Today's conversation is not Geographic farming. It's micro farming. We are in a marketplace where if you're not positioning to earn and win the seller's trust to generate listings, you're going to be without listings because we know there are more agents, fewer sales, and so it's going to be competitive out there. So here's the question: How recognizable is your brand as a listing agent? Have you positioned yourself to win the Mind share of your Marketplace your local? Marketplace What? I'm noticing in my own coaching sessions is I'm working with my coaching clients in our ecosystem.

Here is that brand really really matters right now Again, this is a no like trust business. and if you're not establishing yourself as the Clear Choice listing agent, you're missing out. And when it comes to lead sources and activities that are super effective in terms of winning over the trust of the seller in a local, Marketplace Geographic Farming is a way to go. Now we know statistically speaking that roughly two-thirds of all listings are repeat referral business that's predominantly for most of you watching and listening.

That's your database past clients sphere. If you're not playing the trust game with your database, you're missing out. But the other lead source that is most capable of eliciting that sense of trust I know you I like you I Trust you not just personally, but I professionally Trust you As a geographic Farm Geographic Farming and Database nurturing, those are two lead sources. In terms of Attraction based listings, how do you attract the trust of sellers? It's Geographic Farming and its database.

But Geographic farming can sometimes be cost prohibitive. I mean it could be a whole zip code for instance. that's a lot of postcards. That's a big event, that's a lot of door knocking.

That's a lot of whatever marketing and prospecting strategies. Encompass Your Geographic farming plan. That could be a lot. And so today's conversation is not Geographic Farming.

It's micro farming. How do we go Super Niche How do we go? Super Hyper Local To win the trust of local sellers in a specific subdivision, in a building or a couple of buildings and a super drop a pen kind of area where you dominate yourself as the listing agent of choice. Welcome to this week in marketing. My name is Jason Pantana I Am your instructor and I'm glad you're here to have this conversation about micro farming.

Now, before we get into all the goodies, we're going to talk about the different types of marketing channels that enable you to like: Laser precisely focused on a specific area Target a specific area. Before we get into all that, if you're new to the channel, make sure to tap the big red subscribe button and hit the little Bell right next to it to turn on notifications. So whenever we publish content just like this right here, you are the first to know about it and therefore the first to take action on the ideas. Here ideas are easy, execution of the ideas is where all the money gets made and so with that in mind, let's dive into our topic today.

Micro farming. Kind of like micro greens. You get it. Let's dive in Now You might have picked up on the idea of dropping a pen and targeting a super tight geographic area and you may be thinking I Didn't think we could do that anymore since the release of Meta's Special Ads category and Google's personalized advertising policies in the housing sector which have a lot of limitations and their good limitations because they're designed to prevent discrimination in your marketing.

However, when both of those Google Meta one of the limitations is geographic limitations whereby special Ads category for instance, you can't Target within a 15 mile radius unless you upload what's called a customer list whereby if you had the contact information of the homeowners in a set area, you could upload that into their advertising portal and what would happen is it's a spreadsheet and So Meta for instance, is going to scan and cross-reference all of your names, email addresses, phone numbers to establish the matches from your data set compared against its user database and then it's going to Target them with your ad based upon the match of customer information. So if you have the contact information of the homeowners in a specific area that you want to Target Market because you're looking to establish hyper local relevance with the homeowners in that area, then if you have their information in a contact sheet and a spreadsheet then we can start targeting a super Niche area. Does that make sense I Hope it does. Hey, let me grab your attention real quick.

If you're looking to step up your game on social and video with email marketing with with Local SEO Whereby anybody who looks for a Realtor in your local Marketplace on Google finds your Google business profile, then be sure to check out our new series of courses called Marketing Pro Marketing Pro has courses that are viewed on demand that will walk you through step by step how to dominate in all those areas: social media and Video Email Marketing To work your list to work your subscriber base and then last your local SEO through your Google business profile to create an online footprint that is Unstoppable Social Search and Subscribers click the link in the description for more details. Now we have a couple of options in terms of how do we get that and I Want to sort of foreshadow that we're going to have a whole conversation a hard talk about Permission Marketing Nothing I'm here to advocate for today is in violation of Permission Marketing. This is all about Niche marketing. What I'm advocating for is to be relevant to a hyper Local area to add value from a marketing standpoint.

one of my favorite marketing quotes ever comes from Jay Bear who said the goal should be to make your marketing so useful that people would pay you for it. My intention is not to spam people is not to violate permission is not to annoy and pester in the hopes of getting listings. The intent here is to build your brand to attract business because the folks in that hyper local area that micro Farm learn to know like and trust you. and to do that, you got to be able to make relevant content and then serve it to that exact audience for whom it is relevant.

So to get the contact information first things first, you do have the option. there are Services whereby you can buy the contact information of the homeowners in specific areas. I've got no favorite tools per se, but for example, you could look into tools like property radar, prop stream, coal information, remind Myplus leads, Genie.ai These are all services that enable you as an Advertiser to purchase contact information again. There's this whole thing about permission Marketing I'm not saying to call email or do anything like that.

What I am saying to you is with that contact information, you have the ability to upload it into different advertising portals Meta Google others that we'll talk talk about momentarily and let those systems cross-reference these contacts with their own user contacts and then Target them with your marketing Your marketing. That is so useful people would pay you for it. Now this term permission Marketing that it talked about is what it sounds like. It means getting permission before you Market But that can be kind of challenging like picture yourself on a job interview for an entry level position where it's an entry level position and they say this position requires prior experience and you're like but how it's the first job, How what comes first? the chicken or the egg and so it might help if you looked at it through the lens of the actual Communication channel.

Is it a super personal or rather impersonal mode of communication? So for example, we know there's all kinds of laws and regulations around texting, calling emailing because those are much more personal. Avenues In terms of marketing, however, the ability to send postcards Flyers Things of that effect the ability to upload a contact list into meta and create real, really great content that positions you to start earning trust and permission to Market more directly. That's what we're talking about right now. so we're gonna have to do this in a layered approach.

So what are the channels that allow you to effectively Geo Target Hyper Target a micro Farm area The obvious ones: postage. So by postage I mean mail I mean postcards Flyers Door hangers, handwritten notes for example. There are really very cool companies that exist like Audience.com whereby you can provide handwritten notes to an entire area at scale. They've got amazing technology.

So the first channel in terms of being able to reach Folks at a hyper local level is through postage. Now another Channel whereby you can Target at a hyper local level is social media which we talked about in a paid setting. There is some organic stuff. of course there are Facebook groups and next door and things like that at the organic level.

I'm talking mostly about targeted marketing today. so social Media that means Facebook Instagram which is Meta Meta owns both those companies. Uh, we're talking about Pinterest we're talking about Tick Tock we're talking about LinkedIn All these social media platforms have the ability and their advertising portals whereby you as an Advertiser can upload your contact list and it will cross-reference your contacts against its own users and show your ads to the folks for whom it establishes a match. We call those customer lists.

it's what I talked about earlier and it's not going to tell you exactly who it made a match for, but it will Target them. So if you either earned or somehow purchased ethically a list, this is a great spot to do that. Quick side note about meta ads: you'll need to be running ads with a business advertising ID not a personal advertising ID In order to get access to the customer list feature, that means you might have to set up a business manager. You can Google that we're not going to get into the whole topic of that today.

If you don't know if you have a business ID or not, you probably don't if you just established a Facebook business page at some point in your past and you've been boosting post through it and things like that when that page was set up Facebook supplied you with a personal advertising ID So Business Page personal advertising ID You'll need to get a business advertising ID to gain use of the feature for uploading a customer list as a custom audience. You can learn more about that if you go to business.facebook.com create. That's where you would go to start a business manager. Happy Sailing! So social media advertising is a super effective way to reach a hyper local audience if you understand how to run ads.

if you understand how to use customer list to Target a hyper local area with Google by comparison, you can always Target to a customer list only there's a catch when you do, so it's in observation mode. What that means is you can't actually just Target the contacts on that list. you can Target a broader area, but it will give you the observation mode to tell you hey. here's how it performed.

It will show you analytics about how it performed Within that subset of the broader targeting, the subset being your contact list. Now a couple of things about Google versus Meta. So Metas special Ads policy prohibits advertising within a 15 mile radius unless you do it through a customer list with Google They don't let you target zip codes and stuff like that, but they do enable privacy. Safe radiuses, but a privacy saved radius depends on the area depends upon the radius and it has to do with population density.

In terms of how tight is that radius, how expanded is that radius? It could be down to a one kilometer mile just depending upon population density. Notwithstanding, you're still going to be targeting a customer list only in observation mode unless you either earn or request eligibility to actually Target that list. Here's what you do: if you want to earn it, you have to have at least 90 days of good compliance. And this is the kicker.

You have to spend at least I believe it's fifty thousand dollars USD lifetime across your advertising account to be considered a seasoned Advertiser whom they can trust with the keys to the car, the car being the ability to Target contact lists, they know you're going to do things legit. The other option is to request eligibility and if you can make a sound case and it's not hard to do that, hey, look, we're making content. It's designed and relevant for folks in this area and it would be of low account quality. If it was being shown to people outside that area, you can typically get them to approve it for you.

If you can tell them why, here's where you would go to do that, you would go to your Google Ads portal which is Ads.google.com You'll click on tools and settings and then you'll click on audience manager. You'll see an option for customer list. It will tell you if you're ineligible and it's on observation mode only and you can click, learn more and then fill out a contact form and then they'll make a decision one way or the other. The thing though about Google is you can still Target a radius and be tighter than you can on Meta On Meta.

It's really, if you want to go microfarm, it really needs to be a contact list uploaded as a custom audience. Now that's Postage and mailers, That's social media ads. That's Google and YouTube ads. You're creating a multi-channel sort of Dome saturating folks in your value-add brand.

Now again, if you're marketing if your content is annoying, if it's not useful, if it's not relevant, it's not going to help attract listings at the end of the day, You're looking here to earn business. You're looking here to earn trust and so your content matters. I'm going to talk about that in a second. A few more marketing channels to consider that give you the ability to hyper local Target a micro Farm like a building or a subdivision or a super tight little area.

Another option includes events. This is a simple, practical way to get to know the neighbors. Events: events like open houses, events like block parties, events like an Easter egg hunt Events in a local community to get to know the residents are a powerful way to build relationships. Maybe for instance, there's even a festival or some kind of a local event that you could be a sponsor for or get a booth at and get to know folks.

Don't discount the relevance of events. We have coaching clients who put on events every single week like a softball league and if different types of functions that bring people together. That's the kind of marketing I want for you. The kind of marketing that brings people into the community and there are other channels that are less direct response.

Because we're talking about social media ads, we're talking about Google ads and search ads and different kinds of paid advertising sending postcards to a specific address. The events are a little bit more like hey, do you want to come to the event that's a little bit more organic inbound. The rest of this is kind of outbound, taking your marketing and your message to the folks. but there are some other practices just basic.

SEO For instance, if you're serving a specific Community or even a building, create a really great Hub page on your website. A hub page is kind of like a landing page. It's just a super optimized page that's got videos and content and text and lists and all kinds of resources that are relevant to the folks in that local Marketplace And they get to know it. We also talked about: Facebook groups.

What? I'm what I'm trying to get at. Here is this idea that you can only target market a broad area Can be cost prohibitive and faulty. You have all kinds of options to go Super Niche To drop a pin to microfarm a community of homeowners in a specific subdivision, a specific neighborhood through social media ads through SEO Through organic social media through mailers, through events, the options are plenty. Now let's talk about contents in terms of what are you marketing with to these people.

We talked about the channels Social Media SEO postcards. We've talked about the channels, but what are you giving them I Said a minute ago make your marketing so useful. People would pay you for it. So what is that? So useful marketing that they're going to want I Think there's a mistake A lot of marketers make.

a lot of business owners when marketing make. The mistake is they're so busy wanting to ask for what they want from the customers. Hey, you want to sell your house? Come to me. I'll list it.

They're so busy asking for what they want that they fail to give what that person needs. Good marketing expert Mark recording is about giving not asking if you give the right message. You'll attract the response you want without ever having asked for it. What's more, they'll start talking about you and they'll start Word of Mouth Creating a buzz that you're the best agent to work with in terms of listing a home for sale in that given area.

And when you give when you serve with your marketing, that's how you make your marketing so useful. People would pay you for it. Okay, so what is that marketing? Well, first and foremost, it's knowledge Broker content. It's being the expert.

It's talking about the market That may sound boring to you, but hey, at the end of the day, that's what you sell. You sell your expertise and the way you convey it, so convey it. When folks say they want to list with you, they're doing so on the basis of your expertise and your experience. I'll talk about experience next, but your expertise.

What an opportunity in your marketing to give away the information that positions your competence and your expertise to therefore attract and earn the right to be considered as a listing agent. Now that may be your videos on social media that you run ads with. That may be YouTube videos that you run ads with. It may be information on postcards or Flyers It's just you being the knowledge broker.

Now in terms of additional content, you want to create a sense of social proof of experience that you have experienced that would make you qualified for the job of listing agents. So just listed just sold social proof content like that. And then another option could be local happenings talking about what's going on in the community if you had those three prongs in your content across all your marketing. So it's knowledge broker.

it's local happenings, it's just listed. just sold for social proof. Those three things. Now let's talk about earning permission.

Uh, we're talking about more regulated marketing channels like calls, texts, emails, and so forth. Uh, hear me loud and clear. This is not an anti-prospecting conversation. this is a marketing conversation.

My focus in today's video is about how do you position yourself to attract listings when I Look across my own coaching clients who are crushing with listings right now. There's one under a salable truth: They're getting listings from their database from their Farm in an area where they are highly known, liked, and trusted. This is about branding and positioning and so this isn't saying. Don't Circle Prospect Don't call expireds, Don't go door knocking, don't work the leads.

You may be buying through some third party. I'm not I'm not saying that one bit at all. I Just want to qualify. This is a marketing conversation and that's why I'm talking about earning permission the way that I am.

So imagine for instance, you created a PDF like a how to Sell your House or how to Buy a house. It could be whatever PDF topic you want. and maybe you work through a freelancer on Fiverr to make those PDFs And you run an ad on Meta whereby you upload your customer list that maybe you purchased and you target them with the offer and you let them say they want the offer and by accepting the offer that is downloading your PDF they give you the right to email them and or the right to call them based upon whatever contact information you request that's earning the right. There are lots of mechanisms to earn the right open houses where they sign in could be a way to earn the right invite.

Adding them to an event whereby they sign in could be a way to earn the right running ads whereby they have to download a PDF and they hand over the right to reach out to them. That's how you earn the right. Hear me loud and clear. If you just go by the list and you upload the list to your MailChimp or whatever email provider you're using to send out mass emails and you just email a list you bought, you are most likely going to tank the deliverability of your future emails.

I Would not do it I Would not do it when it comes to mass texting Mass emailing all that stuff. It's highly regulated so please be careful. If you want to get more listings, you're gonna have to Market yourself to get more listings and choose the area where you want to dominate and create that saturation. One of the things I love about the idea of a micro Farm is there's so much energy captured Under the Dome of your brand everywhere saturated where it's you so top of mind.

so known so talked about as a listing agent of choice that if you Market to too broad of an area it's hard to create that sort of Buzz because everything's so spread out and gets diluted. But when you super laser focus your target marketing to a designed area to a niche air area to a microfarm whereby you're delivering super relevant very useful content to them. marketing so useful they pay you for it then in fact they will by way of inviting you to a listing appointment to say we'd like to sell our property through. you are you that valuable in a niche microfarm area? What are you going to do to earn more listings? Now there's a lot you can do.

You can call Fsbos and expires you can Circle Prospect You can door knock, you can work, open houses to meet the neighbors, You can work your buyer leads because we know roughly half of all buyers or sellers. There's lots you can do. However, when you recognize that 63 of all sellers last year according to the National Association of Realtors found their listing agent by way of repeat or referral business. That's a huge category.

Repeat referral. Well that's really only a couple of lead sources that's a your database past clients Spirit influence. They exist in an opportunity of repeat referral, but the other is a geographic Farm whereby you can establish a sense of familiarity frequency. You can be there and attract business whereby they come to know, like and trust you.

You can make your farm your database. But the problem is some: Farms can be a little bit too big, too spaced out. and there's something magic that happens in this idea of a microfarm. It's kind of a saturation of your brand where it's ping-ponging around, imagine a glass jar over top of it and it's saturated.

everybody talking and seeing and all. The marketing is so much more effective because it's all bouncing around. If the farm area is too spaced out, then the marketing loses some of the oomph, some of the impact because it diffuses and dilutes a little bit. I Know that's abstract.

Hopefully you're picturing it, but when you go super niche, it's saturation. It's top of Mind awareness whereby they're like you got to work with. So and so they list everything in this area. They're the dominant agent in this area, so much so that nobody else would dare step foot into your microfarm.

So what I want to know is what are you going to do to position your agent brand in your hyper local market? Your micro? Farm To attract and win all the listings? Let me know in the comments. until next week. This is this week in marketing Laughs!.