#397 – Mail-Right Show:Top 6 Reasons Why Real Estate Agents Fail With Facebook Ads In 2023

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Top 6 Reasons Why Real Estate Agents Fail With Facebook Ads In 2023

Attention all real estate agents! If you’re wondering why your Facebook ads aren’t generating results in 2023, this video has all the answers you need. Explore crucial reasons behind failed campaigns, including improper audience segmentation and ineffective messaging techniques commonly used by agents today. Learn from industry experts who share practical tips for successfully turning around your advertising efforts on Facebook – don’t miss out! Click play now for invaluable insights into achieving greatness with Facebook ads!

#1 – Choosing the right objective – (in the end, you boost the post). Also, the main difference is leads and traffic.

#2 – You end your campaigns much too soon, and you have much too small a budget

#3 – You need to use your warm and semi-warm lists on FaceBook

#4 – Choosing not to click the check box connected to being in a particular category

#5 – Agents are not using video in their adverts (video is king)

#6 – No consistent digital follow through

Episode Full Show Notes

[00:00:10.440] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 397 of The Mail-Right Show. Today, we’re going to talk about why. Why? Why? Why do real estate agents fail with Facebook ads in 2023?

[00:00:24.450] – Jonathan Denwood

I just don’t know.

[00:00:26.320] – Robert Newman

And we’re going to give you six of our top reasons. And when I say we, I actually mean John. Debbie, here we go. We’re going to get into it. But before we do, there must be a small handful of you that have been handed the show from your friends, your other real estate professionals that you don’t know and you don’t know who we are. John, who are you?

[00:00:49.740] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, God, who am I? I’ve been asking that question for 57 years. I’m the joint founder of Mail-right.com. We’re a great platform. We compete with Reel Geets and Ciarra Interactive. We provide a beautiful WordPress website with a lead generation platform and a CRM, all combined at a reasonable price. Back over to you, Rob.

[00:01:18.820] – Robert Newman

My name is Robert Newman. I’m the founder of my own real estate marketing company called Inbound Real Estate Marketing. The company is one of the very few that does both Inbound and SEO philosophies. We have a lot of different services. I’ve talked about Google and SEO for real estate agents for over 15 years. So if you want to know anything about me, just go to inboundreem.

[00:01:42.700] – Jonathan Denwood

Com. I’ve just got one more thing.

[00:01:46.800] – Robert Newman

Oh, you’re telling me. Come on, that’s not.

[00:01:50.960] – Jonathan Denwood

Even funny. He’s been dealing with many clients lately, listeners and viewers that got one.

[00:01:57.700] – Robert Newman

More thing. Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:00.400] – Jonathan Denwood

Exactly. I’ve got one more theme.

[00:02:04.300] – Robert Newman

Okay. All right, for the handful of you who were watching YouTube, this was for John.

[00:02:08.400] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about it.

[00:02:15.570] – Robert Newman

There you go. Here we go. Here’s the list. I’m going to give everybody the list upfront, but then John is going to dig through it one by one. I’m going to add some comments here and there, but honestly, most of this is really going to be John. One, choose the right objective. Two, end your campaigns much too soon. Three, list management. Four, not having people optimize their call to action correctly. Number five, using video, number six, consistent digital throwback policies. These are the topics we’re going to dig into each one of them. John is going to lead this one because when it comes to Facebook advertising, there’s no doubt that John is focused more on his time, energy, and business. He has a partner that’s extremely experienced in.

[00:02:58.680] – Jonathan Denwood

This segment. I do not worry, Rob. I do not run Facebook campaigns. My partner, Adam Brown, runs and he’s got over 10 years experience with his own agency and he runs the campaigns. I know enough to fuck up your campaign. Adam knows enough to actually get some results.

[00:03:23.510] – Robert Newman

Beautiful. Without any further ado, choosing the right objective, why don’t we jump into number one and you share your thoughts on that, John?

[00:03:29.850] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, it’s choosing the right objectives. One of the pleasures, and it’s similar to Google if you’re doing paid advertising on Google, is it’s not the most friendly interface if you’re using your Facebook ad manager, which if you’re going to do paid campaigns, you need to set that up. There are loads of tutorials on YouTube. It’s not terrible. There are some steps that you should go through to protect yourself because Facebook, they’ve done it to me, they’ve done it to clients. If you’ve done any Facebook advertising for any consistent time, it’s very likely your account will be suspended and there are occasions where your account can be… You are blocked forever, so you need to set up another account and you need to know how to set up your Google ad manager in a way that will cover your backside because it will happen. It’s happened to me.

[00:04:40.740] – Robert Newman

You’re talking about Google or Facebook?

[00:04:42.360] – Jonathan Denwood

Facebook. Sorry, Facebook. You go into the ad manager and it gives you a list of objectives. They mean nothing. You’re going to have to Google them to find out what the hell they mean, because it’s not in English. Well, it is in English, but it’s in techno talk. Teno talk. Babble, thank you so much. And the two that you really, depending on what market you’re in, you should be either looking at leads or traffic. Now, leads are the best, but it depends on what area you’re competing in, beloved listeners. If you’re in Denver or you’re in San Francisco or you’re in any major metropolitan area, probably the cost of running a campaign on a lead objective is going to be pretty pricey. The prices have gone up. They went down when Facebook was having a bit of argy-bargy. That’s a bit of English land for a bit of trouble with Apple iOS 14. Also, Facebook internally imploded during COVID. They’re trying to actually get hold of any response from them was practically impossible. The prices went down a bit. They’ve gone back up because they’ve recovered a bit from the crisis around IOS 14. It’s never been easy to get hold of somebody in Facebook.

[00:06:38.920] – Jonathan Denwood

But during COVID, it became impossible. It is possible to get hold of somebody. But the leads have become very, very expensive, if that’s your objective. Now, traffic, as it say, will get you traffic, it won’t be as focused. I’m trying to word this in a coherent way, which is difficult for me, isn’t it, Rob? Traffic is a more broad term about the people they’re going to be sending to your landing page or to your website, but it will be cheaper. The budget that you will require to actually get a result will be less. The last thing in this, because of this, this sounds a bit of a setup, and if you’re doing it yourself, it will be, but it’s totally possible for you to do it, is you’re going to be tempted to say, Sody, I’m just going to boost a post. I’m going to write something and there’s a big button to boost it and I’m going to click it. You can do that, in my opinion, you’re totally wasting your money. It’s been that for a long time. I think it will be shown, especially on your page, to a larger audience, but to think you actually get any real leads from that is probably you’re deluding yourself a little bit.

[00:08:18.360] – Jonathan Denwood

Other people would argue against me about that. It’s a gray area. That is the broad outline. I could go a bit deeper. I’m not going to because I do not want to bore you, Rob, and I don’t want us to lose most of the audience that’s still listening to me jabbat. So back over to you, Rob.

[00:08:43.380] – Robert Newman

All right, so I don’t have much to say about audiences. I have worked in Facebook, but there is like… I have people that I follow. It’s not like I don’t know nothing about Facebook. I know way more than the average.

[00:08:56.260] – Jonathan Denwood

There are many, many things that you know, Rob.

[00:08:59.440] – Robert Newman

But I would say that in terms of choosing the right objective, I haven’t gone in and set a campaign up in a long enough period of time that I don’t really feel like I can contribute all that much. We’re going to go on to number two. You end your campaigns much too soon and you have too small of a budget. Talk to me about how long do you keep the campaign running and what budget do you think you’re recommending? Because that’s the question that everybody who’s listening to this show is really going to want to know.

[00:09:24.160] – Jonathan Denwood

I want to point out, folks, it really is dependent on what area you’re competing in. If you’re in a semi-rural, if you’re in a city of less of around a quarter of a million to half a million, but that will depend on how hot your particular real estate market is. If you’re talking about a city of half a million in Southern California, it’s going to be a very different market than if you’re in the Midwest. It’s all swings and roundabouts. If you’re in the major metropolitan area, it’s a different cup of tea. But in general, the budget required has gone up. It’s gone up for the past 2-3 years. That’s why the idea that you can get any results for $5, $10 a day is popular. Depending on the market, it’s a bit delusionary. Most people, it will take at least a week for Facebook to look at your campaign, make a judgment call about the quality of the campaign, the graphic, the video that you should be using. They will make some judgment call about the landing page you’re taking people to, various parameters about. Then like I say, take at least a week for them to make a judgment and send traffic to that advert.

[00:11:02.670] – Jonathan Denwood

Each advert has a natural lifespan. They don’t last forever. It’s finding that sweet spot where you’re giving Facebook enough time to make a judgment call, but you’re not leaving it too long because the advert will exhaust itself naturally. But most people, when it comes to budget, like I say, I think now between $300 and $500 for advert campaign per month is a good starting point. Then try and see if you’re getting results and then if you can put anything between five and a thousand in afterwards as you’re getting some results, is probably a realistic place. The idea that you can just put 100 in, I think you could get some results with 250 a month. I think you can start off with that still, depending on the area. If you’re in a real big metropolitan area, that won’t work at all. But in a lot of areas, it’s still a good starting point. But the budget has definitely gone up, Rob.

[00:12:19.120] – Robert Newman

Okay, well, that’s good to know. I think I learned something there, so thanks for sharing that, John. I appreciate it. Number three, now this I do actually know a lot about. I have this one segment that I can probably contribute to. Before we move on, I just want to tell the audience, listen, John is giving you the insider local knowledge that I don’t have because I’m not working with Facebook. We’re talking about Google or AdWords, all those things, SEO. I know a lot about those, the local search market. All those things I have lots of data on. But the Facebook, how long to run a campaign, I have stuff I could regurgitate from other marketing experts that I follow. Honestly, I think the market has changed so much in the last six months alone that all of my information is outdated. I just want to qualify that. Number three, you need to use your warm or semi-warm list on Facebook. Can you explain what you mean by that?

[00:13:16.220] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, because costs have gone up on Facebook. I think costs have gone up on Google. We’ve hit this video, we hit this numbers of times, haven’t we, Rob? Retargeting. What I mean is, if you’ve got a list of emails and names and you can import them into your Facebook advert account and you can retarget to that list and the cost is going to be considerably lower, especially in the competitive urban areas, the metropolitan areas you’re going to see. Not only do they retarget to those, they retarget to people that are similar to the list that you import. If your list that you’ve built up is geo-focused, and over the last few years, because of government intervention and other factors, your ability to geo-target, utilizing Facebook, has diminished greatly. But if your list that you’re importing is geo-focused, they will take that list and they will retarget to similar people. Like I said, and we’re going to repeat myself, if that list is heavily geo-focused, the people that they target to some extent are going to be geo-focused. Is that making sense, Rob?

[00:14:53.890] – Robert Newman

Yes. I want to.

[00:14:55.640] – Jonathan Denwood

Add- You’re a hesitant. I can sense a feeling of hesitance there, Rob.

[00:15:01.780] – Robert Newman

Yes, but I want to add some stuff. I’m not saying, by the way, guys, there isn’t this endless series of… There’s one of the few things that I really, really, really, really, really love Facebook for still today. After all the changes, the lawsuits that they lost, the fact that I’m not really terribly fond of their upper leadership.

[00:15:27.960] – Jonathan Denwood

I can’t stand them. I think they’re awful.

[00:15:32.400] – Robert Newman

But having said all that, there are some things that Facebook has done incredibly well that as marketers, we would be fools to not involve ourselves with. One of those things definitely revolves around the idea of doing what is called remarketing and retargeting using a Facebook pixel on a website or some other service. What that means is that once you direct somebody someplace, the advertisement that you do follows them around onto Facebook and Instagram. Now, regardless of what people say about Facebook, I’m on it for an hour to a day every day. Most people I know are in the same boat. That makes it a very, very, very popular website. The thing about having your name out in front of your audience at all times, it’s like having a billboard, except this billboard will be in a place that’s actually relevant. It doesn’t matter whether somebody’s driving the freeway or not, you’re going to be in front of your audience. So when it comes to having a list, maintaining a list, honestly, that effort that what you do with the 10,000 leads that you’ve never done anything with, it’s an incredibly important conversation. It’s not just about email.

[00:16:53.600] – Robert Newman

It’s about can you get up in front of these people quietly and silently and put an ad in front of them that cost you almost nothing. Display advertising on these services is very inexpensive. Even click-through advertising. You’re not going to be spending as much as you probably think you’re going to be spending because not a lot of people are going to click. But that doesn’t matter so much because a lot of people already know you. So they have your contact information, they have your phone number. They may not click on your ad, but when they think real estate, you come top of mind, which is the whole point of advertising. I love Facebook for that one advertising. If you want an omnichannel approach, you need to involve Facebook and Instagram and maybe even Threads soon enough. Who knows? Okay, so that’s probably the only input I’m going to give this entire segment, if I’m honest about it. Let’s dig into… Actually, let’s go to break real quick. Ladies and gentlemen, John and I have been doing this a long time. We’re closing in on 200 solid episodes together that we’ve done the show. So for half the life of Mel Wright, I’ve been his partner.

[00:18:12.070] – Robert Newman

And we’ve moved into partners. I was basically a guest host for a long time. Then we moved into partnering on the show and we’ve really evolved. But if you’ve evolved with this and I know there are those of you that are out there, we keep asking for input. Email John, I’ll make this easy. You’ll actually know what? My email address is easier, but I’ll give you both. Email John at Jonathan.

[00:18:34.160] – Jonathan Denwood

I can send it to you, Rob. I’m fine with that.

[00:18:37.390] – Robert Newman

Okay, so it’s email Robert at Inbound RE:IM with feedback about the show specifically. Ideas for subjects, we’ll take them. Something you’d like to see? More guests of a certain type? Please let me know, and we’ll try to make it happen for you. We do the show for you guys as long as it relates to real estate and marketing in some way or or another. Those are the two qualifiers. Other than that, give us the idea. And with that, we’re going to be right back. We’re coming up with another three amazing reasons why real estate agents fail with Facebook ads in 2023. Stay tuned. Do you want quality leads from homeowners and buyers right in your own neighborhood? Then you need mail right. It is a powerful but easy to use online marketing system that uses Facebook to generate real estate leads at a fraction of the cost you’d pay from our competition. We stand behind our work with a no-question-asked 30-day money-back guarantee. So don’t delay. Get started today. Go to mail-right. Com. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s still The Mail Right Show, and it’s still me and John, and we’re still talking about Facebook ads and why agents fail with them.

[00:19:51.770] – Robert Newman

We are on to number reason number four. If you missed the first three reasons, please check out the first 20 minutes of the show. It’s really great stuff. John is killing it today. Number four, choosing not to click the chat box connected to being in the particular category. Now, I personally think that’s a mouthful. Maybe it should just be how you work your call to action.

[00:20:10.400] – Jonathan Denwood

You would believe that I come from the land of Shakespeare, would you?

[00:20:15.530] – Robert Newman

No. I’m thrown. Anyway, why don’t you walk us through?

[00:20:22.200] – Jonathan Denwood

I just wanted to say one thing linked to the last point before we went for our break. It comes from a real great book, but still relevant, even I think the book was published 15 years ago, and that is The Millionaire, real estate agent by Gary Keller. It’s still the Bible, as far as I’m concerned, if you’re into getting digital leads. The language and some of the concepts are a bit dated now, but it’s still relevant. He hammers away that the money is in the database. The money is in the database. He and that’s what it still is in some ways, and we hammer, I’m sure Rob will agree, the money is in the database if you’re into digital marketing. The last point where we were talking about retargeting, being able to upload a list with the pixels still works, but obviously they had problems with iOS 14, with what Apple were about. But if you’ve got your email list and you upload it, it will retarget to similar people and the people… If you’ve marked it to those people and you’ve farmed their email list, you’re going to get a much lower rate. That’s what Gary, and let’s face it, Gary, to say he’s been successful would be the understatement of the century.

[00:21:50.440] – Jonathan Denwood

Listen to somebody. You don’t have to listen to me or Rob, listen to somebody who’s an extremely effective, wealthy person. What would you say about that, Rob?

[00:22:02.480] – Robert Newman

You already know that I have physical mentors throughout my career and I have mentors that I’ve chosen that have done a good enough job in writing books or producing content or digital content or both that I definitely have mentors that have never met me. Like Neil Patel is a mentor of mine, and he is the main one. But there’s another guy by the name of Adam White that’s helped my business probably more than any other SEO expert except for Neil. And those two guys are my mentors. So what you’re talking about is a mentor who is doing something that you are doing and do you… Of course, but that mentor can’t see specifically what you’re doing, which is why a lot of people get discouraged with the idea of a main mentor. But you know what? Any business requires experimentation. Your model is going to require experimentation. I’m going to give everybody the piece of advice I give a lot of my consultation clients. Pick a couple of territories. I would pick Van Nys and Rosita from my two territories if I was selling real estate. Get the email address and this may take some time for you to build up the budget to do this.

[00:23:07.240] – Robert Newman

You bite it off in pieces. I’m slowly acquiring the name of every realtor in the US. It’s part of my marketing strategy. What do I do with it? I email them high-value content and I don’t ask them to buy anything. That’s what I do with it. You have to figure out all of you out there. I spend many, many thousands of dollars on producing my content every month. It’s something high value. It’s not AI, it’s not any of that. You have to get the names and numbers to all the people that are in your farm, just like always, like forever in the real estate business, you have a choice. You can knock on their door or you can digitally advertise to them, and you can send them mail, and you can have somebody else knock on their door. To be honest with you, I would do a blended media strategy and try a little bit of all those things and see which one worked for me. That’s what I would do. But that doesn’t change the fact that database is first, that you should focus onwhen you say database, just say, This is my farm.

[00:24:03.340] – Robert Newman

I own it. Nobody’s ever going to do a better job at serving it than me. Then you go out and acquire everybody’s information, then you just do something that knocks their bloody socks off in terms of, I’m going to give you this thing for free. I’m going to give you this information for free. You could start calling each one of those people or sending them an email, but instead of getting all weird and saying, I really want to talk to you. I just want to introduce myself in real. Those are all say no propositions. A say yes to that proposition is I’ve done an appraisal on your home digitally, and I’m dropping it to you by email. I spent 10 minutes on this, and I’m telling you what everybody else has sold their homes for locally, just so you know, just in case you decide to sell your home in the next 3-5 years, that would be highly valuable. That’s going to get you an email-open, establish a relationship. If you slowly did that with every single person in your market that you could get an email address to, I guarantee you, literally guarantee to you, you would own that market.

[00:25:02.270] – Robert Newman

Full stop. It would be yours. It would be your market.

[00:25:05.880] – Jonathan Denwood

Great advice there. Now get back, choosing the click. It was part of the regulations that came in. There was concern about how minorities were being excluded and some of it was overplayed, some of it was based on fact. There’s a tick box. If you’re a certain industry, I can’t remember the list, unfortunately, but one of them is real estate. If you’re placed in average, you’re supposed to click a tick box that you’re one of these special industries and there’s restrictions on the advert and its scope. A lot of agents choose not to click the tick box. I understand why. They will find out and your account will get either suspended or you’ll lose your account. It’s not if, it’s only when. I would suggest that you don’t do that. What do you reckon, Rob? You’re silent.

[00:26:23.830] – Robert Newman

I agree.

[00:26:24.980] – Jonathan Denwood

Right.

[00:26:25.570] – Robert Newman

There we go. Number five, agents are not… You are not using video in their adverts. Video is king. Explain that one.

[00:26:35.620] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, video, I’ve got the name. The people that you, having liked some of your comments, but you, Amaya, as marketers in the real estate industry, I’ve got their name though, they have been using a lot of video adverts. If you want to reduce the cost and have more people click your advert and for it to reach more of its attended audience at a lower cost, utilize video, just as simple as that. You’re going to get three times the amount of clicks than image with text. Text is still important, but you’re just going to get a lot more response. Also look at Instagram, other Facebook meta properties, but you’re just going to get a much better result and achieve a cost, basically. What do you reckon, Rob?

[00:27:45.590] – Robert Newman

So video is without question, like Krista Mayshore, who is probably the number one coach or consultant who uses video funnels on Facebook, she still leverages Facebook. She’s still coaching on it and she’s still killing it. I mean, video content in general, you should be sick of hearing everybody say it. I just got off two consultation calls today, John, where I had yet another two real estate clients saying, Oh, people have been telling us to do that forever. I’m like, Well, how much content have you produced? One guy did have 10 or so videos, but over five years, and the other guy hadn’t done any. Stop letting people tell you that you should do video.

[00:28:26.510] – Jonathan Denwood

Do you know how many videos I’ve got on my WP tonic? Youtube channel?

[00:28:31.580] – Robert Newman

No idea.

[00:28:32.650] – Jonathan Denwood

One thousand. Do you know how many videos I’ve got on the Mailright website and channel?

[00:28:37.760] – Robert Newman

No idea.

[00:28:38.530] – Jonathan Denwood

Four hundred. It’s been one of the major, past six months I’ve been spending a lot more attention on the Mailright YouTube channel with Adam’s help. But on the WP tonic, it’s been a slow grind, but I’ve used it as a key part of my strategy with WP Tonic and it’s paid dividends. I think if you’re going to go down the Facebook advert route and you’re really serious about it, you really got to do it with video. We got different options at mill-right. We don’t have to utilize you. It would be better if we can. But you’ve got to be realistic here, but there’s techniques and there’s services that enable you to produce video that’s still reasonably engaging. That will get results without you having to be in the video. But you should be looking at that because it will make an enormous difference to the effectiveness of your campaigns.

[00:29:54.830] – Robert Newman

True facts. Video technology for AI is moving in a good direction where the way I suggest to… Listen, I have always said and will continue to say that what the skill is that people need to be focusing on is becoming great storytellers and understanding what their audience wants to hear. For real estate agents, I’m simplifying this for you. It’s lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. Lifestyle. Lifestyle. Lifestyle. Property, prices, and things like that, market reports are important, but they should be a small part of your content marketing effort, including on Facebook. Great, great, great real estate agents tie in their marketing with lifestyle elements. Great restaurants, great stadiums, distance from thing X, commute to city Y. And those are things you’re going to mention in your video that are detail-oriented, spoken from the perspective of a local. I can go on and on: schools, baseball teams, Little League, dog parks, whatever your interest is.

[00:30:49.920] – Jonathan Denwood

I’m sorry to interrupt. You must love on your… You do a lot more consultations than me. Rob’s been in the industry a lot longer than I have, but you must love people saying to me, Well, what am I going to talk about? It’s time for us bloody stuff to talk about.

[00:31:07.780] – Robert Newman

Isn’t it? I’ve trained myself to hear the question a different way, and here’s the question that I hear. When somebody says, What should I talk about? What they’re really saying is, How would I say something that people are searching for? That’s what they really are saying. And the answer to that question is shocking. I’ll give you a thing that shocks me to this very day. Five hundred people a month search for dog-friendly restaurants in Cabo San Lucas. That’s a real number. On that specific search. You don’t know until you research it, you don’t know what people are actually searching for online, and the answer might actually freaking floor you in terms of what people search for, like people who are moving to Texas, off-time search for tax rate and gun law. And you’d be like, What? The major searches. Major. So if either one of those two things is a sub-interest of yours, if you’re a card-carrying member of the NRA and you happen to live in Houston, talk about it. You will be surprised how many people will tune into that, especially since I guarantee you that many realtors are going to be scared to talk about something like gun rights because Texas is getting more liberal.

[00:32:28.240] – Robert Newman

I understand. But you know what? If you plant your flag in a field that you firmly believe in that nobody else is talking about, I promise you you’re going to get a lot of attention, and eventually that’ll lead to calls. And if you’re half a salesperson, eventually that will lead to deals. All right, so we’ve covered video. We’re down to the last one. We are into overtime here. No consistent digital follow-through. This is our bonus topic. Let’s talk about follow-through, John.

[00:32:58.220] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, they don’t know. That’s why they cut their budgets, why they give up on it. That’s why they say they get on the forum and say Facebook advertising is a load of shit, blah, blah, blah, because they probably get their leads through personal recommendation. You can’t beat personal recommendation. But if you want to expand, accelerate your business or your new to area, that will take a long time. Or if you want to expand your business, you’re going to have to look at digital marketing in 2003. The thing is, as you so well know, Rob, it’s a much lower quality. What is a lead? That one word can cause so much misinformation, so much frustration. Because if you’re trying to compare a face-to-face recommendation compared to a Facebook lead, and even that has a different quality to a Google search. A Google search has a higher quality than a Facebook lead, depending on the advert, to some extent, in my opinion. But it’s not going to compare, like I say, so you’re going to get a lot of lower quality type leads, digital leads. Well, if you have no system or follow-through, like Real Geek, Sary, Interactive, or MailRite, where it sends them follow-through email, text messaging, blah, blah, blah, and then you put them on a quality email newsletter where you spend actual energy and money.

[00:35:08.010] – Jonathan Denwood

You’re sending them something of value and then you do the things that you suggested where you send them something individual. Because these people are at different timelines of the buying cycle. They might be three months, six months, nine months, 18 months out. You’ve got to keep in contact with them. But if you don’t understand that and you’re comparing it to face-to-face leads, as I call it, you’re going to get pissed off and frustrated pretty rapidly. I think it causes so much agro in the industry in general because people just don’t understand the fundamentals, do they?

[00:35:53.100] – Robert Newman

No. There is a lot of movement, consistent digital follow-through. Now, this is a category I pooh-pooh on AI a lot, but there are more and more tools out there that like Pipeline ROI and many, many others where they’re figuring out very clever ways to add AI into a fairly seamless follow-up process. I don’t know why everybody’s so… There are a lot of things that you can replace a $5 an hour VA with, but I still see there being a lot more efficiencies inside the human processes. But let’s just say that you’re a starting agent and have no money, no budget at all. I think you could do some really cool things with AI. One of those things that I think you could do is manage your response 100% through AI tools, and you probably don’t need to spend years becoming an expert. You can probably spend a couple of months figuring out chat prompts, getting your email set up, creating some web hooks, figuring out what all that is, and then you have an automated response system going out to every person that you contact, whoever that is. Now, I want to be clear with everybody because the idea of automating things or the idea of programic response is not new inside marketing.

[00:37:16.880] – Robert Newman

It has been a dream for marketers forever. It used to just be that somebody would sell you their scripts. When I was a new salesperson, they would sell you a book or their magical door knocking script where you knocked on the door and you gave script and it was the magic script and if you stuck with it or it was the magic script and the magic 12 rebuttals. And over the years, it’s always been something. The magic technique, the magic this, the magic that. Now it’s moved into we’re just going to do it for you. We’re just going to do everything for you. I can even produce a talking head just like you, Robert, that can look at your 159 videos and create an automation that connects to ChatGPT and then talks about online marketing for you. Great. I don’t want a robot doing my business. And I really that what drives most of my brand is actually the personal touches that I’ve applied to it. It’s 90 % of why people call me. I have had three appointments today. They all called to talk to me specifically. They all wanted to hear what I had to say on a subject.

[00:38:23.570] – Robert Newman

They didn’t want to hear what AI had to say. They wanted to hear what I had to say. I really feel like follow-up is, yes, if you’re desperate, sure, put in some automated digital response tools. It should make the response dialed in, like John is saying. And it is better than nothing and you will get deals from it. Don’t misunderstand me, but you should figure out a way to involve yourself in.

[00:38:44.910] – Jonathan Denwood

The process. I totally actually agree with you that we’re not… What I’m saying is what the problem is, if you don’t… Because of the volume and lower core… That is not the right term to use, Jonathan. Lower quality, I was going to say. It’s not lower quality, they’re just different. They’re at a different stage of purchase. I prefer that use of language. They are at different… They are further out the sales process than a personal recommendation normally. Normally, a specific type of Google search will be at a different stage of the sales journey. Facebook, not always, but normally is at a further stage of purchase, depending on the quality effort and the thought behind it. You’ve got to be aware of that. Because of that fact, you need to be able… You’re going to get a lot of leads, but they’re going to be at different stages of the sales process, so you need an initial response to them. Because if you’re getting hundreds or 50, 60, 70, and you’re also dealing with your normal workload, you will not be able to consistently touch those people at the first initial stage. That’s why you need a platform.

[00:40:12.420] – Jonathan Denwood

But where I do agree with Rob is then the purpose of that initial is to engage in conversation and then send them things of value after initial period where you’re sending text or automated email sequence. Then they should go on a list where you’re sending them quality content until if they either respond or they unsubscribe. But then you need to be able to actually know how long they’ve been on the list. Are they still receiving your quality content? Then you should ring them up if you have their phone number and engage in a personal conversation. It’s not a one-on-other. It’s the real successful agents are the ones that know how to mix technology with the personal touch. That’s what I would say about that.

[00:41:08.920] – Robert Newman

I got you. I’m going to agree with John, and we’re going to wrap the show up as I agree with John. Here’s what I’m going to tell you.

[00:41:15.710] – Jonathan Denwood

All of you. Can I recall that, Rob?

[00:41:17.790] – Robert Newman

What?

[00:41:18.390] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I recall that? I’m going to record that. I’m going to cut that video and keep it.

[00:41:22.590] – Robert Newman

It for- All right. Here’s what I’m going to close with. You guys will hear it here first. Ai is revolutionary. It’s going to do many amazing things for us. I am not disagreeing with the broad enthusiasm for AI. I am disagreeing with a lot of the immediate applications as it relates to real estate. And I am going to say that part of what you need to remember, all of you, is that already right now, without AI, personal one-to-one communication is becoming much rarer. Not text message, voice, or video. It’s becoming a bigger and bigger deal. Guess what? Ai is only going to increase that. You really want to set yourself apart in the market. It’s funny because some of you that have been applying old-school tactics where you actually call people and you talk to them or you knock on a door, you’re going to discover that these sales strategies that have long been ineffective are going to come back into their own because it’s becoming so rare that anybody wants to engage one-to-one anymore. Ai is just increasing that problem, not decreasing it. You heard it here first on The MailRight Show. That’s a prediction of mine for the future.

[00:42:40.330] – Robert Newman

John, in minute 42:20 on episode number 387, I made that prediction. You remember that. Ladies and gentlemen, we really love the fact that you’ve tuned in for us. We wish that we could give all of you a big hug. This is our big virtual hug today. So for those of you that have stayed tuned for the YouTube version, thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. John, how would you like people to reach out to you should they be inclined?

[00:43:11.400] – Jonathan Denwood

I’ll just go to the mel-right. Com website. Have a look at what we got to offer, give us some feedback, and if you think it could help you, book a demo and book a chat with me or Adam, and we’d love to show you how Melwright might be able to help you. Back over to you, Rob.

[00:43:28.170] – Robert Newman

Inbound, Arie-M has had its first viral campaign of 2023. It has been about Google My Business. It’s a huge topic. We’ve got calls flowing out of our calendar like I cannot believe. We introduced a new service that focuses only on hyperlocal, not on all the elements of SEO that we focus on. Honestly, the response has been astronomical. So for those of you listening to the show, if you’d like to call or email me, you can either call or email Robert@inboundrim.com, or you can email my assistant, Aubrey@inboundrim. Com. Thanks for tuning in. We really appreciate it. We’ll see you on the next show.