Jon Lahey's business grew 30% in 2023 despite a 45% market drop. He cut mass marketing, focused on Q&A videos, and enhanced social media storytelling.
An excellent webinar with mega agent team leader Jon Lahey, who's sold thousands of homes in Washington DC over 20 years with 1,374 reviews on Google and 500+ on Zillow. His market collapsed 45% in 2023, and he had to make significant changes with his team of 30 agents.
While his market is down, his business is up 30%.
What did he do? In short, he cut his cold, mass marketing (EDDM postcards) and started publishing helpful Q&A videos solving problems to his seller database, ramped up Google ads for free home value requests, increased open house attendance for trade-up buyers, and supercharged his social media by telling an entire timeline of seller success stories with client events for his past clients and sphere.
If you're looking for a listing marketing plan of action (especially by getting sellers from trade-up buyer lead generation), this is a great interview to watch.
AI Summary Notes
Insights
- Jon decided to cut his marketing budget significantly and focus on nurturing existing leads in his database through educational content.
- For seller leads, Jon mentioned the housing market was down 44% at one point, which was painful and required adjustments to their approach.
- For buyer leads, Jon mentioned buyers were having issues with homes still selling fast for the best homes, requiring him to address uncertainty.
Real estate marketing strategies during a down market, focusing on data and targeted content creation
- Jon shared his team's success story in a down market, crediting their positive mindset and focus on showing up every day.
- Jon's team adjusted their marketing plan to prioritize seller leads, doubling down on tactics that work and cutting back on ineffective ones.
- He analyzed marketing data to identify underperforming tactics and shift focus to educational content for the database of sellers.
- Jon creates short videos (2-3 minutes) to address common questions sellers have, such as why sell now or how to use equity, to educate and engage the audience.
Lead generation strategies working right now
- Jon went from direct response marketing to educating sellers on home value.
- He highlights the importance of social media presence and online reviews in building trust and credibility with potential clients.
- Jon highlights the importance of addressing sellers' concerns about owning two homes, which is a common fear among trade-up buyers.
- Jon's selling proposition is to guarantee a sale of the buyer's current home, alleviating the fear of getting stuck with two homes.
Creating content to increase business
- Jon shares insights on storytelling in marketing, emphasizing the importance of making the seller the hero of the story.
- Jon works with Frank's company, Vyral Marketing, to help with copywriting and email creation, leveraging their expertise for growth.
- Jon shares his strategy for creating personalized videos that solve clients' problems and showcase his unique value as a real estate agent.
- To make his videos, Jon uses a teleprompter for video shoots and recommends BigVu and Riverside.fm for content creators.
- Jon uses YouTube ads to target a specific zip code with visuals and audio from his radio show, aiming to drive traffic to their website.
- Jon retargets viewers who visit their website with secondary ads to increase the chances of conversion, finding it cheaper and more effective than targeting a specific zip code on Facebook.
