Austin:  Hey, and welcome back to the real estate marketing podcast. I’m Austin Glanzair.

Adam:  I’m Adam Grim.

Austin:  And today we are going to be talking about how you can get more content out to your customers.

We’ve talked about in previous episodes how you can build your website; how you can get information out there, tell a good story through your website. And today we’re going to talk about how you can be constantly providing content to your customers. One of the most important things we’ve found is being helpful to the people that you are trying to service. So we found a book that will help you build a framework, it is called They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. And it is all about inbound sales, content marketing and how to reach the consumer digitally.

Now Adam, I know that you’ve read this book, you’ve been in this book; you have used it to grow your business. Can you give us just a high-level overview about what this is about and how someone listening to this can provide content to the customer?

Overview

Adam:  Yeah, the fundamental premise behind this book is that the content people really want to be accessing. What they want to hear from you is information that helps them answer the questions that are very pressing on their minds.

So he writes to a broad audience not real estate, so he’s saying if I’m a roofer I want to hear how do I fix my leaky roof, not a whole bunch of sales copy about how now is the great time to get a new roof. If you are in the real estate space they want to hear questions about when is the best time to sell my house, how do I get my house ready for sale? That type of thing, not a bunch of like special offers and reasons you should buy now.

The core premise is people are out there, they’re searching Google, they’re looking on social media, they’re asking their friends for very specific answers to questions they have. And you as the business owner, you have the answers to that question. Not only that, you know the questions they are asking because probably when people pick up the phone and call you the questions they ask is actually what they’ve been searching for and looking for online.

So it’s kind of crazy, it seems very simple. I mean, the book has a very simple premise. But the problem is when we look at most businesses, the content they’re creating, what they’re putting on social media, what they’re putting on their websites is very salesy. And what their audiences are hungry for is really just basic answers to questions.

So the whole premise of the book is if you can really create a whole content strategy, whether it’s a video content strategy or written text content strategy, just answering the questions that your audience is asking – you’ll see dramatic growth in your SEO results, in your social media results, etcetera.

Austin:  So how do you find out what people are asking? Like, if I have a real estate business how do I know what people are asking about real estate to provide that content?

Finding What People Are Asking

Adam:  Yes, so the premise in the book, what they really talk about is leveraging the knowledge you already have. So as you’re interacting with customers, as you look back your past couple emails – write those questions down and even recorded the responses you had to those questions, and you’re already sort of at the 80-yard line with your content.

There are however, for some people, if you’re newer in the space or maybe the questions people ask you don’t really align with the type of business that you’re looking to grow. So I would add to the book, there’s another free tool that we use a lot called Answer The Public, if you Google answer the public, I believe if you go to answerthepublic.com you can see this website. And the tool is amazing, you just type in a topic area.

So you could type in home values or listing a house or something like that, and it will search Google and it’ll look at the top questions people ask in Google. So it’ll give you usually between fifty and a hundred questions – how do I get my house ready to sell, what’s the best way to figure out how much to ask for the house that I’m selling. All those kind of things we put right into Google. Where can I find somebody who will pay cash for my house, all those kind of things. So you can just type in three or four topic areas and right off the bat you will have hundreds and hundreds of question ideas.

From that list then you can compile them and just look through them and pick the top ten that you’re interested in answering.

So the workflow we go through with our clients is first the initial brainstorming phase like Marcus shared and suggests, so just kind of rely on your own knowledge. And then to supplement that information we had them go to Answer The Public and check that out. And after doing that they usually have honestly a whole year’s worth of topics, they have more ideas than they know what to do with, and they’re ready to get to work on the actual content creation process.

Austin:  Yeah, that’s awesome. So answerthepublic.com, you go there, type in if I’m in real estate I type in real estate in there, and then they give me multiple questions that I could then pick maybe my top 15, top 20 to answer, correct?

Adam:  Yeah, exactly, yeah. Really easy process.

What if I’m Not A Good Writer?

Austin:  Okay, now let’s say for example like I’m not very good at writing, let’s just say for example I’m not, which I’m not, how could I go about getting that content up on my website? It’s just so hard for me to sit down and maybe write four or five paragraphs answering a specific question. Are there other creative ways I could do that? Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Adam:  Yeah, I’m in the same boat, I’m an incredibly slow writer. So if I know I need to write a blog post, and my business partners know this, I’m probably in for a whole day to a half a day just to get a post out there. But I do enjoy talking to people, I enjoy having conversations.

So the work flow we have, we use currently, we’ve borrowed that from a couple other agencies, is that I create a certain video just answering a basic question, just like we talked about. So I usually shoot four or five to fifteen minutes.

So we’re in the web design space so I might answer a question like are WordPress websites a great fit for real estate agents, that might be the question I’m operating, then I would just create a really quick video about that, I’m going to set five to fifteen minutes. And then we use a tool called Rev.com, and it only charges $1.25 a minute to transcribe my video. So if I did a ten minute video I’m in for a little over $10. And then what I get back within a few hours I get a transcript that a human actually created, and they really nicely outline it.

So they’ve recorded everything, there’s timestamps on there. So all I need to do then is I take another 15 minutes, I go through my transcript, I clean up the ums and uhs and silly things like that, and then I had a couple of headlines, a couple headings to my sections there. And I’ve got a video that’s ready for YouTube and I’ve got a blog post I’m ready to put on my website.

So that workflow is about a half hour per video, and if I’m doing multiple videos at the same time it gets even shorter. So I usually create four videos, like honestly a month’s worth of content in an hour to two hours. So if you can set aside one to two hours a month and you work with this workflow, you’ll get videos for YouTube, videos for social media, blog posts you can put on your website – a really holistic package for content marketing. So that’s the workflow I use.

Like you I’m not really excited about writing, it’s a very time-consuming process for me. But with this video/transcript/blog post approach we’ve been seeing some really nice healthy SEO results.

The Process Repeated

Austin:  That’s awesome. So I want to just kind of repeat that back because I think this is an awesome system for really anybody, maybe you don’t even have a business and you just kind of want to get content out there.

So you’re saying what you should do is go to answerthepublic.com, find out questions that people are asking, write down the 10 or 15, record a video of yourself answering those questions just like on an iPhone, pretty easy. Then you go to Rev.com, have them transcribe your video so that way you have it all written down. Then you can take that transcription, put it on your website so you have a blog post on your website. And then you can post your video on YouTube, so that way you hit YouTube and you hit the written content for SEO. That’s kind of the process there.

Adam:  Yeah, that’s exactly right. Like, I said, there’s a couple other agencies we have stolen this from to be perfectly transparent. If you want to see someone who does this really well I would look at Moz.com, and they’re a fantastic beginner SEO resource in general, but Moz has these things called whiteboard Fridays, and their CEO Rand Fishkin, the founder Rand Fishkin, he’s not to CEO anymore, but he attributes a massive amount of their early phase growth to these whiteboard Friday productions. They’ve been doing them for years.

So all they did every Friday is they would do a 10-minute video where Rand or one of the other experts is standing in front of a whiteboard. They would answer a fundamental SEO question and then they put the transcript up on their blog post. And he has some case studies that talked about how much that affected their growth. It’s exactly the process we just talked about here. Go to Answer The Public, do some brainstorming, get your questions, record a quick video, it can be you in front of your computer, just using your webcam, if you might get a little more fancy you could be in front of a whiteboard or do more of a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation, whatever you feel most comfortable with, get that transcript, put it up as a blog post and start blasting the video out there.

And we’ve tried it, we’ve had a lot of our clients try it. And especially right now as people are kind of at home a little more, absorbing more content, we’ve just seen really powerful results from that flow.

And then obviously at the end of all this we want to say just be sure to track it. Whatever website you have, Google Analytics is a free tracking tool that you can use, whatever your web host has it will also work, but just keep an eye on your content, see what’s working best, see what types of questions are working best. And then just on a month-to-month basis kind of tweak and refine your strategy to answer the right questions and get the right content out there.

But it’s honestly a very easy thing, I’m surprised more people don’t do it because we’ve have not seen anybody do it and not seen at least some healthy results in their incoming leads.

Localizing Your Content

Austin:  Now can you talk a little bit about if someone were doing this and they recorded the video and they had their transcript, like as far as SEO purposes is it more important for them to kind of localize the content their providing? Like, especially I’m thinking about real estate agents, there’s a lot of them out there who maybe have a personal website or they’re a wholesaler, should they be building this content specifically to the region they’re in or should they do it kind of like from a broad stance?

Adam:  I would do it a little bit of both. So I would do a couple broad questions, so you might do something like how to get my house ready to sell. That will perform well on social media, but the reality is that’s probably a really competitive term. So something like a broad term like that is probably not going to be the best place to start. I’m not saying don’t create it, like I said it can be good social media content, but if you’re really trying to rank for search engine results or if you’re trying for people … draw people in from search engines, exactly what you say – I would find some kind of very specific niche for your content, some way to really focus your content.

So a great way to do that would be like you said, to make it hyper local. So people are often asking about market reports – how’s the market doing in Seattle or where we are here, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? So if you were to create some video content about a 2020 market overview for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that will probably do very well. If you also created some questions about how do I get my specific type … how to do Cape Cod houses or something like that. Some things that are very specific to maybe a certain type of house or selling multifamily units, that type of thing – create a niche down content is especially useful.

A couple places to start with a niche, kind of covered them very briefly, but at a higher level local is a great way to start a niche. So answer real estate specific questions in your specific town. That’s fantastic.

Specific industries can also be another great niche. So if you’re focusing more on commercial or multifamily versus residential you can niche down that way. And then even kind of the type of content … the level of expertise that you have can be important.

We’ve seen in a lot of industries, it’s really interesting; all of the competitors out there are kind of speaking at their same level of expertise. So a lot of law firms have blogs and podcasts and YouTube channels answering difficult legal questions, whereas the people, the content people are actually looking for in the legal field is really basic, like how do I know if I should actually proceed with a lawsuit – something like that. And that’s kind of boring to an attorney maybe, but that’s actually what people are asking for.

The same thing in the real estate space. Real estate agents or real estate investors or wholesalers want to cover the really complex elements of real estate design, because they built that level of expertise, that’s the level they’re at. But they forget to back down and answer really basic fundamental questions. And we’ve seen a lot of easy wins if people can kind of take off their high-level expert hats and just answer the really entry-level questions that people are looking for.

Austin:  That’s awesome. I think I tend to do that myself, I’ll over think my content, I’ll think like, “Oh, I need to put a lot of time into this or I need to sound really, really smart.” But I found with just the minimal content I provided on social media that the easiest things are the things that get the most views actually, like just answering what a loan is or how a lone works, as opposed to like let me dive into the cap rates on this investment property and how the finances are working out and how I can take a tax reduction. Like the easy things are the ones that are getting the most views. So I totally agree with that.

Now can you talk a little bit, Adam, I know the book talks about answering these questions and providing content, simple content, but how do you like establish yourself as an expert in this? Like if I’m just providing why would somebody listen to me. Does it make sense?

Adam:  Yeah, so I think … and this is kind of funny, in some sense the medium establishes a level of expertise. So it’s really funny. We are on a couple podcasts and it’s amazing how many people will come to me and say, “Hey, I heard you on that podcast,” and then they’ll ask a really complex question. And all they know about me is that I was on a podcast. So I didn’t have to state any credential or anything like that.

So just the fact that you’re out there putting content there’s a little bit of a psychological bias, so when you see someone on a screen or you listen to them we automatically assume a level of expertise. So that’s one more reason to doing this type of content is that just by doing it you’re going to get a little bump in authority.

Beyond that, the quality of answers you give is going to be really essential. So while we want to keep the answers basic we still want to make sure you have a very high level of quality in what you do. I mean, you’re dressed professionally, you’re answering the question in a detailed sense; while it’s not complex it still has a high level of detail. People are really going to assess that. So if you are out there and you’re mumbling and you don’t look great, you’re just kind of summarizing the answers briefly, it’s probably not going to do that well, so even the medium won’t get you over that hump. So the quality of your answers really excel there.

And then obviously if you have any credentials, any kind of what we call social proof that’s always great too. So having a bio or someone on your website that just talks a little bit about your background and establishes a little bit of your credibility would also be helpful. So those are three quick ways to do it. There’s a lot you can get into. I mean, there’s stuff you’ve come across, Austin, that can help boost that.

Practical Tips To Walk Away With

Austin:  Well, I completely agree with you, as far as just like providing content, I’m relatively new to providing real estate content to people, but I’ve just been getting so many DMs on Instagram, on Tik-Tok and just even Facebook Messenger of people who are like, “Hey, I heard your podcast, I have a question about investing. Hey, what do you think about me taking out a loan on a property? Or, hey, we want to buy a duplex.”

I actually just went golfing with a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time, he just kind of showed up golfing and he asked me … one of the first things he said to me was, “Hey, I want to buy a duplex, can we get together sometime?” So you’re right, just kind of getting yourself out there has caused people to kind of see me not as like a thought leader or anything in the industry, but like, “Hey, Austin is doing real estate, I want to ask him questions.” So I think just providing content is important.

Adam:  Yeah, and we’ve been focusing on content you’re providing, which is great. A next level of this would be doing some interviews. And if you can get to interview level content, whether you do it as a podcast and hopefully we can dive into that in a future episode or you’re doing it as a video content or even written content, some people just email different experts in the field a list of questions with some brief answers and can kind of put it that way.

But when you can take your own level expertise and you can start doing some interviews, that can take your content to a whole other level that isn’t really addressed if they ask you to answer a book. But it does a couple things; first of all you’re going to learn a lot more because you can basically ask all the experts in the fields all the questions you’ve wanted to ask all along. Secondarily you’re going to … it’s a great networking tool. I mean, most people when we ask them, even people that are way above our pay grade, when we ask them, “Hey, would you be on my podcast or can I interview you in a quick video?” It’s amazing how many say yes.

Whereas, if I had said like, “Hey, can I just pick your brain,” or whatever, I probably won’t get an email response. Because it helps build their brand. So you’re going to get access to people that you never would have before.

And then also you sort of build through network effects or proxy effects, you build your network. So by interviewing those people, when people search their name or maybe even they’ll post the interview on their own social networks, you can really grow that way.

So if you’re in Seattle and you’re doing real estate marketing and you’re creating content and you’re sticking some slow growth but it’s not like growing quickly, one option would be interview the most well-known real estate agents, mortgage brokers, kind of real estate professionals in your area. Like I said, whether written or video or podcast interviews just start setting up something, a framework like that, and that can really kind of give a turbo boost to your content strategy.

And as far as what you ask them you can still use the They Ask, You Answer framework. But if you have the time to turn it into an interview show instead of exclusively you talking, you can see some healthy growth from that strategy too.

Austin:  Yeah, I completely agree. And the reason I love what we’re talking about here as far as like the episode, I think that this is just so practical for whoever is listening to this right now, like I think something that holds people back is, “Oh, it’s so much work to write out a blog post, like I got to sit down.” It’s almost like whenever I had homework in college I had to write a three-page paper, I’d put it off until 11:58PM when it was due at 12:00.

Like I think that’s what holds people back from providing content, and this process here just makes it so much easier to get things out there, to record yourself, have somebody else transcribe it, get that up there. And you’re answering simple questions as well, like it just simplifies the entire process. So I get pretty excited hearing you talk about this.

Adam:  Yeah, and I think it makes it … we’re way more used to having conversations with people than writing. Very few of us are set out to be authors though everyday we’re talking to people in our field. So what I love about where technology is today and just where the market is today is without having needing to sit down and write a really lengthy well-researched paper like we used to do in high school, you can just have conversations or you can just explain answers to questions. Things are way more custom doing.

And with where the platforms are and technologies are today you can do that without any investment. You can use your computer mic, your computer camera, you can use tools, and we’ll talk more about these in the future, but of course, if you’re doing YouTube it’s completely free. So with very little investment and with very little production expertise, you can just rely on your industry expertise and create a really brilliant, really helpful content campaign.

Conclusion

Austin:  And I’ve learned that just from me even putting a little bit of content out there that you just never know, like it could all of a sudden go viral and you could have people reaching out to you pretty quickly. So I think it’s pretty cool.

Now I do want to just repeat this one more time because I think this process is genius for people, especially if you’re getting started, and I’m going to timestamp this too in the show notes where if you want to get content on a website, Adam laid out the framework here and also from the book, They Ask, You Answer, what you should do is record a video of yourself answering ten simple questions, easy questions that people are asking in your industry, maybe in front of a whiteboard or just in front of your computer screen.

Take those, send it to Rev.com, get them to transcribe your video so you have it all written out in text. Then you can put that text up on your website for SEO purposes where you didn’t have to write anything, you just recorded your video. And then you can put your video up on YouTube. And then you can use that content maybe over the course of a couple weeks, roll it out, or you could have a really long blog post all just from you recording a video.

So this really simplifies it. I know for me personally I’m going to be doing this for my business because sitting down and writing has always been difficult for me, but I like being in front of the camera so I think this is just a great system that Adam laid out, especially from the book too that you can do today, really.

Adam:  Yeah, it’s like I think the biggest thing is just to do it. I mean, so many people … we’re not the only podcast giving this advice out there. But when we look at our clients and we tell our clients to do it but they’re probably only like 5% that do it unless we actually physically help them do it. So we know it works, we know that it’s a simple process, but really just block off 2 hours in your calendar and just start doing this. There’s really no risk to trying it. You don’t need to put any kind of investment down.

But the sad thing is only probably like 2 to 3% of people listening to this podcast are actually going to do it. But the great news is if you’re one of those 2 or 3% that take the time to do it, the competitive field is very limited and you can see really healthy business growth if you’re willing to take the time to do it.

Austin:  We had some people over last night when we were talking about just there’s so many options out there, right? Like, there’s so many different options for dieting, you should do keto, you should do intermittent fasting, or there’s just so many options for marketing, right? Like, you could do YouTube, you could do Instagram.

And I one time heard a pastor in a sermon one time someone said, went to him and said, “Hey, what version of the Bible should I read, NIV, ESV, KJV?” And the pastor said, “The one you’re going to read.” So it’s just like … and I think that goes along with this too, like there’s so many marketing ideas that you can do but it’s the one you’re going to do that’s going to be effective. So like I think what you just said there, like go out and do it and you might be surprised by your content. So and this year is just a simple system I think that people can follow.

So Adam, thanks for laying that out here in this episode.

Adam:  Thank you.

Austin:  I’m super … I really am excited about this. I think people listening to this, this could really motivate them to start providing content out there. And we just want to thank you all for listening to these podcasts, we’ve already hit 500 listeners and to me, I mean, that’s awesome, 500 people, that’s more than the town I grew up in. I’m being serious too, so 500 people that’s awesome. And if you guys want to share this with your friends please consider giving us five-star review and also just giving a little comment there, we do look at them; all nine of you who gave us review. So we’re super thankful for you guys. And anyways, thanks so much for listening and we’ll catch you guys later and we’ll see you.

Outro:  Thanks for listening to this episode of the real estate marketing podcast. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, if you would like to download the step-by-step process on how you can rank higher on Google, I put that on my website at Glanzair.com/answers. Thanks for listening, please leave a review and we’ll talk to you guys later. See you.