helping real estate agents capture, convert & close facebook leads

Want to pay LESS for your Facebook ads and get MORE results?

Facebook ad costs keep going up (and they’re just going to get higher and higher as more people move to using Facebook ads)… HOWEVER, you can hack your way to lower ad costs

Make sure your Facebook business page is SET UP for lead generation… for ad conversion.

Featured Download: The Facebook Page Setup Checklist – specifically for real estate agents – get your Facebook page setup to capture real estate leads.

Today I wanted to dive into something that we’re noticing as ad-buyers, and that you may not really be noticing. You may not be putting enough money into Facebook ads to truly notice this, however, it’s happening.

What’s going on is ad costs are going up, and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

I’m going to give you a few hacks you can use to lower your ad costs, because there are some tips you can definitely use that will lower your ad costs and increase your conversions, getting more people to respond to your ad.  

Like I said, basically we are going to talk about ad costs. I’ve seen a lot of members talk about this, “Ad costs are expensive, it’s costing me this much for page like, or this much for an opt-in.” We are always on the hunt to try to lower our ad costs, absolutely, absolutely we want to do that.

But that comes from all the different tweaks you can do, so here’s why this is important.

If you already have what you think is a pretty good ad cost, say it’s costing you $2 to get opt-ins, where people actually opt-in with your email address, and you are like “You know what, I brought that down for $4,” here’s the thing. For every tweak that you do to it, you can lower as much as possible and, you know, you’ll lower it to a point where it’s not possible to lower it anymore.  

But here’s the other thing, here’s what is coming, and I’ve shared this before, but right now, $80 billion dollars is being put into TV commercials, and print advertising, by the big guys.

Right now, that is how much they are putting into TV commercials, and print advertising. No one is watching TV commercials, so when they realize what they are doing is no longer working for them, they are going to shift their ad budgets, their ad costs.

And guess where they will shift them too? They are going to shift them to where the eyeballs are! And since Facebook has more active users then Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp combined, that’s where they are going to put their ad costs, which means that ad costs for you, as a real estate agent in small town USA, or wherever you are, are going to go up.

So, what can you do to hack it? What can you do to make sure you are not negatively affected? We are all going to have rising ad costs, but how can you avoid the extremes?

Start With the Basics!

The first thing I’m going to start with is the very basics. The very basics have to do with having your Facebook page set up that in a way, in a sense, hacks the algorithm.

I say “hacks” loosely, because basically you are setting it up in a way that people respond to, that consumers respond to, and they like it.

There are actually three main pieces from it, and if you want the entire checklist, it is free and there is a link up under the video. Use that link to opt-in to the full checklist,

I go through everything, because everything you do, every tweak you make, changes your result and gives you higher results while lowering your ad costs.

I’m going to give you the three top ones that are the most important, especially when you are running ads, even on your posts that you are doing.

Let’s do this! The top three pieces, and if you want all of them so that you can do as much as possible, get the checklist. It is free! I just ask for your email so that I can email you your checklist.

The checklist is free! And I’m not selling you anything with the checklist, so you’re good, just do that.

The first thing is, this is the hardest, I really think this is the hardest, because we believe so much in why we do this.

The “why” we believe in this is actually flawed, and I’m going to explain this.

How to Set-up Your Facebook Business Page Name

 Your Facebook business page name should not be your name. It should not be “homes for sale,” it should not be your team name, your brokerage name, no. It’s shouldn’t.  

Here’s why. There’s a couple reasons actually and this is number one.

If you put “Jane Doe Realtor” as your page name, first of all, if you ever get married or divorced, “Jane Doe Realtor- Cowell-Baker,” let’s just say that. If you ever get married or divorced, or you change companies, or your broker dies and the brokerage goes to a different franchise,

Or what if your broker sells to a different franchise, or your broker goes bankrupt and the broker goes to a different franchise- and I’m just gonna let you know that two out of those three things have happened to us in our whole life, our whole business time.

If any of those things happen, marriage, divorce, change name, whatever, its next to impossible to get your Facebook name changed through Facebook.

So when you’re investing time and money and other resources into your page, and you can’t change the name, you have to abandon it, and that sucks.

For example, if you were with RE/MAX, we were with RE/MAX, and we had set everything up so that the only thing, if we would ever have to change, the only thing that we would ever have to do anywhere, is change the logo everywhere and change the brokerage name.

We did not have it in our domain, we did not have it, at the time, in our Facebook page, we didn’t have a Facebook page for the business at this time. This was back in 2004 that this happened, or 2001, somewhere in the early 2000’s before Facebook.

Our broker decided to partner with another two people, and to let the RE/MAX franchise go, and went with GAMC, and so that’s what happened and it was out of our control. We stayed with the same brokerage, we didn’t leave anything, but that changed.

Then, in 2009, when we were with GMAC, we saw this coming, I had already set everything up. Our page name was not related to our franchise, our website was not related to our franchise, nothing. Now we had all the disclosure’s everywhere,  however, we had it so I could change everything really easily.

And our broker, our brokerage, went bankrupt. Like literally, boom, bankrupt. And so by the next day, we were officially unlicensed, although we were.

You have to be with a broker, but although, we were prepared within 24 hours, we had our own brokerage up and running. We knew this was coming, so we had prepared.

But here’s the thing, a lot of people didn’t know it was coming. And nobody had Facebook pages back then. This was 2009, beginning of 2009, no one in our brokerage had Facebook pages, except us.

It’s almost impossible, even if, even there is a trick to changing your Facebook page name, even if you know that trick, you can get away with it once, maybe twice. And then it’s, no, you can’t.

So the key is that you do  not want to put something that could possibly change. Gosh, if you are in the business long enough, it’s going to change. Something’s going to happen, something’s going to change.

Even if you own your own brokerage, you still could sell it. You could decide to not have it, for whatever reason, just be aware of that. So that’s number one.

Your Page Needs to be Lifestyle Focused

Number two reason why your Facebook name should not be your own stuff, because no one gives a flying fig about you. If there are people that you do not know, which is why you have a Facebook business page, which is why you are out to meet your unmets, they don’t care about you.

They care about themselves, they care about their lives, they care about the lifestyle, they care about their dWreams. So when they see an ad, or a page that says “Jane Doe Realtor Coldwell-Banker” or they see RE/MAX or Century 21, when they see that, they are like, their first reaction is “I’m not going to respond to this, I’m going to hide the ad, they are just going to sell me, etc.”

In other words, your conversions suck. They suck because people are turned off. It’s not about them. It’s about you.

Your page needs to reflect their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, through the lifestyle. You need to be lifestyle focused, kind of  like doing a passion page.

REI has a camping page, they have a hiking page, they have a climbing page, they have a rowing page, they have all kinds of different pages around passions that people have.

You don’t want to have all kinds of different pages, you just want one, as a local real estate agent, you will want ONE real estate page.  

You want that page to revolve around people’s lifestyle. This is why you will see a lot of “homes and lifestyle,” or “living,” or “life in.” You want one key word.

No, “county” is not a keyword.

No “North Virginia” is not a keyword.

You need to narrow this down.

You need to have a page name that reflects the passion of the people you are trying to connect with.

I live in Idaho, so i might do “Idaho Homes and Lifestyle.” If you have ever been out here, this is a big state. I don’t care if I’m licensed in Idaho and I could potentially get the deal in Boise and I’m in Coeur D’Alene.

No, that’s eight hours away! Be realistic. Even from Coeur D’Alene to Sandpoint, that’s an hour away, I’m not gonna sell in Sandpoint. So there are some people that will. Focus on one town, focus it down, on “Coeur D’Alene Homes and Lifestyle,” “Dubuque Homes and Lifestyle,” even Phoenix might be too big, either go “Phoenix Metro” or name it the outlying areas.

That’s like a the big win, the big one, right there.

Your header photo! We are so excited to put “houses!” and “I’m a real estate agent!” and “buy from me!” and “Sell! Sell! Sell!” in our header photos.

That’s a freaking turn off to everybody. Nobody likes it. You know what they like? What they connect with in the header photo?

They connect with, a piece of architecture, a sculpture, an area view, something about the area.

You are trying to socially connect with people you do not know, about something that you have in common, and that is where you live. You need to reflect that.

Examples like that of our area here, it’s about the lakes. There is so much about the lifestyle here, the four season lifestyle, from hiking, to mountain biking, to skiing, jet skiing, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, it is about the lifestyle, the outdoor lifestyle here.  

One of the biggest things we were able to use was that I took some pictures of the lake, some of the best pictures that reflected what it’s like to live here. What is it like to live in your area?

What do you love? I mean, if you are in Philadelphia, the art museum steps.  I mean, hello, Philly is known for “Rocky” and for a whole lot of other things, and the oldest road in America, things like that. I mean, that’s just Philadelphia example, wherever you are, what do you have?

Even here, I don’t have to use the lake. If I was trying to go for a crowd who had younger children, I would use the Mugsy and Millie thing, and if you have kids and know the stories, that’s great, the author lives here and has decorated mooses all over the place. They are really kinda cute, and they are iron sculpted moose. I mean, I would use that!

Find something that is related to your area and here’s a little side trick, a little bonus, if you don’t think that you take pictures well, because your photo really has to be well taken.

You have to own it, you take it or you buy it. You do not borrow it. You do not pull it off Google. This is a business so be ethical.

Stop breaking the rules, stop using other people’s pictures. If they give you permission to use their photo, get it in writing.

So here’s what you do. Hire a high school photographer to go out and take 100, 200 pictures for you. Pay him a $100. $200, whatever it is. Have them take a ton of pictures. Tell them all the different areas that you want them to go take pictures in, and then get the use of some of those pictures and use some of those.

So number one is your page name, number two is your header photo,

Your Profile Photo

The number three one, this is another hard one for real estate agents, like harder than I thought.

For that page photo, you know, the headshot, the profile piece of that, the profile photo of your business page, so many of us want to use our logo, or our professional headshot.

 There is nothing more of a turn off for a business page that is about passion, that’s about a lifestyle, then to see a logo. 

People know immediately, its a sell. They know immediately, the feel immediately, that they are going to be sold to.

You don’t want that.

If you have your professional headshot on there, again, same thing. You are trying to connect with people on a social connection basis on here.  

This is Facebook we are talking about here. This is Facebook- when you are out volunteering for the Humane Society or for Habitat for Humanity, or even chamber events, do you always stand in your professional headshot pose?

No! You are a real person, you feel real, you look real, be real in that little profile photo. I’m talking about the business page, be real in it, take selfies!

And I know that a lot of you struggle with this, you do, and I know this because my members brought it to my attention. I did not realize how big of a struggle this was until they did. Guys, its a selfie. Take your phone, and play with selfies.

And for all you ladies that are, you know, really worried about looking heavy in your selfies, etc, in your selfie photo, let me do you a favor, I don’t even think you can see this.

Do not take a selfie where your nose is in the middle of the picture. You don’t want the camera at the same level as your face, you don’t want it below your face, or you are going to look alot heavier.

You want it at an angle, right at about your forehead. That’s where you want it. A little bit of an angle, right at your forehead. That will take the best pictures.

Play around with the light. Take a lot of selfies, you can always delete them. Take a lot of selfies. You want selfies as your business page profile pictures, because you want people to connect and resonate with you.

Stop being afraid to do it, stop thinking it needs to be professional, it doesn’t.

Your page name, header picture, profile photo. If those three things are changed, your ad costs will go down, your ad conversions will go up. After that, I guarantee it will, it happens all the time and I have seen it hundreds of times.

Just those three things.

There are more. There’s more things, get the checklist. Just download it, it’s free. I ask you for your email and then email you the checklist/

It’s a couple pages long, there’s several other areas that you can go in, that each help your conversions, help your page, help your everything. So go ahead and do that.

Let me know! If you have made these changes and have seen real results immediately. would you please comment below?

I want you to be able to get Facebook to work for you. It will work using those three things I just talked about today.

Those will change those results on Facebook, almost immediately

Featured Download:

The Facebook Page Setup Checklist – specifically for real estate agents – get your Facebook page setup to capture real estate leads.