Posted on 17/02/2021 by alex

When done well, as an Estate Agent you can expect your email inbox to be overflowing with new leads from Facebook ads everyday with minimum effort. Sounds too good to be true?

In this blog, I will guide you through how you can use Facebook ads and receive new leads from this channel.

What is a Facebook ad?

Your Estate Agency has a Facebook profile right? If not, why not? Infact never mind that, can I suggest that you create one super fast? But after you have finished reading this blog!

From your Facebook profile you can create Facebook ads whether that be to sell properties or to obtain more leads, that you can later convert into new instructions.

Did you know you can do superpower stuff such as showing your ad to homeowners in the catchment area of your Estate Agency? Or to renters that you know will be looking to purchase their first home soon?

Do Facebook ads even work?

In a word - yes!

But I’m sure you want a more convincing answer as to why you should be doing them.

In past blogs, I’ve written about hanging out where your audience is. This is primarily why Facebook ads work.

A nerdy fact alert - Facebook has a global audience of approximately 1.5 BILLION people – around one-fifth of the entire planet’s population, give or take a few hundred million.

Understandably, this statistic is pretty exciting when you’re thinking about advertising in this way and you have every reason to get giddy over these numbers.

There is no other social network that comes close to the size of Facebook’s audience.

The larger the pool of people there are to advertise to, the more specific you can get with who you want to see your adverts. Something that you could never do with a leaflet door drop because you have no idea who is living in the houses.

There are certain characteristics that you already know about your potential audience. Use that knowledge to help your future customers, to find your service.

You can look for people of a certain age, their personal interests, how they like to buy and lots of other criteria that can help you to get your Estate Agency in front of the right people.

Did you know that you can even target people that are thinking of moving house?

And as more and more people start to use Facebook (as they are doing) the more people that you can show your adverts to.

What are the benefits to doing Facebook ads?

As if advertising where your audience is wasn’t a strong enough motivator, here’s all the other benefits you get from placing Facebook ads.

Your future customers are on Facebook every day

You’ve heard me say this before and I probably will say it again. You want to be where your prospective customers are - right?

Not only are they using Facebook, but they are on it every day.

It’s super cheap!

It may surprise you to know that for only £5 a day, you could receive an average of 72 new valuation leads a month!

But wait, here’s the really exciting results, of those enquiries between 10 -20% can be converted into face to face valuations!

Of course, you need to take into account that this is done by the experts that have been creating and perfecting Facebook ads for many years and know exactly how to generate quality leads for you.

And even when you have those leads you don’t want to be confined to a desk following up on them.

Instead you want to be where you are at your best; attending viewings and negotiating the next sale.

Therefore, it isn’t surprising that 75% of our Estate Agent clients ask us to follow up on those leads to book valuations on their behalf.

Any idea how much it would cost to do a local radio advert or a billboard? A lot. And money that you would not gain back in leads or in new instructions.

With Facebook ads you set your budget and away you go.

It’s quick

You can get an advert in front of your potential customers today, well after you’ve finished reading my blog.

More people will know who you are

For potential customers to come to you, they first need to know you exist.

With your adverts reaching thousands of people, your future customers will start to recognise your Estate Agency brand.

The more often people see your brand the more likely they are to want to use your service. They have got to know you, because you’ve been hanging out with them and they’ve been seeing you every day on Facebook.

This is the same reason why board presence is so important.

Think of a Facebook ad as a digital board but rather than being seen by a few hundred people at the most, your ad will be seen by 15 - 20,000 people!

You’ll find more people are also visiting your website. There they can see all the properties you have available and how quickly you are selling them.

You will probably find that when you start to invest in Facebook ads that you will also get more customers coming through the front door. These customers have seen your ads and felt that your brand is one that they can trust and that’s a motivator for them to want to pop into your branch.

You don’t have to a be a big Estate Agency

It doesn’t matter whether there are a handful of you, whether you’re an independent, whether no-one outside of your town has ever heard of you, none of that matters in Facebook advertising.

As long as your ad is appealing to the audience that you are trying to reach, then they are most likely going to want to know more about you and your service.

It takes the guesswork out of advertising

Ever had to justify your marketing spend? And then explain what results you got from that spend? It’s near to impossible to do isn’t it?

Well Facebook advertising takes all the guesswork out and in turn removes those awkward conversations.

At any given time you will know how much you have spent, how many people have seen, clicked and converted into a lead from your advert.

It’s happening all right now

Facebook advertising is happening in the here and now, so if you want to change something on the ad you can do it straight away. Imagine trying to do that when an ad is due to be aired on the radio?

Potential customers can interact on your ad

Just like any Facebook post, viewers can like, share and comment. When your ad is shared it will naturally get you in front of more people who are likely to be in the position to want to sell or buy their next house.

You can grow your email mailing list

By creating a short form, once someone clicks on your ad, you can ask for an email address.

Another option is that you can direct traffic from the ad to your website and use the enquiry form on your website to capture more information.

But why stop there, why not use ads to increase the number of people who are seeing and reading your blog? You can create a Facebook ad that does that as well!

You can show your advert to people that have visited your website

Yep, it works the other way round too.

Perhaps you have experienced this yourself.

You’re on a website looking for a blender but you wanted to check with your partner whether the item is suitable.

Then what happens an hour later? You start seeing adverts for that website showing you the same blender...coincidence you may think?

No, it's just clever advertising. Pretty cool hey? This naturally gets you thinking and reminding you of the blender that you nearly bought.

What our clients think about Facebook advertising

I caught up with a few of our clients and asked their thoughts about Facebook advertising and the service we provide.

Here’s what Acquire Properties told me:

“Impressive! I was very sceptical at first and the numbers just kept coming in. Their approach isn’t ‘one cap fits all’, very accommodating to our needs and to top it all off they covered 6 months’ membership fees within 1 week of working with us”

Here’s what Easyproperty had to say;

“I opened my estate agency in September and have used Agent Extra for my lead generation now for just over two months. They produce adverts on social media which generate inbound enquiries from homeowners into my business which they then follow up with via email and SMS over a long period of time to nurture them. Since starting they've generated over 200 new vendor enquiries which is invaluable and has led to a busy diary of valuations! I would recommend working with Jack and Danny to any of my network when it comes to lead generation”

Oh just one more!

“To take your business to the next level - CALL JACK ASAP”

“I must say how impressed I have been with them. I was one of those that thought it was just a good old Mickey Mouse - but I WAS wrong, and I don't like to be wrong. I wish I had called Jack a year ago. My business is flying in less than a month and I've had over 100 leads - the rest is down to us but what a great team and their approach to work ethics and result is great and support is brilliant”

How much would it cost to run a Facebook ad?

A reminder that for only £5 a day, you could receive an average of 72 new valuation leads a month!

But how much will it cost if you brought this in-house?

Well that all depends on if you have the skills and experience in-house? or do you need to get some expert help?

Are you prepared to test different ads and see what works? Such as different images, text and testing your ads with different audiences.

Can we help?

Hopefully, you will agree that Facebook advertising is for your Estate Agency.

But perhaps you are daunted by the idea of trialling this. We understand. That is why our portfolio of Estate Agency clients is increasing everyday providing this very service.

Need help with your blogging? Come and talk to me about that too!

I’d love to show you how it can be done. Let’s chat.