Most real estate salespeople either haven’t tried Facebook ads, or have dabbled without much success.
Most of them who try Facebook ads do one or more of the following:
- A listing ad
- An open house ad
- A “Hi, I’m a Realtor – call me!” style ad
- A home evaluation ad.
If I see another home evaluation ad I will jump out my window.
To do Facebook advertising well and stand out from everyone else, you need to be unique and more authentic with your ads. Flip the switch. Instead of promoting yourself or a listing, make your ads about the viewer and their needs, instead of your own.
The authentic formula… that works
Don’t promote; look for a problem to solve. If you focus on the viewer and their needs, you’ll get more response than focusing on your own need to sell real estate. The authentic way to approach Facebook ads is to focus on the pain point of a demographic. By appealing to their needs, you can get a lead who has a problem that you can solve.
An example of a pain point for the “upsizer” demographic, which is a young couple/family that purchased their first home a few years ago…. whatever they could afford, probably a condo or townhouse. Now they have growing children (who are driving mom and dad nuts). Their pain point is that their family has outgrown their home. So, if you create an ad targeting parents of young children with a headline like, “Has your family outgrown your home?” you can get their attention.
When you combine this formula with Facebook’s lead-generation ad type (one that is hyper focused on lead generation and collects lead information directly on Facebook without the need of designing or purchasing a landing page), you have a powerhouse ad strategy.
Why the demographic pain-point strategy works
The gravy from the leads that come in from a demographic pain-point strategy is that when you call them (you should always require a phone number on your lead-gen form), you already know something about them. This means that you have targeted questions to ask, and a problem that you can solve for them. And if you can solve someone’s problem, you’re significantly more likely to get their business.
With this formula you also catch leads before they’ve begun contacting other sales reps
Another huge benefit is that over time you’ll know your lead acquisition cost and client acquisition cost. Over the course of a few months you’ll get your average cost per lead, which you can multiply by how many leads you call to turn into a client. For example, if your average lead cost is $5/lead and you convert roughly one in 50, your client acquisition cost is about $250. You know that you can build your pipeline based on this number. If you spend roughly $250 – and then call the leads! – you’ll get a client. If you want roughly two clients each month, you need to spend $500.
How to implement this strategy
Setting up Facebook ads might be easier than you think. To create your Facebook ad using this formula, do the following:
- Go to your Facebook Ad Manager
- Click “create an ad”
- Select the lead-gen ad type
- Select the demographic targeting for your target audience (downsizer age brackets or parents of children between certain ages or whatever)
- Create your ad with an enticing image and your text around the pain point of that demographic in step four.
- Create your lead-gen form by clicking on the information you want. I recommend name, email and phone number (the more you ask, the less people respond and the fewer questions you have to ask them when you call them).
- Submit the ad!
Setting up Facebook ads isn’t rocket science…although there is a science behind it. When you initially create your ad, you will likely see a high cost per lead. Continue tweaking your audience and ad creative until you get the lead cost down to a profitable amount. If your lead cost remains high, consider hiring a professional (with a provable track record of success) as the lowered lead cost they can offer may pay for their services entirely.
Robin Wilding is the creative mind behind The Lead Gen Factory and The Realtor Pipeline. The Lead Gen Factory is a boutique real estate online marketing company hyper-focused on lead generation; The Realtor Pipeline is a digital DIY platform showing Realtors how to generate online leads, lead conversion, Social Media Marketing, sales pipeline building, and more. She also leads The Realtor Pipeline Facebook group, a group for Realtors to learn new online techniques, technology and share best practices.
