’s something that I’ve, with a couple of agents that I consistently work one-to-one with, I’ve been saying that to them because they are particular areas, they’re mostly based in Northern Nevada and we have a lot of people from the Bay Area, of course, also we’ve got Lake Tahoe. So, we get a lot of really wealthy people from the Bay Area looking Lake Tahoe and then we get more average people that still live in Sacramento and sub-areas of the Bay Area looking to move to Reno. And yeah, I think it’s something that any agent that’s really serious about getting results should be producing those types of videos about their local area. Shouldn’t they?

Robert: They certainly should.

Johnathan: And funny enough, I’ve been reading a book recently showing it to the camera. It was a guest of the show of my other podcast that came on it, and it’s called YouTube Secrets and it’s from Sean Cornell and Benji Travis, and they both have highly successful YouTube channels. And Sean, he’s a great guy he’s based in Las Vegas and he’s built up a couple of channels that have over a million subscribers each and he’s the main channel is about cameras and taking video. And there’s not much that Sean doesn’t know about YouTube and building up a successful channel. So, I suggest you should go to his channel and then maybe consider his book as well because like I said, I’ve been read in it and it really does cover all the stuff that you need to know about YouTube and building up a channel. So, I thought I’d just mentioned that.

Robert: Sounds fantastic.

Johnathan: Fantastic.

Robert: I don’t know what’s going on, but you should check the Facebook page because I am seeing that there is an error, like an issue playing the video, but it’s a little late in the broadcast at this point to do anything about it but…

Johnathan: Let’s refresh it again because they’ve done this terrible update. I’m seeing it, Robert.

Robert: You are.

Johnathan: Yes. And it’s live.

Robert: Alright.

Johnathan: I refreshed it and it’s there.

Robert: Okay, fair enough. Alright, so the next thing is… so, that’s number one. So, I want to talk about, and by the way guys, that’s the drum that John and I have been banging for two or three years now where we’re talking about video, video, video. So, that’s a type of video that you could look into to producing that might actually get you some leads. Now, another thing that I’ve been seeing as an agency owner, and this should interest everybody because as an agency owner, I work with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred clients. And not only do I work with those clients, but I’m oftentimes researching their competitors as well. And I’m looking at what is producing results on the web in terms of both blog posts that you can write, and what is…

Johnathan: Can I say something quickly?

Robert: You usually do.

Johnathan: Yeah, I try [inaudible 10:18]. And if I was… maybe I’m biased because I’ve done all these interviews with you and I did quite a few interviews with other co-host and I’ve built my own knowledge of the industry, I as a consumer, but I wouldn’t touch an agent who didn’t have their own website. If they were just relying, and what I meant by that is if they didn’t have a website that was up to date in looks and also had the functionality that I was looking for and had up to date information that really helped me, I would take that as a sign that they really weren’t up to snuff, that they weren’t really the right agent for me personally. They might have a very large personal network of people to generate leads, but I’m interested in how effective they can be in marketing the selling of my house. At the present moment, it doesn’t really matter because the market to some extent is so hot that in many areas, soon as you put a house on the market, you get multiple leads, but this is a very unusual market, it won’t continue forever, things change rapidly. But that’s my own point and having some broker site which isn’t really just one page, looks very similar to everybody else, I personally want to see something better as a consumer. And I think there’s a lot of consumers like that or am I just jaded Robert?

Robert: Well to tackle at what our last guest said, who Peter Lorimer was pretty brilliant so thanks for, thanks for reaching out to him again. I think that you’re a little jaded. I think that plenty of people do business with somebody that does not have a website. I think that you could do business with a great Facebook page, a great Instagram page and that you don’t necessarily need a website so I would humbly disagree. However, what I would not disagree with at all is that whether or not you’re using those various platforms, I think that you’re going to have to like, okay, so you don’t have a website, what do you have? You better have like a thousand images and well thought out and well-tagged stuff on Instagram.

Now I will say this to you though. I think that it’s a fool’s errand, like building all of that content on another like a system that somebody else owns because you and I are sitting here complaining bitterly about all these changes that Facebook has made, which by the way, they’ve made without asking us. And neither one of us can figure out how to use the new thing right now because they just updated us automatically. That’s why I wouldn’t… like, no, thank you. Let me build my main marketing effort on a platform I control don’t fucking… I’m sorry, excuse me. Don’t put me on a system that somebody else is controlling, especially not as one as whimsical…

Johnathan: Well I think you have to accept it to some degree, but you got to be aware of what you’re dealing with [inaudible 14:03]. You know you got to be aware that you’re renting space, you’re renting when your website is you own it.

Robert: Right. So, having said that though, let’s, let’s keep laser-focused because, or try to, because the content is still king, all those other… even in the circumstances that I’m illustrating content is still what’s going to drive business for you and make those calling cards relevant. You must have lots and lots of images and lots and lots of video on those Instagram pages or Facebook pages if they’re going to be of use to you to hand them out to somebody. They have to be used. Same thing with Google my business page, you have to have posts and pictures and reviews all of the things in order for that page to drive your business. People have the same expectations of information wherever they go. And here’s what it is, folks get ready, write it down. Number one, they need to see social proof.

You must have reviews. Must, must, must. Doesn’t matter what we’re talking about. Facebook, Google my business it doesn’t matter. They need to see reviews. Video reviews, written reviews, reviews from clients that have done business with you, can’t emphasize enough. That’s where you start in order to get business. Number two, in terms of… and that, ‘s a type of content too, by the way, now that I think about it, that’s the type of content, John. So, that’s that fits right into the topic.

Johnathan: Well we could discuss that in a whole episode about reviews and we should do, shouldn’t we? So, we probably have another for the internal show next week folks and I’m trying to rustle up some other excellent guest for the following but we’ve got a couple other topics that we want to discuss. We need to go for our break, actually, Robert. And when we come back, I’m going to let Robert really delve in and I’m not going to interrupt because then we go off subject, don’t we? We’ll be back in a few moments.

We’re coming back. I’ve had a kind of rough morning actually. I was doing enough for podcasts and then it’s never happened before the internet, there was an outage and the internet just disappeared for two hours, but I had another great cohost like Robert, and they just did the interview. So, let’s hope we don’t get cut off now actually, but it’s been good so far. So, Robert over to you and no interruptions from me.

Robert: Okay. So, we’re talking about various platforms and refresh my memory where was I? Was on a tangent.

Johnathan: Well, we were talking about reviews basically, and the importance of those.

Robert: Right. So, it doesn’t really matter where you go, whether it’s a Facebook page or an Instagram page, you got to have reviews, that’s the first thing you got to happen. Second, you got to have your story there, a story, your story and that is another type of content. So, what is a story? Story is in pictures or some kind of format, you got to represent who you are and I strongly recommend that you make that personal, your brand personality. But I don’t want to drift into this too much because I want to keep talking about content. All right, so blog post, back to blog posts that I’ve seen that are working right now for lead generation. So, I have a staggeringly strong result from a client in Atlanta where we’re watching them generate 30 or 40 qualified leads off a single blog post every single month.

The blog post is talking about property taxes, which is one of my go-to topics. I just have never really gotten a blog that is this popular in a major city like Atlanta, so I’d never really like… I’ve got one that’s number one for Lavonia, which is a very small suburb of Detroit. But this one is focused on all of Atlanta and it’s staggering how many good leads the client is collecting off this blog post. So, when you start talking about what can you be talking about to your audience in terms of a blog? There are two topics. One that is doing well for engagement, which will mean better SEO results and another that is doing better for a lead generation.

So, taxes and financial information about the area that you’re specifically working in, I don’t know why, but it’s just mind-blowing to me how many realtors think that their clients already have access to this information someplace else. They don’t. So, please put it on your blogs, put it on your Instagram page, put it on your Facebook page, talk about the intricacies of the property tax, the sales tax, the inheritance rules, whatever it is that affects your particular area. And even if you are only impacted by the global U.S rules that relate to real estate, a lot of people don’t know that either. So, just simply state what the average is or what the standard information is and confirm that standard works in your area because it doesn’t work that way. Like in L.A County, we have like literally 30 or 40 different property tax rules and it’s one of those topics that people get very frustrated that they can’t get a straight answer out of anybody when they go online, so, take advantage of that.

And then number two, the other most specific thing that we’re getting that I’m loving seeing is, finally we’re watching really detailed neighborhood pages generate leads. Now, this has always been the case, but the kind of standard pages that I’ve watched other real estate web developers build like real estate webmasters and things like that, they really don’t produce results anymore. They used to for sure, and if you have a real estate webmasters site and you’re listening to the show, hey, maybe the results are just declining, but I haven’t talked to a client that’s getting better or increased results in a very long time that’s working [cross-talk 20:55].

Johnathan: There are a couple of agents, there was an agent in the Bay Area, if I can remember, and they did some fabulous neighborhood pages, but I totally agree with you, Robert. When you go, when you go to bulk, when they say neighborhood and you can have a look and I’m normally very disappointed, they [inaudible 21:22], there’s not much information there. I’m normally quite disappointed.

Robert: Okay. Yeah, me too. So, alright…

Johnathan: I’m jaded, aren’t I?

Robert: So, you, well, I’m not going to comment on that. So, that’s number two guys. So, we’re deep in it now because it’s you got… and when I see detailed neighborhood pages, so I have another client in another area and you know what? They focus on golf course homes and here’s what we just put on their website and I can’t even begin to explain how many leads and how well they’re doing in the ranking, it’s incredible. Their site is up like 3000%. What they did is they focused on golf course homes and there are tee times and current yards on the course and current rates for the course as part of the neighborhood page that surrounds these golf courses. So, they just do like a polygon search where you’re doing homes within a couple of miles of a particular area, like a golf course and then they talk about tee times and the rates of the course itself and just doing staggeringly well, like, like staggeringly well.

So, when you’re talking about a neighborhood, is there a specific area or feature that neighborhood that makes it unique, such as I have a school about 30 feet away. And if I had a school that I wanted to talk about, here’s a few things that you could talk about. How much parking is there, how many teachers are there, how long has the school been there. These are details that aren’t going to be covered on any of like… yes, there will be a K2 school listed on most real estate websites these days, will there be any details about the school? Absolutely not. If the school anchors the neighborhood bloody talk about it.

Johnathan: I think of something just quickly, you know, I promise on keeping on subject, when you go to a lot of these SAS website products, they will say, yeah, we have pages and they’re about schools and you get a list of schools individuals, and it sounds fantastic and then you cough up your year, the money to buy this thing. Why is this scraping data? They’re linked through APIs to specific websites that provide national data around the schools and they suck that data up and then they put it on these pages that is part of the selling process to you. In actual usefulness to your target audience and in SEO terms, they’re crap, aren’t they really?

Robert: Yeah, they really are. Well, let’s put it this way for everybody that’s listening and viewing, the call the action here when you’re producing anything, whether it’s a video, you got to do something different guys. You got to, all right. There’s just every single person that’s listening to this show probably owns real estate website has some kind of search function functionality. There’s nothing unique or special, you are not a pretty little snowflake, you cannot get any results on those sites anymore there’s too many of them. So, what do you have to do? You have to do some kind of information that is unique to your area, try to be of service to the people that you’re that you are representing.

I don’t know why realtors don’t understand that they are essentially the doctors of neighborhoods. And what I mean by that is that when you go into your cardiologist and you sit here and you say, I want to get my heart checked and I want you to do all the things and he looks at you and kind of vaguely goes, oh, so can you tell me specifically what you’re looking for in terms of heart services? No. You want him to turn around and tell you okay, well, we’ve got the four major pulmonary, whatever, whatever’s I’m not a doctor, this is bad analogy, but I hope everybody understands what I’m saying. You’re supposed to be the doctor of your area, you’re supposed to know every nook and cranny of that neighborhood, you’re supposed to know where the mailboxes are on the street corners and how many schools there are and how many kids go there and what is the statewide rating for education, does it have a stadium that your client’s children can play at? These are really super important questions to the people that are moving into these neighborhoods most of the time.

I know from talking to realtors. So, shouldn’t you know every last detail about all of these things? And then if you do know every last detail of the things that I’m talking about, it’s time for you to create a blog or write them down and on a page and put them above the search results on your website, because that’s helpful. Every single question that you’ve ever been asked as a real estate agent, there should be someplace whether it’s Facebook or Instagram or your website, there should be a response. That’s another idea about content, which I think oddly is going to bring us back to a 30-minute close. But every question that you’ve been asked guys, every single, every single thing that is an opportunity to put a response online so that the next time somebody asks you, you can number one, you don’t have to repeat yourself, you can refer them to your website or wherever you’ve got the answer and number two, you just for… I know so many of you are suspicious of digital, you just have to take my word for it.

Instead of not doing business with you and ignoring you because they can get the answer elsewhere if you take the time to demonstrate your expertise, people will be impressed by the amount of effort and service that you’ve taken in order to try to give them an answer without talking to you and thus, they will be more inclined to talk to you. Okay? I built a million-dollar business on this principle. You guys can do the same for yourselves and it’s not complicated. Just put this stuff online. I think that runs us out of time, John.

Johnathan: Yeah, let’s go just for another few minutes, and then we can wrap it up. So, of all the stuff we’ve discussed, if an agent is looking for the quickest win to help them get their website producing more quality leads of all the things you’ve discussed, what’s the first thing they should be doing.

Robert: Well, the first thing they should be doing right now is a blog post. I would do living in blog posts. And guys, I have one, since Sean is effectively asking for bonus content, I’m going to give you a hell of a bonus, okay. There’s the number one website in L.A, Los Angeles, it’s one of the top three markets in the country. So, Los Angeles, there is a website that is dominating the search engines, it’s called rubyhome.com, all right. And what he does to dominate the search engines is he is literally written some of the most detailed, incredible living, like living in Hollywood Hills.

And these are articles John, they’re not even like anything that I write. He’s done three to 5,000 words on each area and they’re super detail like down to the best restaurants, the best schools, the best, everything. You want to see an amazing example of somebody that’s using a blog effectively go to Ruby home, click on the blog section, which is in the upper right-hand corner, and just run down the posted blogs until you see one that says Living In Whatever, and this one, like I just did, I just picked my own advice and I’m looking at one that’s called living in Hollywood Hills. Starts off with a video three to 5,000 words, it has maps, I mean, this person is basically producing world-class content on the site. And you should look at it because this site gets about 30 to 40,000 visitors, including almost all of the luxury searches are dominated by this website, that just means that it works.

This is getting this website massive results in both… there’s a whole team that’s surviving off the leads that are generated off the site because I’ve talked to Tony like he’s built a massive business off this website. So, if you’re wondering if it’s worth the time, worth the effort…

Johnathan: What about getting Tony on the show, Robert?

Robert: I can certainly reach out to him and see if he would be willing to come on.

Johnathan: That would be fantastic. I’m sure it’s always best if it comes from the camel’s mouth, isn’t it really isn’t it?

Robert: Really is. Yeah, I’ll reach out. I’ll see if I can get Tony on. I’ve been talking to him about backlinking not about this, but sure. I’ll talk to him. I’ll see if we can get him.

Johnathan: That will be great. So, Robert, I think we’ve covered. I shut up in the second half so the content was really good. So, basically you how can people find out more about you and what you’re up to Robert?

Robert: Oh, I love it. Everybody do two things, one, please visit John’s site give the man some props that man, I will keep saying this he’s the backbone of the show. He does all the outreach, he does everything, he does almost everything. Ever now, once in a great while I get a guest for us, but I’m this guy you should check out his site mailright.com. If for some reason you do want to learn more about me, listen, I’d consider it a great honor if you’d come to inboundrem.com and take a look around, I think there’s a lot of good information for any agent at any level of their career. 10 years, 20 years, 30 years just starting. That’s it, that’s what I got.

Johnathan: Yep. And I like to say if you’re looking for really great SEO, really great customized top-level websites, go over to Robert. That’s what he does that medium to top end, we’re in the lower to medium end, we complement one another. We’re about paid results, getting traffic to your site, and then having a really great system that converts that traffic into leads. Robert is about SEO, actual content, attracting clients to the website, and converting them. There’re loads of fish out there in the pond and there’s all different ways of fishing so it all works out. We’ll be back with either another great internal discussion or great guest next week. We’ll see you soon folks. Bye.

Robert: Bye.