Hey, welcome to this week in marketing! I'm the special guest Jason Pantanas here too. I Want to talk about four things that all great businesses have in common and that is number one. They have a great brand, The association, the feeling that people have evokes something and they say I want more of that. Number two is they've got a great product.

That could be the listings that you take, but in today's day and age, it's also the way you package and deliver the services that you provide that is your product. Number three They've got great marketing and marketing is all about building no like trust, building your tribe of people that want to engage with you. And the last one, Number four is great sales and distribution. So Jason I'm jumping into your show.

What's going on man. Well, technically it's your show I'm just hanging out here in Dallas looking to have some fun times talking about marketing channels to make your brand explode in 2024. So that is the topic of the day. Every everybody's talking about what do I have to do better and differently in 2024? So so we're talking like distribution I'd put that under channels and distribution being the same.

So in in your view today, if a real estate agent wants to put their brand on steroids, what are the five different channels they should be focusing on? You share I'm going to interject with some questions Let's Jam Yeah so first before I dive into the list I think it's important to address why I think when you look at your own Marketplace you're going to recognize that hey, the top producing agents have the strong Brands This is a Marketplace of the rich and the rest And what I'm seeing with my own personal coaching clients is if they've invested in doing the work to build an audience that knows likes and trusts them. and they have a platform of thought leadership where they can go to that audience to make the right kinds of sales offers because they know their customer so well. If they've done that work to build something that's going to have an asset and have value over time, then they're in the position to actually win in 2024. So the work you do right now in terms of the channels that build your audience this is this is an investment.

This is an asset because too many times I come across agents who have like oh I just want now money I want a now opportunity This is us so that when those opportunities come along to make a sales offer, you have the Right audience for it. And in terms of channels, the first channel on my list is the obvious. Channel 2024 is yet another year where video Reigns Supreme Video content of all types vertical video, long form video. for podcasting.

We know that YouTube for instance, has gotten very very aggressive with podcasting. Right now they have their own. They're the only place where people watch podcasts right. And so looking at the opportunities of video, the double Down this year is going to be an absolute topof your list channel for building your brand.

So so I want to just acknowledge for everyone listening or watching however you're consuming this content it it was so apparent to me. not in 2007 when I got on YouTube Yeah, but in the early 9s when we were creating VHS video products and people would say oh my goodness I saw the live listing you did and I knew that that was from a sales training series that I recorded in 1992 that was being sold all the way up until 1999. I knew it then as I know it now. But today, the thing that I'm seeing the sort of Separation Jason between brand or lesser brand.

Yeah, the agents with brands are getting called upon, right? The agents with brands are getting called upon and we see it in the trailing 12mth data. The top 1% of agents in the US are up three basis points year over-year on the a number of listings that they're taking. What that tells us is there's a massive consumer flight to Quality Just like what we experienced during the pandemic, people went to premium Brands things that they trusted. but on the flip side, the agent going into 2024, who who's maybe unwilling to go on camera do videos? do the other? you know, four distribution channels you're going recommend.

The reality is, they're always going to compete on price. They're always going to be potentially graveling to get the business because consumers have a choice. and they're going to go with with the choice that they. Well, of course.

I Got to call Sarah She's everywhere. Of course. I Got to call Phil He's everywhere. He seems to have all the listings.

That's who's winning. So so is there A. Is there a hack today that you would recommend for video for someone that maybe you haven't shared in the past? Something new? Something different? Or is it just is? It just tried and true? It's a little bit of both. And so as far as the tried and true is concerned, uh, the types of videos that we're seeing win most effectively in our ecosystem of coaching clients are property tours.

There is something magic about you showing properties. It puts you inside the thing that's for sale. It shows the consumer what you're doing, which is showing and selling homes. Okay, wait a minute, That's HGTV.

So of course we should be doing that. People, people like schedule time to watch television to do what you're asking agents to do every single day. So property tours and it's an it's a valuable item to them because it takes them inside properties. It's got entertainment value, It's hyper local so they can get a oh our house is better than that one.

So I would say property tour videos are the lowest hanging fruit and easiest opportunity. Uh, a lot of our coaching clients are crushing it with informational videos. we call those Talking Heads where it's just them on camera, sharing news and advice and feedback about what's happening in the marketplace that's relevant for their hyper local consumer. Yes, and the last type of video that we're seeing is super successful is localized videos where you're talking about local businesses or local amenities.

Uh, without going into a lot of detail, the algorithms are becoming much, much, much more interest based and so if you make content that aligns with the interest that locals would have local coffee shops, local businesses, local areas. algorithmically, these platforms like Instagram are going to be a little bit disposed to go ahead and show that to locals so you can build your brand through local video that way. So let me double Dam on that. I Was recently chatting with David Melee, who is the President of Homes.com and I asked him what is your strategy you know to what's going to be like your degree of separation.

He said we're going to go really hard on local content inside of the community so everybody knows the walking score. Everybody know knows the listings that are available. That's almost like table Stakes Today they said we believe fundamentally that if we get people more of the local insights in so that's going to be agents blogging, it's going to be agents videos like they're like we're going to go to the marketplace and we're going to find the people that have the right content and put it in display. I Mean could there be a better opportunity if you get that opportunity? I Mean it's going to be bananas.

So it is. So we so we know we know this is one of the strategies. So what's the number two? Channel Video Number one. Atically we got to do it.

Number Two is the greatest of all time marketing channel. It's email. We're seeing agents crush it with email and a lot of folks are leveraging email and they're Outsourcing it. Or it's canned and it's not getting the level of response that canned campy stupid.

you don't read the emails. Yeah, and and that's a disservice to the people who subscribed to your email list. I Mean if somebody's willing to say yes, message me. They expect some level of quality and so the types of emails that are having the greatest effect are one.

The Weekly News Newl A lot of you are sending it out monthly. That's not often enough. You've got to cut through the noise. People are getting lots of emails every day and so if you want to be, if you want to cut through the noise, it needs to be more of your newsletters.

And those newsletters are I'm going to make this comment though, so think about your favorite News Channel or your not so favorite News Channel They email you two to three times a day and in many cases you have an app that has a popup notification for something that's relevant to you. So for me, like Bloomberg is like the only News Channel I have and I want to know what's going on in the Asian markets I Want to know what's going on in Fintech and Bing bing bing bing bing. It's interesting to me. so I want that? So so we have people that are sending emails monthly and I would argue.

probably getting little to no response. you're saying weekly I Could make the argument for some of our clients daily I could to daily. If you have something valuable that they're interested in, that's the key and so that then goes back to your content if you're making videos. If you're making content, having content is like having money.

right. When you have money all of a sudden, you think about where can I put that money. How can I utilize that money? Contents like that and one of the ways it can be utilized is by putting it into your emails like like Matt Curtis One of his email is literally crushing it to an over 50,000 person email list. He's sending three emails a week and he's getting listings from it.

He's getting buyers from it because those emails are crushing. So I would say in 2024, you ought to look really closely at your newsletter minimum weekly. But if I mean hey, a really good thought exercise is How good and useful does this have to be? In order that I can send it every day and people don't hate me for it because you also have to remember, like every video you publish, every email you send, you are incrementally building your brand. Yes, and so operating from a plan and not just winging it is an important consideration.

But as far as the opportunistic channels, yeah, your email is huge. And do you realize that people check their emails every day and it's generally the first bit they check that most the average person checks their inbox before they go to social media? Exactly. So I think we should create a Weekly Newsletter which is you know? here's what's going on in Cincinnati But I think you should also do one on Friday Called the weekend I Love it, right? And the weekend is? Here's what's maybe going on in town, but here's also a tasty listing. Hey, here's an open house.

We're doing like it's I think when you when you name it something, it comes to life. So so maybe you're not going to call yours the weekend, you're going to call it something else. You're going to call it like you know the SK you know the school banana Fest whatever it is. name hor name but you know I couldn't get a name and I saw a banana over there and it just happens.

But you're going to name it something. Deal of the week right? Here's the deal of the week. Here's the hot property: Mark Mondays right? Market Mondays You know mindset Mondays right? You know Tom Fery Show you're you're gonna name it something to give it life. All right.

So number one is I'm going video number two. Email rules today and most people Totally Miss the Mark what's number three? Number three is to keep going after reviews specifically reviews on Google um and also I'm going to tell you on Yelp as well and I have my reasons for it. Now, if you've been watching this week in marketing, you've heard me talk about Google Business profiles and Google reviews nauseum and I will continue to do so. but I want to share some new information that I haven't shared anywhere to anybody other than my own personal coaching clients.

Google's made some adjustments and they are downshifting and this is going to be slightly technical, but you've been listening to me talk for a while. Most of you there is a section of Google called the map Pack. If I do a Google search for best Realtor in Nashville Tennessee For instance, the Map map. The map pack is the portion where you see on the right hand side bar generally a square map with three business listings.

The map pack displays the top three Google Business profiles in Google For that given search, now your reviews have a huge impact in terms of whether or not they're going to show your profile versus somebody else because there could be tens of thousands of other agents who also have Google Business profiles. and so Google has to make a split decision about what's the best, best optimized profile for that search to rank. So that's the map pack and that's how you get discovered on Google What's new and interesting and a little bit frustrating is Google has been testing moving that map pack down further on the page so it used to be very high up on the page and a lot. I've been watching it for about a month and I've been reading up on it through some of the local SEO people that I listen to and we're definitely seeing it move down.

Why My assumption is they're going to try to make a play for their local Services ads at the top and they want to create separation. Smart. My assumption: The local Services ads are a bit of a cluster right now, so they've got some organization to do because they keep putting people who don't belong in your Market in your Market to get the ads and it's It's not overly useful. so I want say not? In every case, though, you and I both know I'm thinking of like Kelly Bob Bear shout out to Kelly right? Kelly Bob So literally this guy did $11 million in sales, 11.2 million.

he's already at 15 million year to date when I asked him what's the biggest degree of separation he's like Jason Pantana Google Business page Google local Services ads putting up reviews filling every button that that Google made available I've done all of that. Check out his profile Kelly Bob Bear Unbelievable real estate agent. super human being and it was really you and Google like he just he's crushed it here. I Love being on the same list as Google Google and me I like that? Yes, Jason and Google I love that.

So I'm not saying you should not continue to prioritize your Google business profile. I am saying they're tinkering right now. Yeah, what I've noticed is Yelp is being put above that Google Map Pack pretty often Yelp Tremendous. SEO You can tell me all your complaints about Yelp and I'll share those complaints with you.

There's a lot of stuff about it that's frustrating at the same time. If you're determining where to put the reviews, you got to look at Yelp now. I Was looking at some research yesterday from one from our friends at Thousand Watt and it was really I Mean they put out amazing, amazing research and they had a data point that talked about how we have long expected that the consumer hires an agent they know, like can trust. Uh, I Believe the statistic that N has shared is that 63% of sellers in the past year found their agent to list and sell their home by way of repeat referral business.

What I'm getting at is it's been long tested that you're most likely to get listings from within your immediate Circles of sphere of influence and your connections who make referrals and repeat business with you. However, what their study revealed was different and I think it's because of what you said. We're in a challenging Marketplace and when that happens, there's a flight to Quality right? We've seen that number on their research come down quite a bit and what's gone up proportionately is the consumer Reliance on reviews and those types of platforms. So I'm encouraging you in 2024, recognizing that the market will likely be a challenging Market that will continue to drive the consumer toward that flight of quality youve got to invest in building your brand, and you've got to help your or leverage your customers to help create reviews that can tell that story.

Specifically, getting testimonials or reviews from your sellers is the most important because it is much more consistent that a seller goes searching for an agent than a buyer. buyers Google Search for houses, sellers look for agents and so making sure you're going to crush it on Yelp You're going to crush it on Google on all the top review platforms is Paramount in terms of building your brand I Love it I Love it. Okay, what's number We're on Four four. Number four is events events.

None of these are rocket science, but it's events. But we're talking about channels of distribution. We're talking about ways to enhance your brand and everybody does this. but they do it half.

You know, not everybody. Some people do it ex well shout out to Jen Dillard right? She major 24 events this year or something to that effect and it ranges from pumpkin carving to pictures with Santa right? Jen is the queen at Community styled events Yes, where she builds her brand through events, another idea or another agent who comes to mind is Dave Archeleta, right? Dave Archeleta runs a weekly softball league that is weekly reminders of his business and and his philanthropy in terms of his contribution and giving to his community. Through his softball league. he also does his uh, he has a wine tasting.

He doesn't like wine, but he does a wine tasting once a month for the community called it taste Purple. That's just his personality. that's just hysterical. Yes, but it's it's endearing.

Jim Jim Bishop Riding bikes Randy AA Riding bikes Like riding motorcycles like they've created these community experiences and and again we go back to like. like what is it about a brand that we select and it's they create an emotion. They create an experience that's memor like we talked about earlier like Seth Goen right? if if Hyatt decided to build a Sho line we'd be like huh? But if like Nike decided to build a hotel, we kind of know exactly what that experience would be like. So you know the the line is that you know Nike basically has a brand and Hyatt has a logo.

That's right and there's a big difference. like Nike makes me feel something Tesla makes me feel something. By the way you see uh Joe Rogan shoot the arrow into the new Tesla Super Truck No Oh my goodness it was so so awesome. We got to add that clip in someplace and I'm like I'm like number like 500 on the list for the super truck I can't even wait to shoot an arrow at it just to see how what it's like I mean just.

But my point is like Tesla creates a feeling Jason pantana creates a feeling. Tom FY creates a feeling. Events associate you with that positive feeling so it should be part of your strategy for 2024 and it links so nicely. We talked about local videos, Well, local events.

What a natural extension of being all about your community and what it can also be different types of events. It could be a lot of our clients host happy hours where they just do a round and they start getting connections with their own contacts. They do housewarming parties where they sell a house to a buyer. They invite everybody's friends.

Mega Open houses inviting the neighbors. That's another event. How about uh, seller seminars, right? Any kind of educational thing? How about like Dave Robless? Hey, we're going to do a book drive like that's an event Sack and Stone does a shredding event. Events, Events Events are an opportunity.

And it could be community events. It could be events in your geoarm Monica car all summer long. The ice cream truck mom you have to list with Monica she's the one that brings us ice cream. Her average sales price is 2 million bucks in Southern California And one of her strategies is an event around an ice cream truck during summer in her Geographic Farm What else I love about events is there are a lot of folks who are intimidated by the digital market.

Like email marketing has a lot of technical aspects to it. Video it does as well. Events is as straight laced. As It Gets In Terms of there's not any complexity, it's just will you do it.

What's your mindset around that? So I think event, it's put it in your calendar. I'm going to do one event a month because we all know proximity. Is Power Get around people. Good things always happen.

Period. End of story 100% What's number five? Number five is mailers leveraging mailers of all shapes and sizes to include postcards to include potentially magazines to include handwritten notes. Any type of a mailer opportunity. Uh I Was talking with uh, our friend Luke over at Reminder Media Yes and he shared a comment that has had me thinking for a couple of weeks since I interviewed him.

He said the average American household receives only two pieces of marketing mail per day. Think about how many marketing emails you get per day, how many marketing ads you see per day. The access to the consumer in their traditional mailbox is more open now than it's been in a long, long, long time. So we can talk about how oh, sending out postcards is cost prohibitive.

Well, when you think about the ratio to attention and the ratio to actually getting the light of day, I would argue it's not overly expensive. see: I would I would liken it to um Ken KY Who I interviewed on my show millions of years ago Ken does 25 to 30 infomercials a year but he's only been doing it since 1987. like like Fortune 500 companies call him and say how do we sell our product on television in short and long form. The guy is absolutely brilliant so you should definitely watch that show but he would say we went.

We went on the this transition from television which it was just simply call this 800 number to now it's go online right? So they still do the TV but then they say instead of saying call now they say you can call or visit us online at X and I think what people need to take from that is the transition from call me about the value of your home or call me to list my house to watch this video on this. QR Code that that that right there you know. Text me this and I'll give you that it's content. So I Think a lot of people look at postcards as if it's direct mail.

and direct mail is inherently a call to action, right? I Don't think it. H I mean, you can do that, but certainly not all the time, right? It's We live in a world of content marketing. If you're not content marketing, you're not. Marketing In 2023 or 2024, whether it's through videos, through events, through mailers, it's all content.

Yes, and content always comes from a place of contribution. It can call you to action, but only first by offering contribution. So you mentioned Dave Robas. Dave Roblas is the coaching client who came up with the thumbnailer idea, right? So he takes the thumbnail image of the video he published on YouTube that's a value ad piece, puts a QR code on it, and sends it out to his entire geoarm.

And he's It's an integrated marketing in the sense that he's repurposing his videos once more. It's like money in the bank. Once you got the content, you got to put it places and he's using it in his postcards. But the opportunity right now to build your brand through any of these channels? Maybe you do all five.

Maybe you pick one or two. I Think the opportunity is to say I'm going to be super consistent about this one or that one and not just do it a little bit. but do it in a way that says I'm going to double down and go really hard after this to build my brand to the point where it's what you'll be known for in your local. Marketplace That's the opportunity right now is the Build Your Brand and it goes back to your your four elements of every great business.

Yes, the last one is distribution, but it's stands on the shoulders of everything that precedes it. You got to have a great brand, You got to have a great product, You got have Stellar marketing that builds an audience. Your Vibe attracts your tribe so that you can distribute to them with the right calls to action. Bingo Bingo Bingo! So you know what I'm thinking a great assignment for our friend listing right now is I would go if you haven't done to chat gbt for if you're a Tom fairy client Tom Ai and I would literally say I'd like you to ask me up to 10 to 15 questions about my brand, about my the products that I offer, the services I provide about my marketing and my messaging and about my distribution so you can thoroughly understand how I operate in my business and please ask me questions one at a time.

And when you say that to chat Gbt or Tom AI it's going to then go Okay, well question number one. How would you define this question number two and what's going to happen is it's going to get to know you Then I take it one step further after I answer all those questions and sometimes you're going to go I don't know. Make something up for me right? and it'll do that. But then I'm going to take it one step further and I'm going say I'm going to add these five elements: would you write a annual quarterly, monthly weekly marketing campaign using all five of these channels of distribution for my past clients and my Geographic farm and it will write the entire marketing plan for you now.

I'm not saying you're just going to copy and paste. what are you going to do? You're going to go. That's stupid. but I can replace it with this.

I'm going to add that well I can't do all that stuff because maybe it's out of my budget or that's too much. Sweat Equity I'm going to mix it up. but the bottom line is like you and I have said so many times before we're we're moving out of the the sort of age of trying to figure it out to an age of efficiency. Yeah, and if Chat PT can help write this entire plan, get to know me, Help me help me unpack those four elements to optimize me, then I'm going to use all those tools.

Because if not now, then when Bingo like the last two years. So so June 2021 to July 1st 2022 the top 1% of Agents across the country in the US we're listing about 17.8% of every home in the country the last 12 months. Soall it June or July whatever it was uh, 2022 to this year, that number is almost 21% so it's gone up a little more than 3.2% The flight to Quality is very real and brand is where it all stars. And if you're not putting your brand on steroids in 2024, it's graveling and it's competing.

Overprice? Yeah, and this is even this isn't new. I Mean we hardly shared anything new here. This is about your attitude to say. I'm going to be consistent because the results are always in the repetition.

So I'm curious in the comments. Yes, what's going to be the one you pick? What do? Is it video? Is it mailers? Is it events? What are you picking? And if it's not on the list, let us know in the comments as well. Uh, any final thoughts: Tom Thanks for letting me be on your are my show Yeah right? Can I do my little sign off line? of course. Go ahead.

All right. Thank you so much for watching Until next week. This is this week in marketing that was funny. Love it n.