Generate More Listings With Facebook Ads
Use Facebook Ads to Position Yourself as an Authority
We all know or can guess by now how much data Facebook collects and uses to target ads to each specific user. That’s why when you search for a specific item online, that item and similar products are likely to pop up on your Facebook feed in the future.
So if you’re not using Facebook ads for your business, you’re missing out on a direct path to people who could be interested in working with you. You can target prospective clients by creating a custom audience and running ads promoting your book. Targeting past clients, your sphere of influence and anybody who might refer you is your best bet.
Learn how to create your custom audience and start running ads if our How To Create Facebook Ads For Agents Course.
Valuable Ad Content
Before we can talk about what works in a Facebook ad, let’s talk about what doesn’t work. An ad that simply asks, “Are you thinking of selling?” or “Are you thinking of buying in this city soon?” won’t get much, if any, response. You have to provide people something of value that will motivate them to contact you or click on your ad.
There are five components to a good ad:
- 1Ad Text — It should explain what your offer is. It needs to be at least one sentence long, while still proving the value of what you are offering. It should end with a call to action, something like, “Just click the button below.”
- 2Image — The image you use is important since it has to grab the viewer’s attention and stop them from scrolling. It has to do these things while remaining relevant to your offer and appealing to most people.
- 3Headline — Use something short and quick to grab someone’s attention. “Home Prices Are Higher Than Ever!” or something similar, in only one or two lines of text.
- 4Link description — Will go directly underneath the headline and is designed to complete the thought of the headline, while giving a little more information and reinforcing your offer.
- 5Call to Action button — Facebook has nine different options. Just choose the most relevant for your offer.
Once you set up your ad, you can create a cold audience, based on their interests and wants, or you can just import your own and choose your budget. One of the biggest mistakes is not using the detailed targeting feature to its full extent. Be sure to include information on location, interest in buying or selling, neighborhoods, and any other factors that will help you select your target audience.
Utilizing Facebook’s pixel is a giant part of this, as well. Anyone who lands on your value page gets a pixel installed, allowing you to follow up or re-target them online. It creates a more targeted warm set of leads.
They already have interacted or shown interest in one of your pages. By doing this, you eliminate spending money on ads being shown to people who have no interest.
People are more inclined to look at an article or interact with something on Facebook as opposed to looking through their email. Usually, when people are in their email, they are working or trying to get something done. The same cannot be said for people while they are browsing Facebook.
There’s also a detailed step-by-step written walk-through on how to set up these pages and your ads.
Use Your Books
Offer your books to everyone you know on Facebook. Facebook can be a great source of business. Where else can you consistently stay in front of all the people you know? You can step up your reach by positioning yourself as an expert with everyone you know.
Go to your author site and find the book you want to offer out. Copy over the URL from the top of your browser and paste it onto your Facebook post. A “FB Preview” of your book should pop up in a few seconds. Once it has popped up, type some text before the URL you copied.
The text you put before the URL can say something like, “Thinking of selling your home? I’ll give you a FREE copy of my real estate book that shows you how to sell your home for top dollar fast. Just click here.”
Once everything looks OK, click “post.” That’s it. You’re done!
Results in Action
According to Lou, one of our members, when he received his initial order of books, he posted a picture of them on Facebook with an announcement.
“Then, another gentleman, who I had known previously as a result of seeing my book posted on Facebook, said, ‘Hey Lou, I’d like to talk to you. I’ve got an opportunity, a piece of real estate I need to get sold.’
“When we spoke, I found out that that piece of real estate was real estate that he had inherited from the death of his uncle and that he was the co-executor on the estate and he wanted me to come over and take a look at it to see what it was worth.
“I went through the entire process with him. I gave him a home evaluation, and we listed the property, and we wound up selling the property within 24 hours of it going into the MLS at full price. We sold it at $379,000,” Lou said.
“I’ve got a listing right now, and it also came about as a result of the book. It’s a single-family home in a town called Hainesport, New Jersey, and that will be a $499,000 listing when it comes to fruition. That came from a referral who I’d given the book to.”
In addition, Lou has two more listings that also came from the books. One was a duplex in need of rehab. “We sold it at $379,000, full-price offer,” Lou said. “We listed it at $379,000, sold it at $379,000, and he’s just ecstatic because he never thought he’d get that much money for the property.” In this instance, Lou had grown up with the seller, although they hadn’t seen each other for nearly 25 years.
“We had connected on Facebook, but had not really communicated at all on Facebook, and it wasn’t until he saw the posting with my book on Facebook that he called me to see what I thought about this piece of property.”
What was especially interesting to Lou is that his old friend had been sitting on this piece of inherited property for months. The seller had been talking to other agents and had only reached out to Lou after Lou posted a copy of his book on Facebook. “The book was definitely the trigger,” said Lou. “I’ve got several other opportunities in the pipeline. I’ve got a listing right now that I’m waiting on, and it also came about as a result of the book. It’s a single-family home, and that will be a $499,000 listing when it comes to fruition.”
The duplex seller made contact in response to his Secret of Wealthy Home Sellers post. Lou posted on both his personal and business accounts. “I posted a picture of the cover of the book, and then I posted along with that some verbiage: ‘If you’re thinking of buying or selling and want to know what the value of your home is, please don’t hesitate to give me a call,’ and ‘Click, and get a free copy of my book and let me know if I can be of service, yada, yada, yada.’ I’m actually meeting with another gentleman tomorrow who is a real tech expert, and he’s going to help me to really focus on utilizing Facebook as a marketing tool in conjunction with my book.”
To Summarize:
Take Action:
Take these 5 components I shared with you and start creating Facebook ads. Your ads won’t be perfect the first time, but they will never improve unless you go ahead and start. The trick to making a successful Facebook ad campaign is for you to be consistent, so don’t overwhelm yourself financially (or in any other way) trying to do it all at once. You will dramatically increase the longevity and effectiveness of your campaign if you spend small amounts of money on ads regularly rather than dropping the big bucks all at once. This also allows you to implement new ideas that are more likely to come little by little when you take action on a consistent basis.
