With CHRIS MELOTTI – MELOTTI MEDIA COPYWRITING

Are you using your smartphone to market yourself to your audience? Chris Melotti, an award-winning and industry recognised copywriter and marketing consultant from Melotti Media, believes the digital space makes marketing in the real estate sector so much easier. He says, “The beauty of digital now is that there’s a lot of Iow-cost, very efficient solutions to marketing out there. Social media is a huge, untapped resource, especially platforms like Instagram. You’ll find now, your smartphones do a lot of that work for you.”

THINK ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE
 
When creating marketing, Chris recommends to take a step back and ask yourself, ‘What does the audience really want from this material?’ He says, “Genuine trust and connection needs to be achieved by all your marketing. Gone are the days where you are sitting there on your ivory throne with a polished perspective on life. You have to really, really create a genuine connection.”
 
So how can you use social media to build brand awareness and engagement?

Chris believes two types of video content create genuine connections – one is video of yourself in action and the other is educational content. Chris says, “Marketing does well when it is that whole, genuine, ‘I’m at my open home. I’m at my auction. Here are the raw results’. All you need to do is go to an open home and start filming and then post it on there (social media).” Chris remembers filming one agent as he opened the door and walked in, “…and the vendor who had just successfully sold her house at auction ran up to him and said, ‘Oh, my gosh’. She burst into tears. That kind of message, putting it straight onto your social media, is extremely powerful, because it can’t be staged, and people can relate to that.”

Videos offering some advice, tips, tricks and information also bring your audience to you. Chris says, “A lot of people worry that they’re in danger of giving away their secrets or their IP, but that’s actually not what happens. What happens, and I do it with my own business as well, I explain and I do regular posts and videos and blogs, on basically educating the market, because it creates you as a key opinion leader and people will come to you because they see you have the expertise and they learn from you. This kind of marketing offers genuine value to your audience and they will come to you as a result.”

2. LINKEDIN

Chris is a true believer in Linkedin. He says, “My business spends zero dollars on advertising simply because of Linkedin. I post regularly – I post every day about a blog or opinion piece or something interesting. Linked in is extremely powerful.”
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Linkedin is an opportunity for you to share key opinion leadership. Chris says, “Being active on there and sharing from a professional perspective really, really puts you forward because you can really connect with audiences. Your audience already has the information that you used to covet, traditionally. Now you have to say, as an agent, ‘Right. How does my professional expertise and experience pull those things together’. The more you share and the less you’re worried about giving too much, the more you’ll be empowered to give your audience more. Things like suburbs. lt just puts you ahead because then people go, ‘Hey, this is not just an agent. This isn’t just someone that’s involved in the neighbourhood. This is someone that is offering more information of value. I think I’m definitely going to call him in or her in.” Chris believes agents should put their phone numbers on their profiles. 

4. DON’T GET OVERWHELMED

Chris says, “Agents often look at their marketing, all the marketing options, or they google something, and they’ll go, ‘Right, here’s 900 things that are going to make me successful’, and they go to their poor marketing team if they have a marketing team, and they go, ‘All right, I want 900 things.” Then, what ends up happening is the marketing team if you’re lucky, will implement some of those things, and then the agent doesn’t know how to use them. Find the information that’s the best, break it down into the most crucial parts, and implement them one at a time – like the whole cliché of, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time’. It’s better to get five things done really, really well in a year than try to spread yourself too wide and try to get 50 done, because then they have no effect and then you go ‘Oh, I’ve lost faith in marketing’.”

5. MAKE YOUR CONTENT APPROPRIATE FOR THE MEDIUM

Finally, Chris believes that you must adapt your message to particular audiences and media. Remember that you are showing property, your experience, your expertise and you’re sharing things that are for value for real estate. Instagram is fantastic for displaying beautiful photos of properties. Chris says, “If you’re looking at Twitter, which is not that popular in Australia but it’s still a medium, make sure that your messages are really sharp and they link back to your website or something that’s going to get your call to action. If it’s going to be a website, make sure that you’re posting regularly and adapting the message to the right medium, because that’s where you need to be.”

So are you looking at your smartphone differently? What video will you be making tomorrow?
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For more information please see:
www.linkedin.com/in/ christophermelotti/
www.melottimedia.com.au
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Melotti Media Copywriting and Marketing Solutions
www.melottimedia.com.au
 
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