#478 – The Mail-Right Podcast Show:Realtors Why Your Digital Marketing Isn’t Working

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Real Estate Agents: Why Your Digital Marketing Isn’t Working

Jeff Wenberg is a marketing strategist with over 15 years of experience helping businesses grow fast, without burning everything down. He’s held key marketing roles at Leadpages, and led marketing at Zipify Apps and Salesmsg, where he helped scale customer acquisition and craft offers that consistently convert. Today, Jeff works with coaches and online entrepreneurs to address the real reason their sales stall: how they’re pitching what they do. He’s here to unpack what breaks when you try to scale a “proven” offer, and what to do when your audience stops buying.

Episode Full Show Notes

[00:00:02.620] – Jonathan Denwood

Hi there, folks. It’s the Mail-Right Show here. It’s episode 478. You’ve just got me, folks. Robert has been experiencing some technical issues with the Internet, but we have a guest, folks. We’ve got Jeff Weinberg with us. He’s a well-known marketing expert. We’re going to discuss some essential information about landing pages, ads, and why funnels aren’t working. Jeff’s a real expert on this. It should be a great discussion. So, Jeff, would you like to give the audience a quick intro about yourself and your background?

[00:00:49.820] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah, for sure. First, thank you for having me here. I’m super excited to be on the show. And I’m the most famous marketer you’ve never even heard of. So, I’ve been in digital marketing for about 15 years, doing everything from content creation to ads to emails – pretty much everything at some point in my career. I’ve had to do that. And through all these diverse jobs, I’ve gained some valuable experience in scaling marketing, both for teams and for generating leads, sales, and other key metrics. I got my start at a company called Lead Pages, where I was team member number 11. We grew to around 150 or 175 employees and had approximately 45,000 paying customers. So, really got to see what it took to develop a giant funnel like that and to generate multiple millions per month in revenue. And then moved to a company called Zipify Apps. It was within the Shopify ecosystem, where it was similar, but focused on e-commerce, and I really learned about paid ads and how to execute direct response campaigns, as well as influencer-style marketing.

[00:02:12.240] – Jeff Wenberg

And now I’m currently a director of Marketing at a company called Sales Message, where I’m doing the same thing, refining messaging, figuring out positioning and offers, and that stuff that works for more B2B businesses, and that stuff. As I mentioned earlier, throughout my career, I’ve had to do virtually everything. And the one thing that I found that I love focusing on is more around the offers you’re making and the messaging. I call them enrollment stories. When you craft an excellent enrollment story, it makes everything else work better. It makes your ads work better, your emails, your funnels, your sales, and everything else. And that’s the thing that most people overlook. So I’m looking forward to hopping into that today.

[00:02:55.260] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, that’s fantastic, Jeff. As you know, Jeff, on this podcast, we’ve got an emphasis on real estate agents and realtors. Many of them struggle significantly with digital marketing, becoming frustrated with providers who fail to deliver real results. And I also think they struggle, Jeff, is the concept of what a CRM is. Some industry-based ones focus on contact information, providing general information CRMs, and they often bolt on some landing page functionality that doesn’t work particularly well. They run campaigns for agents, but they’re not very successful. So I was looking forward to our discussion because you have so much experience, Jeff. Yeah, for sure. So let’s move on. So Jeff, why do some great offers stall when you scale, even with the proper funnels and that? The agency or the individual, or you’ve studied it a bit yourself, and you’ve done a reasonable job, but you’re just not getting the results, really, Jeff. Yeah.

[00:04:16.440] – Jeff Wenberg

This is just based on my experience. This is not like, this is what happens for 100% of the time. Usually when I see people really struggling to scale, it’s they don’t have an offer and messaging that really resonates with cold audiences. So that’s people that don’t actually know who they are, and maybe they’re seeing them for the first time. They’re trying to sell to them like they have already built the authority, have already built the trust, when it’s like, well, I don’t even know who you are. So that’s the equivalent of walking into a bar and asking somebody to marry you when you first meet them. And that’s such a cliché example, but that’s essentially what it’s doing. And then when they try to scale, because a lot of times that works on warm traffic because you’re borrowing authority from a platform you’re on or maybe a partner you work with or something like that. You don’t have to have things as dialed in because you’re borrowing that authority and you come pre-screened. So that’s different. And so they think like, wow, that’s working. Let me scale this out. And they start using the same messaging to people that don’t know who they are and they don’t have that trust and authority with.

[00:05:25.200] – Jeff Wenberg

And then all of a sudden, they’re like, why is this not working? I have no idea. Must be my ads. So they start tinkering with ads, or it must be like, Oh, my funnel, my landing page, my emails, all of these things, when in reality, what I’ve seen, at least, is it’s usually how they’re communicating the value of what they offer. So there’s It’s usually speaking about stuff that is so far down the line from where the person they’re trying to attract is at, that the person they’re trying to attract is just like, I don’t think that’s for me. When at the end of the day, it’s like, usually those people can help. They just are not the greatest at communicating their value. Does that make sense?

[00:06:04.260] – Jonathan Denwood

It does. Can you give some examples?

[00:06:07.840] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah. If you had an offer where it was… This is obviously going to be a made-up example, but if you had somebody that was walking through the desert, they’re dying of thirst, what most people do is they are going to be like, Hey, here is a golden cup with rubies, diamonds. It’s made out of pure solid gold. Would you like to buy it? It’s like, Well, no. First off, how are you out here in the desert? Where did you get the cup? But more importantly, I don’t even want the cup. I just want some water. What we really need to be doing to just start the conversation at the top of funnel without even selling anything with just our content is, Hey, would you like to find water in the next five minutes anywhere in the world? You know what I mean? Somebody that’s dying of thirst would be like, yes, I will. And then if you were like, this was an offer where you’re selling something, throw in, here’s a coffee can that you can drink it out of. So it’s like, you’re really just meeting them where they are, showing them what they need to know and what they’re actively looking for a solution to, and then maybe also offering a couple of extra little things to just push them over the edge.

[00:07:23.640] – Jeff Wenberg

Now, what most people do is it would be like This interview as an example, most of your audience has probably never even heard of me. If I came in here trying to sell whatever service or offering that I had, most of your audience would be like, Well, who is this guy? I mean, it sounds good, but also, I don’t know if I really trust him because I’ve never actually even talked to him before. Whereas if you had, let’s say, a guest on your podcast that had been around multiple episodes in your audience, every time that person’s on, they comment, all that stuff. That person is going to be able to sell to your audience like that. What I would need to do to sell is really connect with the struggles and the pain that your audience is having, and then talk about just that stuff on the interview, because then that would position me as a trusted authority, and I would be building trust and showing my authority by demonstrating my expertise. Does that make sense?

[00:08:25.000] – Jonathan Denwood

It does. If you decided to become a real estate, agent, and you were doing some cold, like Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, whatever the digital platform, and you were thinking of doing some campaigns. Got any tips or insights about what campaign you would run initially?

[00:08:49.500] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah. I mean, for what I would do, and obviously I’m not a real estate agent, but what I would do is I would start with just video view campaigns to to start talking about the problems that your target buyers are actively searching for solutions to. So maybe it’s, man, I just can’t find any homes under 500K, or maybe it’s all the homes that I am able to afford are two bedrooms, and I need three bedrooms. Whatever it is that is currently running in their head, that is the story they’re telling themselves, that’s where I would meet them. And as a professional realtor, maybe I know down of the line like, well, actually, I can find you a three bedroom home for under 500K, but you got to do these five things. I actually wouldn’t start there. I would hone in on, doesn’t it suck that you can’t find a home that has more than two bedrooms and everything good is priced over 500K. You know what I mean? Just entering in the conversation they’re already having and then create content and educate them on how you could find deals outside of that framework that most people maybe don’t know about.

[00:09:59.350] – Jeff Wenberg

So then they could see that I actually know what I’m talking about and know how to get them results, which would be the house they’re after.

[00:10:07.720] – Jonathan Denwood

I see where you’re coming from because I think, and what I got from that example is you’re trying to become that recognized expert, that person that can relate to the audience problems and needs. And then the more you’re seen as an authentic result, the more that you then maybe will be able to get them on a male list or have that conversation because really, real estate agents are looking for people that are actively looking to buy or sell. Right.

[00:10:43.030] – Jeff Wenberg

And it’s a little bit more of a long-term strategy, but why I recommend it is because you want to be the person they think of when they are ready to buy. You can do this so cheaply that you can target both at the same time. You target just a top of funnel, more awareness building type campaign. And then you can also target buyers. But for me, I would do the same thing. I wouldn’t be like, Hey, I got some houses that are available over on Cherry Street. I wouldn’t go straight to the… I would focus just on the problems they’re having and finding houses that they like.

[00:11:21.840] – Jonathan Denwood

You know what I mean? Yes, I do understand, and it’s fantastic. So onto the next topic. So what is What is the hidden clarity gap that keeps your content ads and sell calls from converting? I found this because Jeff gave me some areas that he would like to discuss, and this intrigued me quite a bit, Jeff, this whole concept. So maybe you can give us some insights in this. I say that we’re in the middle break, so I think we go for a break and then we discuss this in the second half. So we’re going to go for a break, folks. We’ll be back in a few moments. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a fantastic discussion with Jeff so far. He’s really explained some concepts really very well. So like I said, before we went for our break, I was just saying that was intrigued in this area that Jeff gave me a heads up that he wanted to discuss, and it was this hidden clarity gap. I’m really intrigued about this, Jeff, so maybe you can give us some insights about this topic.

[00:12:44.760] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah, for sure. One of the biggest things is, especially in real estate, you have to stand out somehow, and there’s a thousand agents in any given city, and how are you going to find the one? One And one of the biggest things is differentiating yourself from people. And I’m not just talking like, hey, I’ve got clothes that I wear, but how I recommend people differentiate. And then this is just part of the Clarity Gap. I’ll get to And I’ll get a couple of other pieces. But how they differentiate is by the problems that they talk about and the problems they solve, verse just like, hey, I help sell four bedroom houses, four or two, whatever the numbers are. It’s all like, well, who cares? I don’t know. It’s like you specialize in something, and you focus it on the problems. So I mean, being a homeowner as an example, one of the problems that we had was I couldn’t find anybody to advise us. We felt pretty alone in the home buying process. We found the house, and basically, then we had to just give the realtor the commission for just being there at the signing.

[00:14:02.050] – Jeff Wenberg

And it was like, well, this sucks. My wife found the house. They couldn’t help us negotiate because of, I don’t know, something like they were part of the same company, but in different branches or something. And it was like, well, Cool. This is awesome. I feel totally alone here. So I could use that and find more people that are in that situation and talk through what that was like, how to solve that type of problem. And, oh, Well, also, if you do need help finding a house where you’re able to leverage my expertise and experience to negotiate, to know what to look for, and I can help you no matter what the other real estate agent’s firm is, just give me a call. Essentially, we’re building a foundation of trust so that people feel like, Man, I want to call that person, versus just like, Yeah, I sell four or two homes, or four or three homes, whatever the bedroom and bathroom count is. Does that make sense so far?

[00:15:00.530] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, totally. And I think you explained it in a very interesting way. As you were explaining it, I think a lot of people, a lot of real estate agents or people in general will really struggle about Identifying these problems, though. They shouldn’t do, really, because they should write down conversations. But I think we all don’t because we’re all very busy. So you’re going to hear any insights It’s based on your experience about how people cover a few of these problems, which they can then talk about in their videos or their marketing, Jeff.

[00:15:42.940] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah. So this is where AI is so good. You can literally just talk to ChatGPT after a conversation. Just say, Hey, I just talked with Rachel and Ben. They’re over at so and so. They’re looking for this house. And here’s what they told me. They told me that Hey, I’m just going to use myself. They told me that everybody, like Realtor, they’ve been talking to and using, they’ve been completely alone. They haven’t had any help in actually finding houses they want. They’ve had to do most of the legwork. And then when it came down to things, they just felt like the real estate agent didn’t actually help them do anything. So they were left wondering what they were paying the agent for. Okay, you compile all with ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you want, and then you ask it to give you a summary of what are the common problems between all these people and what are the things that they’re saying in their language. That’s a really key thing is we want to use their language. We don’t want to take what they’ve said and then summarize it through our brain. We want to just literally copy and paste their words, because if they’re saying it one way, it’s likely that other people are also experiencing that.

[00:16:58.140] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, that’s That’s fantastic. On to the next one. Why your cold audience isn’t buying how to fix it without rebuilding everything? I think this is a fantastic question as well. So give us some insights about this.

[00:17:19.360] – Jeff Wenberg

With real estate, it’s obviously a relationship business. So it’s all about networking and building relationships and that stuff. So that’s what we call a warm audience. And then we have cold audiences where, like we were mentioning earlier, they’ve never even heard of you. They don’t know anything about you. What we need to do is move people from that cold audience into that warm audience. And we do that through just focusing on the problems. And I know I keep coming back to problems, but in my marketing journey, that’s actually been the thing that’s had the biggest impact. It’s never the ads I’m running, it’s never the funnel, it’s never emails, it’s never anything other than, am I Am I leading with the problem of the people I want to attract? Am I actually really, really going deep on the things that they’re experiencing and then the things they’re doing to try and solve that problem? And I would imagine that goes pretty deep with real estate. Maybe they can’t get funding, maybe it’s hard to find an agent, maybe it’s-I think the funding, I think there’s a lot of people because the prices increases, and then the interest rates increasing.

[00:18:37.040] – Jonathan Denwood

A lot of people now can’t actually afford to buy the property that they’re looking at, and they’re very frustrated.

[00:18:46.220] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah. Yeah, it’s all just like… I always say it’s like, instead of trying to convince somebody to come out of the river, they’re already floating going down and floating down. Hey, come over here to the shore so I can talk to you. Just jump in the river, float down with them so that they eventually just float off to the side, and then you can, Hey, I can help you find a house.

[00:19:14.760] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I think that’s a great concept because what I’ve just outlined, one of the more successful methodologies that agents have been using to deal with that is that with new build, a lot of the major builders have offering fantastic packages, reducing initial interest by three points, and that for three, some of them have been offering five years on reduced level of interest. And a lot of agents have gone into that because it solves the problem that I’ve outlined, Jeff. So I think that’s really insightful. You’re making me think already about my own. Awesome. Let’s move on. So what are some of the AI tools and services that come on your radar recently that you might have been tempted to use or you think they’re good concepts? There seems to be a lot of AI tools, services out there. I have tried a few of them, and some of them I am using. Others haven’t been that impressive. It seems a very all over the place with a lot of these. Is there any tools or services that have come on your radar that you’ve been impressed with?

[00:20:43.680] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah, so there’s obviously a ton of them, and it seems like there’s a new one coming out every day that does this specific thing. I’m still just a ChatGPT fan. I have a paid account because it gives you a little more access and stuff. But I think the thing that I like most about just AI in general is not like, Hey, create all this stuff for me and do these things for me. I like thinking of it more like a brainstorming partner. So it’s like whatever tool you decide to use, you talk to it like you’re brainstorming, like you and I, Jonathan, if we were brainstorming, I would talk to it the exact same way. You don’t have to act smarter than you feel or are. You It can be dumb and it won’t judge you.

[00:21:32.000] – Jonathan Denwood

That would be very difficult for me.

[00:21:36.220] – Jeff Wenberg

It’s really cool because it doesn’t judge you. It’ll just take what you say and summarize it in ways where it’s just like, Oh, my gosh, I never even would have thought of that, but that’s so awesome that it picked that out. The thing that the caveat that I always talk with my friends about in AI is you have to give it some raw material, and you still have to be the expert at just looking at its outputs and saying, That sucks, or, Wow, that’s really good, or maybe, Hey, just this part of it is really good. Redo the first part of it. You know what I mean? You still have to have a discerning eye, but it always works better if you give it some really good raw materials and then add your thinking and stuff on top of that and then tell it to synthesize everything into a new output, if that makes sense.

[00:22:27.980] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah. I got a A quick follow for your question, and it’s also linked to some of the other things that we’ve discussed in this interview. I think a lot of people don’t… Because I understand that with a lot of copy, they say you want to reduce the reading age. Much lower than you think, because I know myself on websites, I just skim read. I’m just skim reading. And then I might look at some video on the website, or if it’s something I’m researching, then I will read more intently. So do you think that’s a general problem, that people tend to… It’s a bit too worthy in general. They need to reduce the readability. What’s your own thoughts about this?

[00:23:18.220] – Jeff Wenberg

Yes, that’s good. But the reason is that people try to be too clever and too cutesy with things when it’s just to keep it simple and get to the point. Tell me, what is this, and what will it do for me? I don’t want to hear your alliterations and your fun, cute little ways of saying something when it’s like, ‘ Tell me what this is that I’m looking at, and what the value is I’m going to get out of it. ‘ So, that’s why I think a standard copy rule is that it helps people be like, ‘ Okay, yeah, I have to simplify this and be very clear. ‘ But even with that, it still feels like most and a lot of people just make it too complicated and just hard to understand. And that’s one of the things we were discussing earlier, which also affects how you refine your offer and addresses the clarity gap. When you know the problem, but then fail to communicate it clearly and, it doesn’t land. And then people are like, Why aren’t people getting this? It’s like, Come on.

[00:24:28.720] – Jeff Wenberg

Well, look at how you’re communicating and what you’re communicating; you’re likely making it too complicated for someone to understand.

[00:24:35.580] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, yeah, I agree with you there. So, let’s proceed to the final question. If you had your time machine, like H.G. Wells, or if you’re into Doctor Who, the TARDIS, if you had your own TARDIS, and you could go back to the beginning of your career, is there one or two little things you would love to be able to tell yourself? And the one thing you don’t know yourself, Jeff, is that you shouldn’t have come on this podcast. So that’s excluded, Jeff. But is there anything else you would like to go back in time for?

[00:25:11.680] – Jeff Wenberg

I would get super clear on what I want to do and what I do for other people. Marry those two so you’re in alignment and they’re in alignment. And that’s a huge deal that many people miss: they’re not in alignment with their offer. They’re just doing what they think people want. So, it is very clear what you want and what you want to do for other people that gives them value. Be very clear about that, and then simplify things.

[00:25:48.760] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, that’s the art. A key message in both your personal and professional life is to keep things simple.

[00:26:00.940] – Jeff Wenberg

Simplify, simplify, simplify, whenever possible.

[00:26:04.820] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s been fantastic, Jeff. So what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and your insights, Jeff?

[00:26:13.980] – Jeff Wenberg

I’m at jeffwindberg. Com, J-E-F-F-W-E-N-B-E-R-G. And also, I am jeffwindberg on Instagram. Those are my two best spots.

[00:26:24.560] – Jonathan Denwood

Right. And that’s fantastic, Jeff. We’re going to wrap it up. Yeah, it sounds great. You’ve given some honest thoughts. You made me think. I’m thinking of it because I’ve acquired the Melright business, and I’ve also started another business. Although we initially took a hit in terms of traffic, we’ve managed to build it back up. However, the conversions have decreased slightly. However, I need to consider my homepage. I worked on it and worked on it, and I have slimmed it down. I need to think about it a bit more.

[00:27:03.520] – Jeff Wenberg

Yeah, for sure.

[00:27:04.400] – Jonathan Denwood

Based on the principles you so clearly have outlined in this interview.

[00:27:09.460] – Jeff Wenberg

Can you put it on how it goes? Yeah.

[00:27:12.420] – Jonathan Denwood

So we’re going to end it now, folks. Hopefully, next week, my partner in crime, Robert, will be able to join us. We’re either having an internal discussion or we have another great guest like Jeff. Hopefully, you’ve got some value from this episode. I have. It’s made me think a bit. Hopefully, it will make you feel the same way. We’ll be back next week, folks. Bye.

[00:27:34.230] – Jeff Wenberg

Thanks for having me.