Sick of spending thousands on real estate leads that rarely convert? If you could, wouldn’t you rather focus your conversion efforts on prospects who already want to work with you?
Mike Cuevas
Good news — you can!
Mike Cuevas, aka The Real Estate Marketing Dude, is an industry veteran who decided to transition away from sales to help agents build authentic brands that generate business more naturally.
In the podcast below, Cuevas shares his expert advice on rebranding a real estate business. He also offers tips on video ads, direct mail and more, so be sure to give it a listen if you’re looking to overhaul your marketing efforts.
For an overview of Cuevas’s three top tips on real estate marketing, read on.
Market with authenticity
We’ve all heard the saying “like attracts like.” In Cuevas’s experience, it rings true.
About 10 years ago, Cuevas decided to completely rebrand himself, adopting the “Chicago Real Estate Dude” title along with a cartoon caricature for his marketing materials.
Most of his peers told him it was a crazy move, but it worked.
Cuevas managed to bring in more business than before and more people he truly enjoyed working with. By marketing himself in a more authentic manner, he attracted fun, easygoing clients who, in many cases, later became friends.
Ultimately, Cuevas’s decision to overhaul his brand was a good one, and he believes that more agents would find more success and fulfillment by doing the same.
So, if your brand isn’t something that really communicates who you are on a personal and professional level, consider making some changes. Like Cuevas, you might find that a more authentic approach to marketing is more effective.
Don’t buy into the BS
There’s a lot of bad marketing advice out there. Here’s one example: Go live on Facebook daily.
The idea is that going live is a great way to take advantage of how Facebook prioritizes live video on users’ feeds. Although it’s true that going live could put you in front of more eyes than a standard video upload, doing this daily is more likely to hurt your image than it is to help it.
Unless you’re able to push out entertaining, informative live content on a daily basis, don’t do it. No one wants their feed saturated with sales pitches or market reports, which is what 90 percent of agents focus their live content on.
Cuevas’s suggestion on live video marketing is this: Opt for quality over quantity. When you have something of true value to offer, put it out there. When you don’t, give your audience a break.
Copy what works
Unless you want to generate all of your business via prospecting, you need marketing.
But you don’t need to, nor should you, try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to creating a marketing strategy.
Instead of starting from scratch, Cuevas suggests working from the ideas already proven by big-name marketing companies.
Hallmark, for instance, is a great company to look to for inspiration when it comes to staying top-of-mind. They built their business around cards and other products designed to wish people happy holidays, and the ideas they use can be repurposed without much effort for real estate marketing materials.
When holidays like Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day come around, take advantage of these opportunities to tell clients and referrers how thankful you are for their business, how much you love working with them.
With consistency, this practice will help you maintain top-of-mind awareness so that you’re able to generate more business from your database contacts without constantly calling them.
For more real estate marketing ideas, listen to my podcast interview with Mike Cuevas.
Pat Hiban sold more than 7,000 homes over the course of his 25-year career in real estate. Now, he dedicates his time to helping others succeed as agents and investors. As host of the Real Estate Rockstars Podcast, Pat interviews real estate experts to explore what works in today’s markets. He also founded Rebus University, an online training platform for real estate agents and sales professionals.
