Why Facebook Ads are a waste of time (and what to do instead to get vals and win instructions)
You look at your diary and the empty pages stare back at you. You have no vals booked in for the foreseeable future. Or if you do, they’re low in value or commitment.
What do you do?
Option 1 – create a Facebook Ad offering a ‘FREE!’ valuation and blast it out to your area
Option 2 – go back to basics and make sure you’re doing the foundational activities that worked decades ago.
Option 1 is easy, quick, relatively cheap, and almost completely ineffective.
Option 2 is tough and slower but actually works.
If you’re a give-me-the-easy-option kind of person, stop reading now and go get your ad up.
If you’re still reading, let me take you through what we do to create vals, aiming for one per day over £500,000, and half of these over £1 million.
Instruction winner 1 – Relentlessly follow up
Every single vendor you’ve visited – ever – should be followed up with until you get a YES or a NO. You don’t have to nag, pressure or bully them to practice relentless follow up – you need to demonstrate value, be helpful, and always get permission to contact again. Every surprise board is your fault – in other words, if a rival agent’s board goes up outside a home you’ve valued but not kept in touch with, you only have yourself to blame. It’s happened to us before, and it’s always those homes who you thought were either a given, or that they were nowhere near ready to sell, or both.
Instruction winner 2 – Send OTM letters
Every home that’s already on the market but you’d like to list should be getting regular letters from you. Make them long, personable, informative and full of your personality. Don’t worry about ‘triggers’ – sending a letter just because they’ve reduced their asking price is a flawed tactic. Just send a letter once a month until they ask you to stop, or they call you.
We write OTM letters for our Firewave members every month – find out if your area is available now by going to www.fire-wave.co.uk/start and entering your regular details.
Instruction winner 3 – Send NOM letters
Every quarter, send an information-rich letter to all the homes you’d want to list if they came to the market. In our area, that’s all the F, G and H council tax band homes. We send a quarterly letter to around 1,500 homes, and this year our three letters have produced around 120 vals (so far). The vast majority of these (by definition) have been over £1 million, and this has pushed our average fee to nearly £15,000. Our letters are part market update, part useful information and part soft sales pitch. Give it a compelling headline, and include statistics, graphs, a PS and a photo of you.
Our quarterly NOM letters for our Firewave members have generated millions of pounds in instructions this year. Find out more www.fire-wave.co.uk/start
Instruction winner 4 – Create an audience of fans
Community building is a long-term strategy but it’s one of the most robust because it builds advocacy and loyalty. We run our own marketing club (current membership 350), hold a Christmas giveaway campaign with 12 local businesses and hold a garden party every summer. We also go live on our Facebook page twice a week and post lots of photos showing our ‘behind the scenes’.
If all you’re doing is attending the local networking club, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Instead, build a community doing things other agents can’t and won’t do, and that means doing things that will take you out of your comfort zone. Who wants to be in a comfort zone anyway??
Instruction winner 5 – Create content that positions you as an expert
What do you think homeowners Google when they’re thinking of selling? Here are a few of my ideas:
- Should I move house or extend
- Storage solutions for toys
- How to downsize
- Home styling ideas
- How much are estate agency fees
The fact is homeowners are searching for information right now. But are you supplying it?
Here are a few of our recent blog titles:
- Thinking of changing estate agents? – Our smooth move guide
- How to add thousands to your home with our pro styling tips
- 6 simple steps to prepare your home for viewings
- What to do when your home isn’t selling – 8 steps to boost your marketing
- Unique homes – how we value them accurately
- How to choose the best estate agent – 11 questions to help you decide
- Planning to downsize? start your new chapter in your next home
- Secrets of fabulous property photography – learn from the pros
- Seven reasons to sell in September
If you were selling your home, most of those blog post titles would appeal to you, wouldn’t they? Your local homeowners are looking for a trustworthy source of expert information, so make sure that’s you.
These five instruction winners are what we use to fill our diaries with the very best most profitable valuations for our agency.
And not a Facebook ad in sight….
WHAT TO DO NEXT:
Go to www.fire-wave.co.uk/start and pop in the details of your competitive area, with no obligation to become a client. We can tell you if and how we can help you to reach your financial goals and be the best in your area.
And then join our private Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/FirewaveEA/ to discover the tricks, tactics and marketing strategies we use to grow our own agency, AshdownJones, so you too can have the agency of your dreams – systemised, profitable and growing strong.
Sam and Phil
