One of the biggest real estate auction events in the Southern Hemisphere is about to happen on the Gold Coast.
Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach are holding ‘The Edge’ on Saturday 17th April 2010 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre.
Brett Clements from PropVid sent me the ‘Hot Off The Press’ promo video yesterday.
Now for such a big event I’m sure that there has already been a lot of promotion done by the Gold Coast Network in the lead up till now & it looks like there is going to be a whole lot more promotion done between now and ‘The Edge’.
But I thought I might throw my 2 cents worth in & share some ideas on how Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach could leverage Social Media & the web more effectively to help spread the word.
Here’s ‘The Edge’ video promo.
The video went live on the PlatinumHD.tv site a few days ago & was uploaded onto YouTube 3 days ago. Whilst I think the video is really powerful there are a couple of things that could be changed to improve its conversion.
Changes to the Video: Within the video I’d have the agents website address GoldCoastNetwork.com.au appearing underneath the Ray White Broadbeach, Ray White Commercial Broadbeach, Ray White Mermaid Beach slide (which appears at the 2 minute mark within the video).
Also, towards the end of the video a slide appears saying “Spaces Limited Book Now”
Whilst I think it’s great to include a call to action. It’s important to define what you want people to do. Are they wanting vendors to book their property in now for the auction? Or do they want buyers to book their seat now? Or both?
On the web there is no room for confusion. It’s important that people watching the video know how to Book Now.
Improve Online Conversion: One suggestion could be that if you include the agency website address within the video, then on the home page of the Ray White website they could embed ‘The Edge’ promo video into the top right hand corner (probably cutting out the end of the surf life saving flag or surfer image) and then have a button underneath to say Click Here to Book Now for ‘The Edge’.
I would then send them to a long copy sales page that features some of the benefits of why they should be involved in ‘The Edge’ and provide an opt-in section which identifies if they are a buyer or a seller.
This will allow Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach to leverage the traffic that they already get to their website from Google and their other marketing, plus improve conversion from the people who view their professionally produced ‘The Edge’ promo video.
Obviously, with only 6 weeks to go till ‘The Edge’, to allow for the 4 week cut-through marketing campaign that they mention in the video, all sellers would need to be contacted straight away to include their listing in ‘The Edge’ marketing campaign.
I can imagine that the agency will need to have all properties listed by 20th March, but due to the size of the promotion & the incredible exposure there’s a possibility that they could include a few extra listings within a few days after this cut-off date. But, that’s obviously up to them.
Here’s a few other suggestions…
YouTube: One of the first things I noticed is that the video could also be optimised a lot better on YouTube. The wording used in the description & tagging has no chance of being found on Google by someone searching for real estate on the Gold Coast & I’m not sure that having it uploaded under the Entertainment category is going to help either?
Blogging: They should integrate a WordPress blog within their company website. This will not only help to market ‘The Edge’ but it will help with their SEO.
They should write a daily blog post about some of the build up towards ‘The Edge’ and ask all the staff to tweet or share each article with their followers on Twitter & their friends on Facebook.
When sharing the articles on these sites they could also ask people to click the like button when uploading onto Facebook and ask the followers to ‘Please RT’ their tweets on Twitter.
When posting daily updates on the blog it’s important to leave the comments section open on the articles because this may get people asking questions about how to be involved & could provide an additional lead generation strategy.
This could also provide an opportunity to set a deadline for the last day before properties will be allowed to be submitted & could create an extra sense of urgency for potential sellers and/or could encourage friends to tell friends to contact the agency so they don’t miss out on ‘The Edge’.
To protect the integrity of the event, Ray White Broadbeach-Mermaid Beach are the administrators of the blog so they have control to monitor comments too.
Facebook: I also noticed that Ray White Broadbeach-Mermaid Beach have a personal profile on Facebook. Whilst they currently have 67 friends, they should really have this as a Fan Page, because Facebook has a limit and once you get to 5,000 friends you have to change to a Fan Page.
Any company thinking about creating a presence on Facebook should start off with a Fan Page. They are better for business.
Celebrities, etc should also create a Fan Page. eg. One of my friends on facebook, Jack Canfield sent me an email the other day to ask me to join him at his fan page because he had reached his limit of friends.
Jack now has the task of getting all 5,000 of his friends that he has built up on his personal Facebook profile to go over & connect with him on his new Facebook Fan Page.
( Update: I found their company Facebook Fan Page – See Update at bottom of this article )
Twitter: With regards to Twitter I can’t seem to locate a company profile for them. At this point there appears to be no Twitter account linked to their site & no blog within their site.
Whilst ‘The Edge’ is an amazing concept, there are so many different things that Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach could do to make this the most incredible real estate event ever through Social Media.
(Update: I found their company Twitter account as well see Update at bottom of this article. I searched both facebook and Twitter for Ray White Broadbeach and Ray White Mermaid Beach. I finally found them under the Gold Coast Network.)
Print Media: Having seen the magnitude of the print media campaign from last years event, Ray White Broadbeach-Mermaid Beach should be advertising something like,
“For the daily inside scoop on ‘The Edge’ become a Fan on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter” within their campaign.
This could help them to build a huge network of people connected to their company who live within their service.
It’s never too late: Even though ‘The Edge’ is only 6 weeks away, when you think about the real-time nature of Web 2.0, there is still a lot of time available for Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach to leverage the power of the internet & use this impressive Video Production from PropVid to generate the most amazing impression within their marketplace.
2 last things: A geo-targeted Pay Per Click campaign on Google could help overcome some SEO issues, plus a targeted Facebook Ads Campaign would help drive targeted traffic to their video campaign and/or their Facebook Fan Page.
The amount of ‘Free’ online PR that could be generated around ‘The Edge’ could be massive.
If Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach get this right, ‘The Edge’ could become so much bigger than they could have ever imagined.
And, if you tallied up every strategy that I’ve mentioned, they could make a huge difference to their whole campaign for around $500 – $1,000 plus time spent writing a daily update on their blog about ‘The Edge’.
PS: There’s a few more ideas I have about what they could do on realestate.com.au and other strategies, but at this point I just wanted to paint the picture of what is really possible, if a real estate agency embraces Social Media and uses the power of the internet the right way.
Please feel welcome to share your thoughts & ideas.
UPDATE: After writing this article I noticed that Ray White Broadbeach – Mermaid Beach do in fact have a Facebook Fan Page under ‘Gold Coast Network‘ and a Twitter account at Twitter.com/raywhitebroad with their username as ‘Gold Coast Network’. It’s great to see that they have established a fan page and a Twitter account.
At the time of posting this update, they have 97 fans on Facebook and 23 followers on Twitter, but unfortunately all the company seem to be posting is there sold listings & providing a link to the Open Homes that they have on each weekend.
Their Gold Coast Network Fan Page could become so much more engaging and simply because of its name, Gold Coast Network, it has the potential to become one of the biggest real estate fan pages on Facebook if they shared some other information about what’s happening on the Gold Coast as well.
25 Comments
Brett Clements
I read yesterday Google is the biggest company in history; YouTube – the biggest broadcaster, and Apple dominates mobile devices.
The BIG THREE provide their content distribution platforms free-of-charge.
Add Facebook to the mix, and no wonder old media is, well, old.
Greg. I think you will certainly appreciate educating Agents and businesses in general in the new ways of social media is in its infant stages.
I was going to include the web site address as part of the supers in the video but as it being used as an online companion to other collateral produced by the Agency, with the exception of YouTube, I often think it is overkill. But then again, never assume.
In terms of SEO, this is really down to the individual Agent to input as much data about a property as possible, so it underpins the content, when launched to Google Real Estate, and on to YouTube and itunes for podcasting.
Nick
Uhh Brett? Blackberry actually sells more mobile devices than Apple.
I always cringe whenever big business tries to go with social networking.
Its for people not companies. Duh. “Yay I’ve got Ray White as a friend. Their profile is good” doesnt quite work.
And it seems people prefer to read that someone they know is currently on the loo via Twitter than reading that a million dollar company sold another house.
I’d personally prefer the latter, but not by much.
Brett Clements
Nokia sells more phones but the bulk aren’t smart phones Nick. So I will relinquish that. The point I was trying to make is these three Companies are changing the world with their media platforms. Apple saved the music industry. As for big companies playing in the social media space, what do you call Facebook and Twitter. Small businesses?
Dean Yeo
Great post with so… Much useful info. Many thanks and look forward to seeing u at ReUncut event this Wed in Brisbane Greg ..cheers Dean Yeo Ray White Paddington
Nick
Yeah but Brett they dont use their own product. :p
Greg Vincent
Brett, optimisation is an extremely important part of uploading content onto high page rank Social Media sites, especially YouTube.
Google understands that people prefer to watch than read & if you want more exposure for your company within the real estate space, then optimising your videos for relevant real estate related keywords should be something to seriously take on board.
If you
PaulD
Of course the big winner in all that, would be the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Correct this assumption if i’m too far out please Glenn Batten, but I’m guessing that the campaign will run for 4 weeks, with about 20 pages per week (conservatively) and the page rate would be discounted to about $3k per page.
If those figures are anywhere near the ballpark, and I think I have been conservative in all of them, then the Bulletin will pick up in excess of $240,000
Is that somewhere near the mark?
Brett’s video effort would cost a fraction of that, and get to more people, or at least get to more people who are capable of buying one of the properties. So can someone explain to me the disconnect between the newspaper cost and the video cost. I mean explain how the agents are conned into paying a fortune for a relatively ineffective and terminally morbid media, and yet they expect the majority of their enquiries to come from the internet. Ask any of them, they’ll tell you exactly that. And their enquiries mostly DO come from the internet.
Robert Simeon
Paul you have hit the nail right on the head. The reason why they disconnect is simple: real estate agents know very little about online and are not prepared to put *their* own money into new media when they can rely using other peoples money to promote the property and themselves.
They don’t have a database business model and are too inept and lazy to build one. The funny thing thing about this is that just like newspaper advertising they (the agents) will perish too – as they have not moved with the times. You would also find that the majority of these agents don’t even appear on Google key word searches either. But – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks either – well not all anyway 🙂
Glenn Batten
The Gold Coast Bulletin has been the “Ray White Liftout” for quite awhile now. Other agents are just part of it … right in the back pages.. As most agents have reduced their spend on print the Gold Coast Bulletin has looked after the Ray White agents because of the continued commitment to every week. They get special rates that then make it very hard to compete with thus perpetuating the problem even further.
The problem though is agents in general don’t take too kindly to “mates rates” to the chosen few. I can understand the Bulletin providing some sort of special arrangements to those agents that continue to support them but the disparity of the ad costs between the haves and have nots is now getting too far.
On the Sunshine Coast apparently the Ray White group were feted over in the same way and the opportunity arose for a group that created an industry owned real estate newspaper has changed the real estate print advertising landscape on the Sunshine Coast.
The name of that publication on the Sunshine Coast is My Property Review and you can view their latest edition at http://issuu.com/mypropertyreview/docs/mpr80 which is 128 pages and all their previous editions at http://issuu.com/mypropertyreview
You will notice a lack of Ray White offices but a damn lot of advertising from other agencies. The local newspaper was decimated and have now dropped their rates to try and claw back but the horse has bolted.
This model which is a combined ownership between the publisher and the real estate agents is also being rolled out in other locations right around Australia right now by different operators. There are examples of this going back for a long time (I think has a very old industry owned model operating in Bendigo?) but it now seems to be gaining traction on a much bigger scale.
In the My Property Review example there are no mates rates and even investors only get $100 or so per page discount. That newspaper is dropped to every residence in the region and is printed on high quality paper. It looks and feels great.
With the sheer volume of real estate advertising that goes on in the Gold Coast Bulletin (I have seen it close to an 3/4 of an inch thick at its peak) it is no surprise that it is being looked at by more than one potential player. One of those solutions is nearly finalised and has letters of commitment that have been signed by a lot of agents to invest and commitment pages to every week. It’s not there yet but its getting close.
If print costs come down we are all a winner, agents and owners alike.
Glenn Batten
Brett,
Great video.. I really liked a previous one too (was it last year? or the one before?) that really built on the emotional aspect whereas this one tried to cram a damn lot of info into a short video. I am sure it was a Broadbeach one… even made me want auction.. !!! well maybe not quite 🙂
The two Ray White power houses on the Gold Coast… that is the Broadbeach/Mermaid and the Surfers Paradise group are really slick and professional outfits. I think you do work for both of these groups now dont you?
Greg Vincent
Well done Brett or Gold Coast Network. It’s great to see the description, category & tagging has been changed on the video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9RzOQencsU
Whilst it’s not optimised as well as it could be, it’s definitely an improvement.
It costs nothing to optimise videos and they can generate lots of FREE traffic to an agents’ website.
Good to see the website hyperlinked too. Hyperlinking the video at the beginning of the description is a little trick that I use to help get FREE click-thru traffic straight from people viewing a video whilst on YouTube.
Aaron Meehan
Hi Greg,
Aaron Meehan here, I look after Marketing and IT for PlatinumHD.
Mate, nice article. Actually great article.
I think it highlights the current state of online media marketing for a lot of real estate companies, throwing a line in but not really catching much.
That being said there are some that are better at it than others and some that are pro actively having a crack.
There are so many FREE and easily accessed systems out there that could be utilised by companies to aid in online marketing, but for some reason this industry is notorious for jumping on the band wagon and then falling off because they get the wrong results as a direct effect of incorrect implementation.
Youtube is a great example. Its been around for years but very few have implemented it. We have taken it one step further, we upload all videos to youtube.com/platinumhdtv, where, from the back end of http://www.platinumhd.tv all Agents have the ability to change the Youtube descriptions and add as many hot links to the video
Greg Vincent
Thanks Aaron. Within any industry there will always be a small percentage of innovators and a large percentage of imitators.
Innovation is an extremely powerful Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and always will be, yet in the Future Of Agents Commission 2010 survey I recently conducted one of the questions I asked was…
‘In 2010, which factor do you feel will have the most impact on your commission rate?’
65.8% said ‘Competing agents offering discounts’ and only 1.6% said ‘The Web’.
Many of the agents I know who are innovating effectively seem to have minimal issues with their commission rates & often charge more than their competitors because they provide a significant added value to their clients.
Robert Simeon
Great point Greg, agents should have vendors wanting to be on their website as a point of difference over competitors. When an agency gets the mix right it is right up there as the most powerful tool after the agent of course 🙂 Not to forget the pain it then causes competitors too!
Greg Vincent
Robert, I can imagine with the 1 billion in sales to subscribers edging ever closer, your agency has already out-positoned the competition by a country mile.
Even though there are so many simple things that agencies can do to innovate effectively, so many of the networks & industry bodies seem scared to jump.
Back in June I wrote an article about the untapped power of leveraging videos. Almost 9 months later & very little has changed. The Kick 2009 RE/MAX campaign that I mentioned in the article has only had an extra 9,000 views.
http://www.business2.com.au/2009/06/the-untapped-power-of-leveraging-real-estate-videos/
Whilst 1000 extra views per month might sound good. RE/MAX have 100,000 associates, who surely would have databases they could have emailed the video out to, facebook friends & Twitter followers they could have shared the video with & maybe a blog that they could have uploaded the The Kick 2009 Commercial into.
What a waste of resources. It would effectively cost them nothing to get their message out there.
Robert Simeon
Greg,
$1 billion will be a huge milestone just another $91 million to go! The wonderful thing about online businesses is that we are always working on ways of further improving the experience. We have a few new innovations currently under construction which is exciting – watch this space and yes – it relates to new media!
Brett Clements
Hats off to PaulD. You are so right.
Greg. What’s that old saying; ‘You can lead a horse to water….’ but at the end of the day, we deliver a production, to a Client’s specifications.
We can provide all the tools; all the knowledge; all the where-with-all. But it’s not our job to sell the home.
Glenn. Agree. I had to stuff too much in; the attention span is getting shorter out there. A few years ago, the average length of a Corporate video was about 12 minutes. I reckon 2.30 is the maximum for corporate messaging – and we should be able to get that down to 90 seconds by year’s end. Then 30 – then maybe 15 seconds with interactive links.
Go the Hurt Locker.
Glenn Batten
Brett, I am not knocking the frentic style… the sheer quantity of content the client obviously wanted in sort of pre determined that anyway no matter what you wanted.. It’s just that a previous version you did I preferred. I reckon it had a real emotional hook to it.
Brett Clements
Hi Glenn. No worries. Appreciate the feedback.
Greg Vincent
Thought this article might come in handy for those agents who are currently using video.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/10/video-seo-top-google-search/
Could also be good for those who are still unsure about the importance of video marketing moving forward.
Rachael Lord
Great post – valuable for any agent.
I wasn’t aware that facebook had a 5000 limit for friends – learning something new every day from Business 2!
Greg Vincent
Thanks Rachael. I
Greg Vincent
Glenn, further to your comment about MyPropertyReview. It looks like a similar move has just taken place in Victoria, but with a much bigger impact.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/15/fairfax-shudders-as-catalano-fires-up-new-property-glossy/
There’s some big advertising dollars leaving Fairfax Community Newspapers in Victoria & the comment from their “Victorian general manager Colin Moss bizarrely accused the agents of attempting to
Nick
Greg thanks for brightening up my day already. That quote is priceless! 🙂
Glenn Batten
Yeah Greg.. I am not a subscriber anymore but Robert sent me the article whilst it was still smoking in his inbox. We have been having an interesting discussion if Sydney Agents could do the same thing or whether the Newspaper hooks are embedded too deep in Sydney Agents.
Quite an interesting turn of events. I have been planning on doing an article on the issue expanding whats already been raised in the comments but had to get another one out in the meantime re REA… which should be published soon.
There is another interesting player who regularly comments here on this blog in this move towards an industry owned print solutions. He has been trying to make inroads into smaller rural markets under the radar but the play in Inner Melbourne has busted the issue open.. Hopefully he is going to cough up some info on his progress without me speculating from what I know already….. 🙂