Today we are talking about more marketing. And specifically we're going to talk about how to personalize your marketing and lead generation because no one hires a robot and no one hires you unless they like you. So how the hell do you get more liked, more approachable, more personable, and more importantly, more authentic online?

Kevin Snow is the founder of Time On Target and has been called a sales expert and a technology geek (among other things) by different people over the years; but one thing is for sure...he knows how to help companies take their automation game to the next level

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How to make your brand more personable.
• The Do's and Don'ts of email marketing.
• What type of brand attracts clients?

Resources

Check Out His Website

Real Estate Marketing Dude

The Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)

REMD on YouTube

REMD on Instagram

Transcript:

So how do you attract new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing. This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust, and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them. Let's get started. What's up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their soul to the real estate marketing podcast. So what we're doing today, guess what we're talking about more marketing. And specifically, this show, we're going to talk about how to personalize your marketing and lead generation no one uses a robot in that one hires a robot and no one hires you unless they like you. So how the hell do you get more liked and more approachable, more personable, and more importantly, more authentic online? Well, so I get emails all the time from people all over the country. And the thing that got my attention here was that this dude's a vet. And for me, that's my soft spot, he got my attention by telling his story, not telling me what he was trying to sell to get on this show. And when we do book people on the show, it's always because there's a story behind them. And just for those of you they're trying to get on here, so that you now know, if you don't have a story, we're not calling you back, if you have a story in there somewhere to share. And it has to do with your personal brand. That's we're all into. So without further ado, I want to go ahead and introduce our guests, Mr. Kevin snow. What's up, Kevin?

Hey, Mike, thanks so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to be here today.

Why don't you tell everyone a little bit about who the hell you are, where you're from? And what the hell do you do?

So my name is Kevin snow. I am, as Mike said, I am a veteran, I'm actually still serving in the Minnesota National Guard. I live. Obviously, in Minnesota, I grew up in the upper Midwest, I've been here my entire life. And back in 2010, I launched a company called time on target. That was a sales and marketing training company. So I got hired to get on stage and to teach people how to network and how to sell. And then I deployed I went over to Iraq and Kuwait for a year and came back and had absolutely zero clients and zero speaking gigs lined up and nothing in my pipeline, and had that old crap moment of what am I doing with my life. And we did this huge pivot. So the company stopped being a speaking and training firm, that's now a business development tool for me. And now we're all focused on helping clients actually figure out how to sell their stuff, and how to make sure that it's in sync with how their buyers make buying decisions, and then integrating the technology into that. So how do you use email marketing? So you don't sound like a really horrible marketer? Oh, and how do you use your CRM, so it actually helps you manage your sales process and your pipeline so you can close stuff faster?

One of the things that I can't stand on the automated a lot of different serums called like action plans or whatever, and they're so boilerplate, you know, it's a robot that happens to it. And like, for you guys that are on my list, like if I send you an email, it's still very on brand. It's still dude, I barely ever spell all the words correctly, because I don't check. And that's just part of my brand, but because I know who my who I am. I just be me. And it works on a demo calls with someone yesterday, or actually someone who signed up with us, and she's like, Hey, she's like, You're

such a fucking dude. I'm like, some clips. While I'm doing my deep dive with her. She's like, You're such a fucking dude. I'm like, a man. It's just who I am and how I roll. I mean, I can fake it today.

I'm just authentic. That's That's what people want in today's day and age. And we had someone on the show recently, Kevin, they said, SEO gal, she's like, Yeah, 70% of people will look you up. That's when they visit your website. They actually call you. So once you start getting on interest. And once you guys do associate this with dating, no one goes on a blind date. That's why online dating sites exist. And when you if you're like on a dating site or something you're gonna probably look at see who you're gonna go date before you actually do it. Right? Well, it's the same thing. People aren't gonna go hire someone that makes one of the largest financial investments of their life with Joe Schmo. They're going to do it with someone they know like and trust and relation and relating to people is the number one thing I believe in real estate, because people don't hire you unless you they like you.

Yeah, that About Us page or the About Me page on your website. That's the second most viewed page on websites worldwide. I was working with a client once back when we did some web development. And they're like, Yeah, we don't want to About Us page. I'm like, Are you out of your ever loving mind. I'm like, That is a second page that people visit all the time. You have to have a really good one because they don't buy because you have cool products and cool they buy because they think you're cool. And they like you. And if you aren't showing off your personality on that about me page, you know, they're just gonna be like, Oh, this is just another boring realtor. This is just another boring coach, whatever you do, and they're gonna go on to the next one, but

Kevin says Some people might not like the real me, I'm not gonna do that. How do you answer that?

So yeah, and I'll be like, yeah, that Hi, that was me. So when I did the big pivot with my company back in 2012, after after I got back from the deployment, I didn't want to be the face, I want to not be the product, I wanted to have time on target being the brand. So I did all the stuff to focus on that. And it took me a few years, but then I realized, like, Fuck, no matter what I do, I'm the CEO, I have to be the face of that company. I have to be the one out in front of people building my brand and my image so that people actually engage with me, you know, they don't go looking for a company, they look go looking for a partner. They're looking for someone that can actually work with them and help them that they're going to enjoy spending time and doing stuff with.

So for those who are on your bike right now that are posting memes with your brokerages branding on there, all you're really doing is building their brand not doing anything for your own. And your face is your brand and real estate Your face is your brand like That's why video so that's why it works for everybody is that the only time it doesn't work is if people don't like you, but you're just becoming more marketable as you create more and more content. And yeah, I don't believe that professional exists anymore. I believe it's all personable. I think professional is the second question people ask and I don't even think it's like is he professional? Their moral asking not so much as the professional as is? Does he know what the fuck he's doing? Exactly right. And do people care today like I sold sandal I sold real estate and sandals, dude. I had the guy on our show that fucking sold a he's in the elevator and he painted his toenails, purple. And he gets a $4.8 million listing in San Francisco, right? Yeah,

I meet with clients from around the world. Via zoom. This is what I wear. I wear a t shirt, I wear a bald cap. And I'm comfortable with that. Because I'm sitting in my house and I'm working. When I go on stage now I still now wear a t shirt in a ball cap because now that's become my brand. That's when I'm doing lives. I'm doing streaming on YouTube or podcast, it's always in this. So now when I show up, because I do like wearing button down shirts. I do like getting dressed up on occasion. So now when I wear it out into business events, it doesn't match anymore. And it literally draws more attention to me but not the right time. Because I was like why are you in a shirt and tie? Like, because I wanted to be there. It's okay. But it has an imposter. Exactly. He's not doesn't have a cap on he's got a nice button up shirt on, you know, like, what he's got dress shoes on what the hell is going on with this? So

why do you think so many people that struggle with bringing their persona into their messaging and whatnot. And it's like in real estate like, I mean, we're right up there with like attorneys, like you're talking about just stuffy businesses, when it comes to marketing people like there's nothing more uncomfortable than reading an attorney's like marketing piece. I mean, but like, no one's broken through that clutter. Real estate agents and mortgage people aren't too far away from that. But the ones that are like super duper, like personable and like, dude, they're crushing it every single time, why they're so scared to embrace their real brand.

Because there's this misperception that's developed over the as email became a key part of how we did marketing, how we did sales, there became this perception that it had to be professional, it had to have this specific way of communicating. So everyone now tries to write like they're a, you know, they're the CEO, you know, if you know, and that's not the way it should be, you know, our number one email for our my success champion brand that I have with what used to be a client now my business partner, our number one email that has for opens and click throughs. It starts off with it has a subject line of oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm an ass. Love it. And it's the second email in a welcoming string for a Facebook group. So someone joins the group, they answer the questions, give us their email, and we send them an email that says, Hey, welcome to the group. Here's all the rules, blah, blah, blah. And then the second one is, oh, my God, I'm sorry, I'm an ass and it follows up with, you know, I was so excited that you joined the group I was all by wanting to hear about you and tell you all the cool stuff about the group and I'm completely forgot to introduce myself. So here's three cool things about me you might not know. And like, yeah, and then people will reply, well, like once a week, we will get a reply from someone that says, Oh, my God, Danny, I'm, I don't think you're an ass. No, I wasn't offended at all. I'm like, did you not see the big block at the bottom of the email that says if you don't want to receive any more of these emails, please click here to unsubscribe but like they treat it like it was a real email like Danny was typing it out on it.

If people are responding to your auto responder, then your email system is right there. Yeah. And you're on point. If they're not responding, you should probably do a little bit more work in there. Let's get into email. Here's a big issue that real estate agents have like they're always selling their share. And it's like, you don't need to sell you need to serve, you need to remind people what you sell. So, a lot of times, if you see this all the time you got like these companies, and they'll just tell these real estate, you got to just send these emails, these, these real estate market reports. And like the subject line says, monthly market update, you're an expert at this. Is that

good? No, there's a small No, I'm just gonna flat out say, No, you're all wrong. There is there's a small percentage of a realtors list that's actively looking to do something with their house. And they're the ones who are trying to figure out what's going on with the market and where they're at. And if there's now's the right time, if you know, should I wait, what's going on, and then you're gonna have a section of people that are like, well, you know, we're probably gonna do something in a couple years. So they're kind of watching. And then you have a bunch of people in your list, who literally just bought or sold the house, and don't want to do it again. Because as much as cool as it is moving into a new house, that moving into a new house still entails the whole moving, packing, unpacking, setting up going through closing, going through inspections, and the whole rigmarole. And once you're done with it, you don't want to do it again for a while. So, you know, you have to understand who's in your list, you know, the people who are giving you triggers that yeah, I'm looking at doing something, those are the people that should get your market reports, the people who just bought or sold a house, and they're not going to do anything, you know, right away, you need to be sending them stuff that's a value, that's gonna help them with their current property.

Yeah, the and a lot of times everyone tries to you have a warm and a cold list, you guys, this is like a big problem I have with everybody. And your warm list just needs to say don't forget to exist, because that's how you nurture and referrals. And when you nurture with video, you just stay on top of mind, and it's all attraction, your lead list needs to be sold, you can sell people who asked to be sold. And that a lead list is someone who came in off of like a list of homes or they came in off of something, but don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever send a sales message to your warm database. That's like sending a sales message to your brother or sister or your wife.

Yep. You know, if something big happens in the market, you know, there's some huge change with interest rates, or some whole new program gets put out or so there's something big going on, then push it out to everyone. Hey, I want to make sure you understand this was happening. Here's what this means for you. Here's why. Even if you weren't looking at selling or buying a house, here's why you might want to now

we had a lot of our clients, we Yeah, you're exactly right. Like one of our guys. Everyone did the same scripts a lot of our clients were doing as a market and a crash script. And one of our guys got 120,000 views on reels, just from that one piece of content because it was relevant. So yes, anytime it's relevant information as your house, did your house lose 10% in value, I'm gonna open that one up, because it's relevant to today's day and age. But yeah, just in general, just barfing out like market updates and interest rates, I mean, you have a better chance of turning people off than you do nurturing and deepening the relationship. So if

a real estate brokerage or a real estate agent has a really good automation tool for their email, it needs to be linked up to their website. And it needs to be tracking what their contacts are doing. So most automation tools will give you a script that you can put on the header of all your website pages, that will tell the system that hey, one of your contacts just visited this page, one of your contacts just did this and it'll track their behavior on your site. So then you can tell that, hey, this contact just went and was started looking at our MLS listings on our page, we should probably reach out and do stuff with them so you can see what they're doing. And that's how you can really determine if that people who've you've worked with in the past or you met through a networking event, are ready to actually talk about doing something in real estate that allows now you can reach out with that, hey, love to set up a time and talk to you. So you're looking at the house on Fifth Avenue, you know, I'd love to set up a showing for you. There's all kinds of really cool behavioral stuff you can do. If you have it set up. If you're just blasting out emails to your list. It's like, you know, throwing throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something's gonna stick. It's like, Alright, here's my message, please, someone answer me. That's literally what your marketing person is doing for you.

So like, so to put some perspective, you guys are glad you guys are on my list. I'll email these podcasts episodes every Saturday. And that's like my nurturing. I'm just adding value. And anytime I create content, I'll send that out but it's value added it's tip added. And then once in a while I'll try to sell you guys on something but I'll run like a promo. But if I don't keep up the nurture the promos less received. You have to do a little bit of the jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, you go for the kills and whatnot once in a while, but you don't need to do it every single time. And you shouldn't because it's not valuable for other people at all. I did talk about work like having an effect About work with your wife every day, what would happen? She would stop talking to me. Well, what do you think happens? You just talk about work with your database every day, they tune you out to and that's when they cheat on you with another real estate agent. So don't overthink this shit. Like, it's common sense. But it's just relationship nurturing, when you're Yeah,

exactly. The other thing you really want to be watching with your list to make sure you are hitting the right cadence with them, is paying attention to their engagement rates, you know, who has engaged within the last 30 days who's engaged within 60, who hasn't engaged for 90 days, and after the 90 day period, then you really want to put them in some sort of reengagement campaign to try and get them to start clicking and doing stuff again, or just get them out of your list and stop sending them as often content as often. Because it's actually going to hurt your deliverability if you're sending a ton of stuff, and no one ever opens it. All they eat. Thank

you. Thank you. Can you say that one more time and give them a reason why because here's here's an issue, like people realtor's. There's different databases that they'll have, right and even lenders, and the warmth is like you're the people you invite to your wedding or funeral. That's what I'm talking about a nurturing and what Kevin's talking a lot about our leads and marketing, advertising and prospecting. And if you have people will come to us because we have an email software, people come to us and they want to upload, we have to put a governor on there that they can't upload more than 500 contacts. And the reason for that just meant to be nurturing. Because they'll upload 5000 contacts, a bunch of people they've never, they have no idea who they are, and then they spam them. And then it kills the deliverability for everybody else. So it's not about quantity, you guys, it's about quality.

Exactly. So there's Mike, you're exactly right. There's two different types of email, there's cold email, where you're trying to prospect you've never met them, they have no clue who you are, and you're trying to get them into your world and click through and to opt in. So you can get into the permissive world of email, which is where you want to be, it's a way more profitable place to be for email marketing and sales. But, you know, I work with clients that have lists of 20,000 emails, you know, my biggest client has a few 100,000 emails in his in his list, we don't sell into to the entire list, we never do the bulk mailer, because all the email providers talk. So Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, still out there, they're still talking to people. You know, Mike, all the different Microsoft, MSN, they all interact with each other. And they tell each other Hey, so this email, you know, we're seeing a ton of them, and only 5% of the people are opening them. This must be junk emails, not relevant content, no one wants to see it's another not even going to put it in the inbox. Or they're going to see, you know, the other thing that is horrible for your deliverability is if you go online, you see one of those gurus on Facebook, saying, hey, use our email, swipe file and up your opt ins by 100%. Or whatever their line is. They track content, they're gonna say, Alright, so we're seeing this exact same content coming from multiple people, it's probably spam. So you need to that you need to be really careful about how you're sending to your list and making sure we always send to our most active people first. So they get the email right away. So that then that tells the email providers that oh, you know, they sent out five, 5000 of these and 3500 people opened it, we're going to make sure all the future ones get delivered. Because this is actually really good content, people want to see it. What is

a good open rate for people to be looking at on a cold email list?

So open rates are really kind of fucked right now. colorful language, sorry.

So no, you're on this show. It's all good. This has got a rated rating right next to it. So.

So a few months ago, Apple made a change to their privacy policy and how they interact with emails on all of their devices. So now, the way it used to work was they wouldn't download your content and load the pixel that's in emails and tracks opens until you actually open the email. Now, they preload everything. So it's theoretically possible that if I segmented out my list and sent a block of email to only Apple users, I would get 100% open rate. And maybe a fraction of them even saw it. So it's really that is really killed the open rate before it wasn't even really as accurate because every client counts opens differently. So like on Outlook, you can have that preview pane, you know, I scroll through my email list and it automatically opens. Is that an open or is it not? Is it not an open so open rates are really a vanity rate, vanity metric, and now they're pretty much worthless and we've stopped, even really paying attention to them for most of my clients. We now Really focus on the click through rate. So it's really important when you're sending out emails, you're sending them stuff that they actually want to see. So they'll click through and look at it.

What? What do you like to see on CTRs? Ah, that

is really industry dependent. So like it the click through rate for it is like 29%. So, it really depends on what you do. And it's really what the goal is, you know, you set the set the standard for what your email list is currently performing at. And then think about Alright, so how do I raise it a percentage point? How do I get that up at 5%? And how do you continue to improve it? So you know, doing the split testing, the AV testing is really key, you know, testing what it what the words are on the button, what the call to action is, you know, which ones get people most engaged, and then making those little incremental changes along the way as how you how you really get your open rates to be in that, you know, you know, industry leading where you have the bulk of people are actually doing it, as opposed to just looking at it reading and saying, Oh, that was cool. And then moving on with their day.

A lot along for a cold email list for people that are prospecting and generating leads, how long should that emails be is a question we get a lot, is there a length of time and then we'll talk about subject lines and the importance of those next,

so the length of the email, short, three to four paragraphs, if I'm going to do a cold email, and I haven't done cold email for a while for anyone. But when I do cold email campaigns, you know, we're really looking at like three to four paragraphs, you know, really short one or two sentence paragraphs, if I have to scroll down the page, I'm going to stop reading, if it's not someone I know. So it needs to be something people can digest really quickly. As far as how many emails I will usually do, right around five is kind of my my key area that I'll do I have done up to seven. But five is kind of the number I'll do, I'll usually start off with a couple of days right in a row. And then I'll start slowing down over, you know, extended every couple of days and every three days and you know, on a weekly basis,

and then by an opt in someone who asked for your email and opted into whatever you're giving them away.

Once they've opted in, I'm going to usually have some sort of specific campaign geared towards what they opted in for. So if someone opts into my my stuff about sales process and content, then I'm going to have a five to six email campaign that follows up with them with just further content. And that's going to come and I'm gonna let them know right away, hey, I'm gonna send you over the next five days, I'm going to send you five more emails with this type of stuff. Yeah, and the first three or four, usually, the first three have no call to action, other than getting them to click through to read other content on my site, or showing them hey, if you like this, you might like this stuff as well here, go download this thing. Email four, and five is where I'll start actually asking them to, hey, you know, if this makes sense, let's set up a time to meet and we'll start trying to get them into my calendar and try to get them to engage more on a one to one basis.

So one of the books that I loved reading, was by Marcus shared and it's called you ask you answer. And it's about the biggest thing I learned I read a couple years ago, but was on how he was selling saltwater pools or fiberglass pools or whatever it is, but it was cool is that they would set and they did a study on this, they would send the lead content prior to the actual demo. And it increased sales. It increased their like sales percentages by by a boatload like, and they were just pre selling the person so like, most times, like when agents just immediately if someone asked for a list of homes, they immediately think they have to go into sales mode. What are you looking for? What can I help you with when you're looking to buy, as opposed to saying, Hey, here's some things that you want to know, before you buy this house like so if you're looking in ABC neighborhood, one of the things you're going to be concerned with is it's really bad for termites. Here's a couple of tips that you may want to know about that. Yeah, the next place might the next thing like give them warnings that nobody knows about because that's valuable. And they're like, oh shit, but you got to date before you get married. And that's how emails, how he's explaining it to he gave you guys a very clear format and then the context of those emails. What's the subject lines? Talk to me a little bit about that. People always I love subjects I think it's 90% of the email. But what is your opinion on subject lines? How do you come up with good ones,

they are super important while the open rate is a vanity metric. It's you still gotta have a open your email. So there has to be something that gets their attention that open that subject line is that first thing they're gonna see. So like the subject line we use for Donnie for that email. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna ask you know that People are going to open it just because they want to see what the hell's in the email. Yeah, you know, and whether they know, Don, you're not doing what, what, why? What did you do, and they want to know, there's got to be a story. So it's got to be something that's relevant to them. And, you know, like, you're there. One that you said, Has your home value dropped 10% Something that's really relevant to them, they're like, Well, who got I, you know, I don't know what my home value is, has it dropped with the, with the changes over the last month, and it's it don't use words like free, it's got to provide the value, you know, it's has to tell them exactly what why they need to open this email,

you like emojis and subject lines.

I am not an emotionally person, but they are shown to actually work, you know, people, they, for some reason, email subject lines with emojis do have a higher open rate, I don't know if it's because a shift in the demographic who's getting the business emails and, and that type of stuff. You know, I don't know if emojis are word for and my mom and dad who are in there, you know, almost ad. But for my, my niece, who is now a teenager, she would totally open an email with a subject line that had emojis, so I get it. Again, it goes back to knowing who your client is and who your list is, you know,

if which goes back into dial in your own authentic way of communicating before you create any of this stuff. Yep. So you just do it over it.

Yeah, you know, if you're, if you're emailing to 50 6070 year old, you're going to communicate in a completely different way. And it can differ a different tone, then if you're interacting with a 20 or 30 year old, you know, because the both generations communicate differently, they use different words, there's different expectations about how you should interact. And you have to understand what those norms are. And that's part of writing your content, is having the right tone of voice so that it matches your personality. But then it's still it works with the people that's reading it. You know, if I go up on a stage to speak to a bunch of business owners and I start rapping, when the while that would be humorous and really humiliating. For me, it's probably not going to be as effective. As if I'm talking to the key things that they want to know and interacting with them on their level. Yep.

Well, I get man, Kevin, any closing thoughts? Do you want to add any final tips and then we tell people where they can find you?

Yeah, the biggest tip is be yourself and your writing your email stuff, don't try and sound like you're this really high powered your ad agency copywriter. You know, it needs to sound like how you will sound when you're actually talking to them in person. And be yourself because you're going to attract people that want to do work with people like you. You know, if you're putting on a completely different air, when at business and you're completely someone else at home and alone, you know, it doesn't work.

It's like when the real estate agents have like the glamour shot from the 1980s. And they still have that on their business card. The client shows up to the restaurant, they can't figure out who the hell's there because it's not the same person anymore. Like who the fuck is that? Yeah, it's not the person I called.

I had a LinkedIn meeting the other couple of weeks ago was someone that I looked at their LinkedIn profile. I'm like, sweet, they jumped on the on the call, and they were actually 20 years older. Now. I'm like, why are you catfishing on LinkedIn?

Like what the hell so and you have a gift I understand for people once you tell them what they can get from you.

I do I have a gift for all your listeners. If they text the words, sell smarter to 612-429-4298 I will send them a list of questions they can use to help map out their clients buying process, and a guide to what content is most effective for each step and their sales cycle

suite. Once you go into also where your website is they will look you up conductor you on social and all that.

Yeah, my website is www dot time, dash hyphen dash target.com. So time on target.com, with hyphens between all of the words.

Love it. Thank you, man. Appreciate your insight. And thank you guys for listening to another episode of real estate marketing dude podcast, because we talked a lot about authentic and being authentic and dialing in your brand. And a lot of you guys are stuck getting on video because you don't know what that is yet. And it's impossible to do it consistently over time without first dialing in whatever you're going to be talking about. But people don't listen to what you talk about. They remember how you talk about it. So that's the importance of dialing in your video strategy. And if you need a real estate marketing dude to go ahead and do that for you. Visit our website at real estate marketing do.com We script at a distribute and put you on the map for all of your video content so that people stop forgetting about you but more importantly start relating with you so you can start attracting clients versus chasing them. That is real estate marketing do.com real estate marketing do.com And we'll see you guys next week peace. Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing do.com We make branding and video content creation so Simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai