Tutorial: Combine Facebook Ads, Your IDX Feed and Your CRM for Success

So in my last article, I gave you all the reasons that Facebook is a great, yet overlooked marketing platform for agents. Today, though, I intend to show you how to INTEGRATE it into your overall marketing strategy.

Integration is so very important because, simply put, just about everything in the real estate industry these days is disconnected. The average agent we come into contact with subscribes to roughly 6-10 technology platforms. 98% of those DO NOT talk to any other platforms (at least in a meaningful way), thus messing up the integrity of a agent's most valuable resource--their database.

To those ends, if you are going to embark on a Facebook marketing campaign, you need to make sure that it is working seamlessly, in tandem with all your other vehicles. Making sure you can lead people from your Facebook ads to your IDX system and then turn them into leads that push into your CRM system is a critical piece of this puzzle.

Using your IDX as the item of value to get someone to click on your Facebook Ad

There are many ways you can run Facebook campaigns, given all the different types of demographic searches Facebook has available. However, let's stick with the same example scenario I posed in my last article. Let's assume you are an agent that specializes in "car properties" (luxury properties with multiple car garages), and you wanted to market your listings to people that were most likely to purchase one of these properties on Facebook.

Step 1: Pull the content that is going to be your item of value

So as you can see in the screenshot above, in my example, let's say the agent generates a page on their website that features all their "Car Properties." This is going to be used first thing after you log into Facebook to create and ad.

Step 2: Define the type of ad you want to run

The next thing you need to do is define the type of ad you wish to run. The type of ad you wish to run is a "Clicks to Website" ad. Select that and then put the URL of the place the user will be sent when they click on your ad (in this example, we are wanting to do clicks to a website; in this case, the page that details all the "car properties" this agent has to offer).

Step 3: Pick Your Demographic

So the first step of a few in creating your perfect Facebook ad campaign is picking your geography and the age range of the people you are trying to attract. In this particular example, since we are looking at car collectors in La Jolla, California (a very expensive area of California), we are going to go with 35-55 years of age in La Jolla, California.

Step 4: Pick An Income Range

So given that the area is an expensive one and given that Facebook allows us to pick a particular income range, we can select the perfect income range we want most. The trick here is to pick the income range of the people that can afford the houses you are advertising. For the sake of argument, let's just pick $150-250,000. Your particular range will vary, but the take home message here is that you can pick many ranges to serve your specific needs.

Step 5: Pick Homeownership

This one is pretty cut and dry. One of the great things about Facebook ads is that they let you determine a user from a homeowner to a renter. So you can literally build your ad to only target those people that are homeowners in the given geography, age range, and income level that you have selected.

Step 6: Pick Their Interests

So above and beyond geography, income level, and whether or not a prospect owns a home, you can also pull data on what a prospect's interests are. In this example of someone that would be interested in a "car property," we can pull a hobby or activity of "Automobiles." Again, remember that this is just my example, but the hobby could be anything. For instance, horses, wine making or anything else.

Step 7: Who Is Likely To Move?

This is likely one of the most powerful tools that Facebook offers. They have actually contracted with a third party company to gather data on users and determine the users that are most likely to move, given the vast amount of sharing on their social networks (NOTE: This is nothing AT ALL like those theoretical predictive analytics companies out there that are charging you a premium to mail to the "top 20% of likely movers" in their databases). This is analyzing actual, real behavioral data.

So on top of pinpointing all these other demographics, you can now pick people that literally are likely to move. I say that these "predictive analytics" companies don't have it figured out, and even though I don't know with 100% certainty that Facebook has it all the way figured, if you ask me "who are you going to trust?" I'm going to pick the multi-billion dollar corporation every day of the week over the small start-up that is trying to shake things up.

We are a society of people that overshare. That makes Facebook ripe for figuring this stuff out.

Then What?

So now you have targeted your best prospects and got them to click on your ad. Now What? The answer is simple: Work your leads.

After you get your new prospect interested, and after they look at a few properties (could be 2, 3 or 5...whatever you want), make them sign up for an account to see more.

If they are truly interested in what you have to offer, they are going to believe in what you have and want to sign up for an account to see more. Almost every IDX solution out there will allow you to put a cap on how many properties a prospect can see before having to sign up. For your Facebook ads, you need to put a cap. You have them. They are interested. Why not make them tell you who they are?

CRM Integration is KEY!

This is perhaps that most obvious, yet the least thought-of facet of the marketing campaign. It all goes back to being "fully connected" though.

Simply put, if you are going to embark on a campaign such as this and expect to effectively work these leads, when a lead comes in, it MUST flow directly into your CRM system, send you an alert that you have a new lead and trigger whatever number of follow-up workflows you wish to happen.

Too many agents think, "I can deal with the incoming leads," and just end up wasting their money. DO NOT be that agent. Even if you don't go with our system, look to a system that answers all your needs, works with your workflow, and helps you capitalize on the leads you are spending your hard earned money on.

To view the original article, visit the Leading Agent blog.