You can often tell a lot about someone from their email address, which is one of the reasons this week’s Tech Tuesdays focuses on creating branded contact information. It’s not enough to think of yourself as “Hastings Ranch Homes” or whatever your specific brand is, you need your email address to match, and ideally your phone number’s area code as well.
Besides creating a solid first impression with clients, branded contact information has several additional benefits which The RE Coach discusses in this video. Further, having a brand-specific email address and internet-specific phone number are easy and free, so there’s no reason for you NOT to set them up as soon as you’re done learning how to by watching this video.
Hey. I hope you’ve been with us on the videos before. We’re into video # 2 in the series right now of KISSRE, which is Keeping It Simple, Stupid: Real Estate. Basically, we’re just trying to make it easy for you so you can go out and do it so you’re not afraid of it. I want to take the fear away from marketing your business on the internet.
We spoke last video about branding and how important it was. And just real quick, what we talked about if you weren’t there is the old brand is gone. The old brand is “I’m Mr. big real estate agent, and I do more business than anyone else.” The brand I want you to focus on is an internet brand, something people are typing into the search engines. And those three areas that you focus on are geography, industry, specialty.
So as an example, if I were a real estate agent doing business in the Belmont Shore community of Long Beach community, I would be “Homes for Sale in Long Beach, California” or “Homes for Sale in Belmont Shore.” And here’s a tip: people who are looking for a home use the word “house.” So if you’re looking for buyers, make it “Houses for sale in Belmont Shore.” You get a better shot at hitting a buyer that way.
All right. So we’re talking today about branded contact information, or what I like to call “Don’t muck it up.” Over the years, and don’t lie to me, cuz I know it’s true, you have taken your personal cell phone and your personal email and mucked it up. You’ve given it to business contacts, you’ve given it to friends, relatives, heck you’ve probably given it to telemarketers somewhere on the internet. Those things are a mess. You’ve got to get away from them, step away, and we’re going to create two contact pieces of information, or pieces of contact information. And those are going to be used specifically for your online persona. You’re not going to give them out on a business card, you’re not going to shake someone’s hand and say “Email me here,” you’re only going to put them in your online profiles. That way, you have analytics that are specific to the internet. If they call you on this phone number, you know it came from the internet. If they email you on this email, you know it came from the internet. And if you don’t muck it up over the years, you’ll have a great idea of what percentage of your business comes from the internet.
There are a couple ways to do it. I’m going to give you the free and easy way to do it, because that’s my style, “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” right? Go to Gmail. A Google application. Sign up for a Gmail account that mimics your brand. So let’s use that example before. Belmont Shore Homes For Sale. I would love to get belmontshorehomesforsale@gmail.com. I may have to change it a little bit, but that’s ok. You may have to add something like “my” or “the” or something of that nature. But basically, you want a Gmail account that is simply branded to the same brand we talked about earlier.
First of all, you’d be blown away with all the different things you get with a Google account. One of the things you get is called Google Voice. Google Voice is a virtual number that doesn’t exist except to forward to another number. So we’re going to assume it forwards to your cell phone. So you set up a Google Voice number that’s specific and different from your cell phone number, but it’s just going to ring to your cell phone anyway. When it does, it will indicate that it’s your Google Voice number. Now that means to you, “this is an internet lead.”
Internet leads are different. They’re specific. Think about your own internet surfing habits. If you make a phone call to a number you found on a website or an internet profile, and they don’t answer, what do you do? You move on. Get to the next person. We want to avoid that. It’s a necessary evil of being on the internet. So when that phone rings, and it says it’s from Google Voice and you know it’s an internet call, I want you to answer it right away, and even if it comes down to “Hey, look. Hey, I’m at my kid’s soccer game right now. I’m really glad you called, can I call you back in 20 minutes?” That connection you’ve just made with that person will last you a lifetime. They’re going to love you for it.
So we’ve got our brand, now we’ve got branded contact information so that we can have clear, concise analytics of where our phone calls and our emails are coming from.
Next, we’re going to start adding social networks to it, and we’re going to start with, probably the most popular, and actually the most controversial, and that’s Facebook business pages. Do we need it? Yes, I think we do. And so I’m going to teach you how to go about getting it, how it fits into the greater scheme of things.
I hope you’re having a good time on this video series. It’s early, stick with us. What you’re going to find is that this will work for you, and it’ll be easy to do.
If you have any other questions about this video, the ones prior, or anything else that has to do with internet marketing, get ahold of me, TheRECoach@gmail.com, branded, and my phone number to leave a message is 562-646-6710, Google Voice number. So I practice what I preach.
Thanks a lot, and, by the way, if you’re an agent or broker and you’d like The Coach to speak at a sales meeting, or do a training in-house, give me a call. Happy to do it.
That was video # 2. Stay tuned for Facebook Business Pages, coming up next.
