Guest Post | Why Word Of Mouth Is The Key To Growing Your Real Estate Business

Want to grow your real estate business? Sure you do! Most of us are continually looking for new ways to market our business that sometimes we overlook the most obvious and simple strategies. Today’s guest blog features Jay Baer, an expert content marketer, and guru on all things related to word-of-mouth marketing. His new book with co-author Daniel Lemin, Talk Triggers, (how to get people talking about your business – think cookies at DoubleTree by Hilton) will teach you the art and science of word-of-mouth marketing. Jay is one of my favorite speakers (shhh don’t tell my other speaker buddies) and I’m always fangirling over his ideas. Many of you have heard me recommend his previous book,  Hug You Haters, in my digital marketing talks as the definitive guide to managing online reviews and I’m just as excited about his new book. I aspire to create thought-leadership content that is as actionable, memorable, and innovative as Jay does. Welcome to our blog, one of the newest members of the Speaker Hall of Fame, CPAE, Jay Baer.  We are so glad you are here!

Countless companies claim to be “the best in the business,” but so few actually deliver. You’ve probably lost count of the number of times you’ve driven down the highway and spotted a sign advertising a “world famous” restaurant that clearly falls short of that mark.

It’s sort of like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” — when every company claims to be the best, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Even when businesses actually do manage to provide the premium product or service they advertise, it doesn’t guarantee their customers will talk about them.

Instead of relying on hollow accolades to fuel your word-of-mouth marketing, look to a far more powerful and sustainable approach: talk triggers. A talk trigger is a part of your business that gets your customers talking to one another and spreading the gospel of your brand.

A talk trigger could be any differentiator. Most importantly, it doesn’t have to be expensive. For instance, DoubleTree by Hilton welcomes every hotel guest with a delicious chocolate chip cookie. The minuscule cost of that cookie is a drop in the bucket compared to a massive ad spend, but it’s a defining part of DoubleTree’s business. An accident? Absolutely not.

Defining Your Difference

Any company would be thrilled to create a difference-maker that gets its brand some degree of notoriety in an otherwise crowded marketplace. Of course, relatively few attempts to generate this sort of buzz actually succeed.

When everything essentially feels the same, price becomes the only differentiator. Worse yet, companies focus a ton of time and energy on competing on the customer experience or product quality. These aspects are certainly important, but they’re basically the price of admission. If you and your closest competition both provide high-quality service, your differentiator has evaporated right out from under you.

Breaking the Mold

Instead of being one of the many companies that purposely eliminate differentiators, strive to turn them into talk triggers. True talk triggers don’t just happen on their own — they require careful consideration and planning. When selecting the best talk trigger for your business, understand that one of the (there are 5) types of differentiators you can deploy is to be talkably USEFUL. That’s when you are more useful than your customers anticipate, and it’s a particularly good approach in real estate.

Joe Manausa is a Realtor in Tallahassee, Florida. Joe primarily represents sellers. He also focuses most often on sellers in the $200,000-$400,000 range. Your results may vary, but it’s common that sellers at that price point don’t have a tremendous amount of upside equity. Thus, it’s not uncommon for them to consider a FSBO instead of working with a Realtor, to try to keep the 6% commission.

The reality is that most real estate websites include information that says approximately this: “Behold the awesome power of my expertise! I know things that you, the customer, could possibly never know. I have access to reports. I have access to sales history. Do NOT try to sell this alone!”

Joe uses the exact opposite approach. He wrote a free, 60 page downloadable PDF document called, “How to sell a home on your own in Florida.” He gives it away for free all over his website.

It may seem counterintuitive because he is literally showing people how to not use a Realtor. But, it is his number one source of new clients, because people get to about page 19 and realize that it is FAR more difficult to sell a home on their own than they previously expected.

This is an example of talkable usefulness, because not only do those customers choose to work with Joe, but their friends also hear the story. Joe has turned his customers into volunteer marketers, and that’s what talk trigger do: they allow your customers to build your business for you.

The quickest and most cost-effective way to boost any business in real estate is to give your customers a consistent story to tell. That’s your talk trigger.

This post was inspired by research and case studies contained in “Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers With Word of Mouth,” the new book by Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin.

About the Author

Jay Baer helps businesses clone their customers. He is a 7th generation entrepreneur, has written 6 best-selling books, and has founded five multi-million dollar companies. He is the President of Convince & Convert, a consulting firm that works with the world’s most iconic brands like The United Nations, 3M, and Hilton gain and keep more customers. A recent inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame, he’s also an avid tequila collector and a certified barbecue judge.
Hang on to your seats….here comes Jay Baer! You can find him on Twitter here, @jaybaer.

Categorised in: Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, FANtastic Marketing Tips, Home Builder Marketing & Sales