Today's conversation is with one of the smartest marketers in all of real estate I've ever encountered. her name is Erica Wolfe and she absolutely crushes it. And what I'm so pumped about for this interview is that I know Erica is somebody who sees the details of marketing I think it's really easy to come across other people who are like oh, just do this like it's just turning on a switch in their marketing and voila, it works perfectly, but it rarely is ever the case. And so what I love about Erica is she understands the nuances of marketing in terms of putting together a system from end to end.

Where it actually works, it actually generates leads, where it actually builds your brand, It actually produces results. and so today's conversation will not be for the fan of heart. Today's conversation will be technical, It will be tactical, and it will be a deep dive into Marketing Systems that the modern real estate agent team needs to be a part of their business in order to really take it to the next level because if you don't, Erica is what you're up against in terms of competitors. Erica Thank you so much for being on the show I Pumped you're here today.

Well thank you for having me. Yeah, it's gonna be a blast. Okay, so Erica just real quick kind of backstory. Tell them about where you do business and your business and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty Okay so I am in Jupiter Florida which is Palm Beach County South Eastern Florida I've been in the business for almost 15 years now.

so I started when I was 21 years old and basically I had to figure out how to stand out, get clients, um, and be 21 and make people trust me with not so much money and two kids, so social media video marketing was the cheap, cheapest, and easiest way to do that and the least crowded. presumably because I assume your other competitors of the day weren't really doing that stuff back then? Not at all. Um, I was utilizing like groups as well providing value. Um, doing the worst pixelated home tours you've ever seen.

when Facebook memories pops those up I'm like wow, people bought a house from that. Yeah, yeah, and they did. I Remember I started when I was in my early 20s as well and I had a similar uh, bridge to cross. so or Gap to cross with a bridge.

Whatever you could suggest and you learn how to recognize like you know I used to say I focus on selling homes to the modern consumer. We know that modern consumers online and so I focus my Marketing Online and digitally and and you learn those scripts and dialogues and you learn how to have a Competitive Edge when you're young or when you're new or starting out or whatever. So I love that story. Tell us about your business today.

So today I have a team of I would say seven, two, uh sales agents aside from me, a showing assistant, Marketing Operations, transaction coordinator, and a VA Okay, awesome. so I like I like your definition of a team, a lot of people like to divide staff versus team members or agents and I like that it's just none of our team and everybody's role matters. I can already sense it and talking to you I Love it all right? So just let's kind of kick it off like this: Talk to us about the marketing channels that you built your business on. It's 15 years in.

Obviously there's a lot of strong Tech and digital and stuff like that. but what are those pillars of marketing that you built your business on? So I would think from the start would be Facebook and actually Snapchat when it first came out because you have to use filters it was the only platform that would like take away any confidence issues I had you know um so I could apply a filter and like roll with it right? um so and I was more funny and Brash on Snapchat because it was like there were people who just knew me and then if it was a hit of a video there I would put it on like the Facebook platform. um I would save it and do it back then. So that was like the start of it but if I were to advise anybody starting now, it would still be Facebook and I know Instagram is like a fan favorite for so many people.

but Facebook is local right? Join all your mom's groups, your dad's groups, your your garage sale groups, your residence pages and become the voice of you know the local expert provide value. Help them with not just real estate needs right? Make videos featuring restaurant restaurants. Talk about small businesses when the guy comes to wash your car while you use them like that was one of the things that I think truly gave me momentum aside from the house thing right I always kept it like an 80 20 on real estate, 80 being like Community Personal fun content and then 20 real estate? yeah and that Mrs know you like you trust your business and then today people are doing business with agents that they feel like they can relate to or they feel a sense of connection with and I love that. But man your point about Facebook is valid.

Super valid. It is a local platform. I've been talking about this a lot in some of my videos and and some of my coaching sessions about how look the average person who comes across her video on Instagram you'll never meet in your life nor will do business with them and the average person who comes across your video on Tick Tock you definitely will never meet in life. It doesn't mean there isn't a viable strategy to be had, but it's like sometimes the means doesn't always justify the ends in terms of how much work it can take.

If that's your sole focus and you're looking to attract and build a local footprint, um, anything you would add to that just about Facebook Well, and I think you should have a profile on every single platform anymore? Sure, right. and set it up and have that. but I just feel like Facebook who are the main people on there? Probably like what 50 60 year old 70 year old people? Now when you actually go look at this statistic of who's using it? What do all of those people do? They own a house. You know, like they all own a house.

It's great that some of your videos your viral videos on Instagram are attracting a whole bunch of 22 year olds, but for me, where I'm at like sure I like first-time homebuyers. But and Jupiter it's really hard to be a first time home buyer because of the cost. So when you're actually intentional in creating your content and making sure you're you're getting the highest and best use out of your content. Facebook for me, was a no-brainer when we did that video.

Mastermind I think I was the only person in the room that was like I love Facebook I love Facebook And you know, because it's not as fun and glamorous. but if you're actually tracking where your business comes from and if you know how to work the algorithm, um and stay top of mind to people on it, you can make a lot of money in Facebook I I Fundamentally agree with you I think we have overlooked what Facebook is and what it could be I Think your comments about Facebook groups I Think about making local content which you can make local content for Instagram or any other platform and we'll get into this. but there's no reason why you can't publish content I've always said for a long time create content in a vacuum or a lab and then distribute it across your platforms. There's no reason why I can't have a shelf life.

We'll get to that, but there's no reason why I can't live beyond it. But I think like Facebook groups a great segue with the Facebook groups and um, because I do have like a marketing operations person it's a lot easier now, but our blog posts are like our top 10 date night restaurants are you know, um, favorite activities to do with your kids in our area. Things like that that aren't real estate related but are published on our website and we give them to our agents carrying Kelsey on my team also as responses like hey, here's all our URLs to our community based content If you post it in the group right If a mom's group says what do I do with my kids this weekend, it's like hey, here are our top 10 favorite things. you're not selling them right? We're putting a bitly link, but guess what we're doing, we're pixeling them.

We know they're local in our area and now they're going to be retargeted by all of our ads. So all right time out. I'm slowing you down, We're going to dive into that. We gotta dive into that.

Okay, so I want to just recap what I heard and make sure I caught the basic gist of it. Uh, so you obviously have some staff and some support who can help execute your uh, brilliant brain of being a marketer? You're active in Facebook groups and Facebook groups are inherently local or at least subject specific. In this case, they're Community local types of Facebook groups where it's people who are doing life together in a certain area and somebody may go in there and ask a question like hey, it's what are the best activities for I don't know parents with toddlers or something like that and we know that people have an appetite for Googling those kinds of searches. but they're going to also ask those questions in a Facebook group.

And because you have focused your content and the blog around lifestyle base lists and things like that, you just link to your blog in a Facebook group. Knowing that you have these kind of basically these are like lead magnets works like I can drop that link whenever I want people would click on it. they're going to go to my website and when they go to the website you said they get pixeled. break that down for us a bit.

Um so pixeling is tracking. It's basically you know attach their IP address and now I can decide somebody who viewed any blog post if I want to specifically retarget them with an ad based upon that information which is what a lot of advertisers do. But for me, for real estate, what I found is if they go to a specific blog post just in the sake of saving time. um I'll just retarget them with Community content and listing videos.

um and a lot of times I think we over complex stuff because I could then put in front of them. you know, just other kid related topics or things like that. but I just want to be the know like and Trust source. so I don't I used to when I had a lot more time.

um go through and say if somebody went here I'm going to specifically put only this video in front of them and then if they watch 20 you know uh this video will show up to them next. but now I just want them to just see us all the time. Community content. What are teams about listing videos? I have a top five list.

uh, like Neighborhood video. There's top five videos that everybody should have and they're like Vault of videos right? and those are typically what I'm running ads on. Okay, I'm gonna come back to those top five videos in a little bit. Okay, Um, I think we were saying a spot on I'm gonna go technical for a quick second.

Are you having any issues with the accuracy of your pixel in terms of being able to accurately retarget people since all the app tracking, transparency, framework, and all that kind of stuff? Or is it all the same? Not at all. Not at all everyone thought we would. Um, but again because I've been running ads for so long and I've always stayed in a small area. Um I think I've had an advantage like I'm not trying to retarget all of Palm Beach County I'm trying to do Jupiter Well, Jupiter really ends up being a small percentage of the circle radius you're allowed on Facebook so we are getting above and below.

Um, but we're only probably getting an eighth of the actual County and I think a lot of people you know geography is different for everyone is they want to do such a wide area where my goal was always go small. we're only 56 000 residents in Jupiter Um, but we have a lot of snowbirds and because they want that Florida no state tax? Um, really off season we're probably only around like 34 000 people. In my saved audience is around 36 000 people. So I'm fine.

I'm fine if I never capture another new person is my perspective on it I just want to keep staying in front of those is 36 000 people? well and I think what you said is true I think it is so easy to make retargeting this complicated thing. Well first they have to want to see this and then that will give us evidence if they want to see this. and we we create inertia because it's so complex and it isn't. At the end of the day, this is a relationship business.

This is about top of Mind awareness. presenting yourself as a know you like you, trust you agent of choice and when the time is right, they're going to choose to work with you because they Vibe with you on some level and all you have to do to establish that is be in front of them on a regular basis which is a very linear form of retargeting and all that it takes. So I'm glad you share that with us. So it sounds like one of those pillar channels.

Like the first question was what are the marketing pillar channels that you built your business on and it sounds like really Facebook is sort of that bedrock and it still is to some degree. Okay, cool, it's good stuff. Absolutely so. and I think what we do is if I'm going to take time to create one video right, how can I use it on multiple different things like if I'm making a neighborhood home tour video and I'm going to run an ad behind it.

Does that provide value in our Facebook groups? Well, people on Instagram be interested in it doesn't work on YouTube does it work on our website? Um, and that came over time with the help of others too. But now if we're if I'm paying salaries and I'm paying for digital ads like I want it to be everywhere and usable. Otherwise I don't want to make the video well because I I was going to ask you next like what are the trends you're seeing in the marketplace and I think we can both agree that a trend for sure is Video Video Video Video Video Video Video. We got to make so much video content if we're going to be relevant or modernist from a marketing standpoint in today's platforms of choice, but at a certain point you're like, okay, how do I peel back away from the vanity metrics of just getting views for the sake of nothing and actually get to the intent kind of views where I'm actually positioning my brand in the right place and and it sounds like one of the most important things is look, if I'm going to make video content, I've got to be able to publish it literally everywhere there, everywhere and get as much mileage out of every respective video.

Otherwise, it's just a lot of work for maybe not reaching as large of an audience as possible. Well, and then that becomes a all of your time is making videos and especially if you go through a creative law because I like to be creative in some aspects. I think I went through a year where I could not be creative. there was just a lot going on personally and I just could not be creative.

So I went more to the analytical I went more data I went and just was like okay, what can I use over and over and over again. Um, so I and I think that's just normalized people like you. You're going to go through laws and it's a lot of pressure to keep making great videos, right? Um, but also, if I'm only making great videos, when do I have time to follow up with the leads? When Am I calling? when am I going on listing appointments? What? Am I making sure my business is running right? You know, when are you thinking about repurposing videos that already worked at a certain point? This is like anything else. When you get yourself on a treadmill setting where it's going so fast that you can't do anything else, it becomes counterproductive at a certain point in time.

and I agree like it is a lot of pressure if you're known as the person who always drops the mic with every video and oh, by the way, you got to do that every day of the week. What? and sell houses? What? and balance something on your head? What? I mean it becomes daunting. So I have a feeling there's a lot of people who are like, oh, please tell us about the top five videos that every agent should make because that idea of what are the flagship videos that you can just keep running ads with I think that's going to have a lot of attractive qualities to a lot of Agents can you share with us any about that? Yeah! And that came too when I realized how many leads were being left unresponded to and I was like if I could. My original intent was if I could only have to remake these videos every 90 days.

Well, I've gone A Year Without remaking these videos and I'm like hey yeah and I'm like I think I can go another year you guys I Think it could work So um, Community just like a community tour. why people like it? Okay, um, town and you can make multiple town videos but really initially you only need one town or city. Um, we have an about us like who we are, what we want to do. A listing video is always in there.

That's typically like our fifth one. um, our our listing video. Uh, we have one on getting a free home evaluation and that's me and one of the agents in a home and we're just talking to them about getting a free home evaluation So basically asking for you know, the sale um and then our fifth one, um, is just a marketing video that goes over not necessarily about us. It's different from our about us because it goes more analytical.

We have more data, we have more of what we do, our process. Um, it's more of a value prop versus uh, it's not a brand promise. It's a value proposition. We do X, y and z a little bit more of a list of what you do, right? Yeah, all right.

So I wrote down five. So Community tour. It could be a walking or a driving tour. and I think you're true I think you're right on.

I think a lot of people feel the pressure of now I Got to make a community tour for every little neighborhood in my town. By the way, there's 200 neighborhoods Wrong, right? They just need one to kick it off. Just the town, uh, about us. Which can you tell us how you're about us a structure because I could see where that'd be very easy to make it about you and actually not about the customer.

Um, so it's it's both for us. It is about the team and how we got started and why we choose to bring as much value as we do to the customers. because we believe we are getting like huge commission checks and that we devote a huge portion of that to marketing to make sure it's not just left up to MLS Um, customer service? You know it is all hands on deck team. You're not going to only deal with one person and that came about as a video that was needed for us because during the pass off sometimes people were upset right? like we have a transaction coordinator.

We have stuff like that but that's also used in our high note for our listing. Presentation as well are about us So like you get the full package. So okay, so there's another grain of Truth here. These videos are more like tenets of how you conduct business and we find the same principles of the videos and your presentations for listings and buyers.

I'm assuming different ads and different versions. There are different versions of these things and it's just kind of embedded and baked into the fabric of how y'all do business, right? Yep, and then for the girls, for like Lee if it's somebody who's reaching out to us about a relocation, we have emails or attacks where it's a link to the video saying hey, here's a tour of our community, right? Or our town. Here's our favorite restaurant. Here's our favorite neighborhoods Based upon what you said, here's a link to the houses um, that are within your criteria but not necessarily your price.

And here are the homes that are within your price. Like so they always get two. That's an intro email, but then again, they're being retargeted as well because they're going to click on the videos, click on our properties and so yeah I want it to keep being used so we have a whole uh Google doc? um uh the whole team has access to and it's just bitly links um of value that they can provide to Consumers leads neighbors? Anything like that? See, this is okay. This is where I think so many folks who are on the hamster wheel of content creation are just getting lost because they're hardly keeping up with the pace of the algorithms and the feeds.

and so again I come back to I'm listening to Erica Wolfe talk about how she's actually not making I know you're making videos, but I'm going to be provocative in the way I say this: um, she's actually not making that many videos. She's got videos that are lasting over a year and she's just absolutely leveraging them to the hilt every little which way she can imagine. Like it could be an ad on YouTube it could be an ad on Facebook it could be in a listing presentation. it could be in a bitly link that's in a master sort of recorded index of all your available resources made available to the agents.

so it's in your lead nurturing. It's just the question is not, how do I get more content? How do I create the illusion of more content with the same content? Yep, I mean we go even like we switched all of our songwriters, you know. and it goes to the property tour video on everything. One yeah, the same property tour video or whatever.

which one is on display that at that week? No, that home that's a sign writer. So any for sale sign because there's a video on every single home so it's a different QR code for every. Rider Yeah, Oh so nice. Yeah, correct.

They have, uh, they have a little number here. yep and then so that tracks what property at the time. But that has to say. different from what's on the brochure too.

So basically every property ends up with two QR codes. One that's a stagnant one on our sign writer and then one that's on the brochures. How many of those? How many of those writers they're all numbered? How many do you have? Because I'm just scared. So that means you're prepared to carry 35 listings at any moment in time.

Basically yeah. I Just thought of the other video that actually is in the funnel and I think I Couldn't think of it and it's so silly. Market Update: Market Update: I Do do one of those once a month. Okay, we got a community tour and about us a market update.

You have the free home valuation. Uh, there's also the value proposition how we do what we do type of video. and then there's listing videos. that sort of rotate based upon what you have in your inventory.

So I so it's like she's like six videos and you're using those. Every Which Way Imaginable? Correct? Correct. Can I put you on the spot? Just go on like a rant. What are all the ways you're repurposing that content? Um, well we have an 87 Point checklist and they love when I Add another point to it.

Sure, they love it. Um, so what? Okay, Facebook so can I just say social platforms? Yeah, or so say organic social versus paid. Just divide that up for me. Okay, like you want to know.

Ask your question again. I'm sorry. Okay, you have a video Like let's say it's your market Update video or one of your community tour videos just putting on the spot. But how many different ways could you slice that up and repurpose it and use it? All right? Sorry when you were saying the organic first ad I was like wait, is he asking like number specific.

So okay. so organic ads? um LinkedIn I Want to put in a social like a lot of people don't use their content on LinkedIn But let me tell you I do? Um, we send those to attorneys that we befriend on LinkedIn Like we, uh, attorneys. who else do we have? There's a couple different adopters. We have like four different lists of professions on LinkedIn that if we do have a new video or something of value to them, we specifically my VA messages them those and we have a list of people that um I think are powerful on LinkedIn in our community.

So that does really well because I built up my estate relationship with an estate attorney through Linkedin through uh I think it was the market update videos for him that got him so okay. so LinkedIn we have print um and prints a lot though. yeah, like a lot of places like we have Diner menus um I have monthly mailers that go to mailboxes that I don't print that, just have QR codes on them. um, our brochures, postings, and Facebook groups following up with lead responses via email or via text and I feel like I'm definitely missing another way we utilize these videos.

It's enough. And and I Also think like the other this stands out to me about you is just your use of QR codes. You know you're an early adopter and you're also somebody who didn't like say QR codes were so old because now they're awesome again and they're a very effective medium for kind of Bridging the physical digital divide. but I like how you've really just become known for your QR codes and published material.

Uh, Diner menus or whatever because you can control the destination that those links drive to whenever you want. which means you have a an external control on what people scan and go to versus once it's printed it's out of sight, out of mind and it's done so. I don't know without making you go like super granular I Gotta say, like what I hope the audience is hearing is they're listening or watching right now is wow I should slow down, take a breath and start looking at my content and recognize like boy, every video, every piece of content. Every blog is like another soldier in my Army and I should be thinking not.

How do I Get More soldiers? How do I get more out of every soldier I've already got and really build up that army of content. an army of marketing in a way that it works on your behalf. because I think a lot of I think a lot of agents are stuck on the treadmill that's running it too fast, the pace and they can hardly keep up with content and they need to look for a way to structure their content to get more out of less and you are a great example of that. And I think when you're thinking about your content, what value is it bringing to your target audience? Yeah, yeah, absolutely and then also understand Like what you said, well my target audience is a snowbird demographic.

living in like a one mile or whatever the size of Jupiter is 56 000 population during peak season I think understanding of what am I trying to build what am I trying to establish where Am I Trying to establish my business. It's super. It's super important right now. One final question and then I'll let you off the hook for the day and I'm so grateful for everything you've shared.

What are some of the trends that you're seeing in marketing where like I think agents may be doing this right or wrong, but this is where you're looking for the year ahead. Um for me is being more planned out like I the last minute stuff I Want nothing to do with it next year? Um, like even community events like every little Community every Community aspect as well as you know uh, what odds we're gonna be running like I don't want to plan anything last minute. There's a reason we tell our seller clients that it takes us two weeks to get your listing live because we need to do the marketing right. Like I want that done with my marketing and my business as well.

So I think a lot of times we're just throwing it at a wall and seeing if it sticks Without an actual plan. it's good stuff. What do you think are some of the top reasons that cause agents to get stuck into that? I'm running in gunning mode. Uh, they see another agent agent like yeah, I should do that so they feel like oh I got to keep up I'm falling behind I'm a dinosaur and instead of following their plans, super super Sage Advice: Erica Truly I'm so grateful you came on today to talk and share your insights.

It's been really good stuff. Well thank you I Hope it helps someone. Absolutely. It's going to definitely help somebody.

Uh, if you're watching and you've got a big takeaway, we'd love to hear about it in the comments. Drop a note. Let us know what you're thinking and feeling about marketing now and going into the New Year. So until next week.

This is this week in Marketing.