Passover starts on Saturday. While those that celebrate are probably stocking up on matza and getting ready for seders, everyone can to watch The Ten Commandments and Prince of Egypt when they’re on every channel this weekend. More so than any other Jewish holiday, Passover has plenty of worthwhile lessons for effective real estate marketing. Seriously. Here are 5 things The Haggadah can teach you about using the internet to help sell property.
Even Though You Know The Story Keep Telling It – Classifieds Are Your Friend
If I’ve learned one thing from over 20 years celebrating Passover, more than a decade of Hebrew school, and annual reviewings of The Rugrats Passover special, it’s that telling the story of the exodus from Egypt is the most important part of the holiday. Rabbis are very clear that no matter how many times you’ve told the story or how well you know it, you have to tell it again on Passover.
The takeaway for real estate marketing is that repetition is not a bad thing. Just because you have an amazing listing on your website doesn’t mean you lose anything from making another one on every classified site you can think of. This casts a wider net. The same information is now displayed in more places, increasing the likelihood of it being found by the right buyer. A lot of agents do very well only using classified sites. They find these sites typically rank higher in search engines than a brokerage or agent’s personal site, have large relevant audiences, and that is costs much less to maintain a few listings than an entire website. All of these things are true. Agents with their own websites would do well to take advantage of online classified services as well. Not just for more exposure. Links from the classified site to your personal domain are valuable for SEO. They’ll help increase your personal site’s position long after the property has been sold, especially for general terms like “houses for sale” or “apartments for rent”. Also, most major classified sites are designed to make promotions with Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest easier which can get you better results from social.
Moses Needed 10 Plagues To Get People’s Attention – You Should Use Every Available Tool To Drive Engagement
A lot of the Passover movies focus on how the Israelites were skeptical when Moses first suggested living somewhere else and not being slaves. These movies are all fairly long because it took 10 whole plagues before Pharaoh actually let the Jews leave. You could say these are examples of inferiority being internalized after generations of subjugation and general stubbornness, but they’re also issues with engagement. Moses could generate traffic or get audiences with Pharaoh and the Jews living in Egypt but could not make them engage with his content the way he intended.
There’s a parable where Moses has a speech impediment and is unable to really persuade anyone of anything until he lets his brother Aaron speak on his behalf. The lesson is obvious. Take advantage of people or tools that can help you, especially when it comes to getting your message across. Chat software can be the Aaron to your website’s Moses. Adding another voice, especially one specifically designed to interact with potential home buyers can be a major source of real estate leads.
The Golden Calf Was A Bad Idea – Don’t Mess With Google Local Guidelines
The rules for Google+/Google My Business are much easier to follow than the bible. You cannot have a different google my business page for each individual listing. It’s pretty simple, you are one business so you get one page. Trying to create more will eventually result in a penalty on your account which will result in lower traffic and bigger headaches. Getting rid of these penalties is not worth whatever exposure you think you’ll gain by adding more GMB pages.
Once they got out of Egypt, the Jews made a golden calf idol which was most definitely against whatever rules they had at the time. As punishment they spent 40 years wandering around the dessert. The lesson here is probably not to worship false idols but also that when authorities make rules those rules will be enforced. Our office gets lots of calls to help clean up accounts suffering from penalties that could have been avoided by following Google’s rules. These business lose exposure for months and are eventually forced to pay companies like mine to raise their site traffic back to pre penalty levels.
Remember The Burning Bush – Learn To Generate Leads Remotely
Many agents tell me their personality is their best asset and they feel most comfortable doing business face to face. I say that’s awesome but it doesn’t mean you can’t also be generating leads remotely. Adding one sales channel does not necessarily mean closing another. There is a new generation of potential buyers equally if not more confident interacting through text than conversation. Cloud and mobile tech make it possible to transfer your winning personality anywhere. People of all ages are always connected to some kind of device, a fact you should be leveraging for leads.
When God needed to talk to Moses he made the burning bush. Bushes in a field being the biblical equivalent of apps on a phone. You need to go where potential clients are and potential clients are on their phones. Today there is no excuse for not having a mobile optimized website. Having a presence in one or a few real estate apps is already one of the best ways to attract millennial buyers and could soon be a requirement to remain competitive in all demographics.
Sometimes You Win By Saying Where Not To Buy
Passover’s only obvious real estate scene is when Moses tells the Jewish people to mark their homes with lamb’s blood so the angel of death knows to spare their children from the final plague. If Moses were a real estate agent he got his clients what they wanted (to keep living) by telling the angel of death what houses to avoid instead of which ones to check out. He also made a remarkably effective map. The literal lessons are to be honest and avoid property deals with slavery and homicide. In terms of digital marketing it’s about accurate listings and taking advantage of map maker.
Some agents remove listings as soon as their sold. I’d wait a few months. Displaying listings that you’ve recently sold won’t directly lead to new clients but it will build confidence in your brand that will generate business down the road. As long as the information is accurate there is no harm using your past accomplishments to prove future competency to potential clients. Also maps. Map listings are increasing in both visibility and authority. Embedding maps of properties for sale in different neighbourhoods throughout your site is a great way to increase your listing’s prominence in general map results. It also adds an appealing visual element which is never a bad thing.
Happy Passover!
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