The message I constantly try to get across to real estate professionals is the rules have changed for any kind of marketing, and especially for raising capital because now you can raise capital online and don't have to do it in person any more.
But more than that.
Not only can you raise capital online, you have to if you want to remain relevant. Relationship development in-person is staggeringly inefficient and not scalable.
The rules of engagement have changed and no-one understands this better than my guest, David Meerman Scott whose book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR has sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 29 languages.
Fortunately, he only uses one of those languages in our podcast today - so tune in and hear David discuss in plain English everything you need to know about how the world of marketing has changed forever.
What You're Going to Learn
How Marketing Strategies And Tactics Are Changing
Develop New Marketing Content Every Single Day
Generating Leads Forever With Digital Marketing
Grow Your Customer Base With Great Online Content
Why Every Business Needs An Online Presence
Develop Online Content To Reach Specific Buyer Needs
Adam Gower: I want us to kickoff with one question, if I may, David. Got to start with the book's name, "The New Rules of Marketing and PR". What are the old rules? Let's start with that.
David Meerman Scott: The old rules of marketing and PR, real simple. The old rules are that, in order to generate attention, you had basically three ways. Number one. You could buy attention. You could buy attention by buying advertising, by buying an email list and sending an email blast. You could buy a billboard by the side of the road. You could buy an advertisement in the newspaper. The second way is, you could bug members of the media to please, please, please write a story about this wonderful thing that I'm doing. And the third way is, you could bug people one at a time. You could pick up the phone and do cold calls. And these are the old ways of generating attention. And you didn't ask me, but I'll say it anyway. The new way of generating attention is simply to create great content online, to create videos, to create blog posts, to be active on social media like LinkedIn and create the kind of content that will attract people to you. So, rather than buying attention. Rather than, I like to say, "renting your marketing", you're an owner. You're owning your marketing when you're creating your own content.
Develop New Marketing Content Every Single Day
Adam Gower: How do you switch from something that you are familiar with, that you know, that you trust, that is giving you the success for so many years. How do you switch to the new way? How do you do that?
David Meerman Scott: So what I like to describe as the way to go through the "mindset shift", is to think about it the same way that you go through a mindset shift if you want to become fit and healthy. You need to make a mindset shift that says, I'm going to change the way that I live my life and I'm going to begin to exercise every day or I'm going to eat properly every day. That mindset shift allows you to become fit and healthy. And I believe the same thing is true about the ways that you can generate attention for your business, where if you're doing the cold call thing. By the way, if you're doing the cold call thing, and number one, you love it, can't wait to get up every morning and do cold calls and number two, you're making millions of dollars, keep going. I'm not telling you to stop, but everybody I talk to says, you know what, it's not working so well anymore. I've got to make a whole hell of a lot of calls before someone even picks up the phone these days. Number one and number two, I hate it. I don't like making cold calls. So if you love it and it's working and you're making millions, please don't stop. If you hate it and it's not working and you're not making millions, maybe you need to make a lifestyle switch because that's what it takes. It means overcoming your fear and making a lifestyle switch and thinking about how every day, just like being fit and healthy, requires eating right every day. Every day you create some content. Every day you're active in social media. Every day you're thinking about how you can create something of value for the people you're trying to reach.
Generating Leads Forever With Digital Marketing
Adam Gower: The difference with digital marketing, which is so exquisite, is that everything that you did two months ago, continues to live on. It just builds on itself. It's like a muscle that never gets smaller. It only gets bigger the more you exercise it, right?
David Meerman Scott: I agree with that. And I think to put it into real estate terms, if you're paying the mortgage every single month, you're building equity. If you are creating content every single month, you're building equity. I have been creating my own content since I started my business about 20 years ago. I have content I wrote, typically blog posts, 15 years ago, 16 years ago, 17 years ago, blog posts I've written that have been indexed by Google that are still generating sales leads for me today. And I wrote it back when George W. Bush was president.
Adam Gower: The good old days.
David Meerman Scott: And so, it's a remarkable thing, actually, that what you're describing is true, that it builds upon itself. There's no question about it.
Grow Your Customer Base With Great Online Content
Adam Gower: Let's talk about how to harness the power of the new rules, and there is one line, particularly, that I love. I mean, there's a lot in your book that I like, but there's one that really stands out to me. This is really profound and I'd like to ask you what it means. You are what you publish. What does that mean exactly?
David Meerman Scott: So, you are what you publish, is real simple. If you're publishing great content and people are finding you through Google and the other search engines, people are engaged with you on LinkedIn and some of the other social networks. If you're publishing great content, it means you're great and people are eager to do business with you. If you're publishing content but it's not very good, it means you're not very good.
Why Every Business Needs An Online Presence
David Meerman Scott: If you're not publishing anything, you don't exist.
Adam Gower: I love that. That is so true. I had a conversation with a fellow. I said, I used that exact line. I said to him, you're not online, you're not doing anything, you just don't exist.
David Meerman Scott: You don't exist.
Adam Gower: He said to me, "don't try and persuade me that there's any truth in that". So, let me ask you this. Somebody runs a search, a high-net-worth-investor, has a million dollars to invest, and he types something into Google that says, where can I send my money, to invest in real estate and your name doesn't show up. You don't exist.
David Meerman Scott: And furthermore, in today's world, if that person receives a cold call from you, they pick up the phone and they say, great, I've got a million dollars to invest. What do you suggest? Do you think you've got a live one on the wire? What does that person do, the second they hang up? What do they do? They go to Google and they check you out and if you don't exist, then you don't exist because people aren't convinced simply by a phone call anymore. They want to find you online. They want to look you up and see, who is this person who just called me and educated me about this building that they've got that they're marketing. I'm kind of interested in doing that, you know. I've got a bunch of stocks. I've got a bunch of real estate in my home and my vacation house. I've got a classic car, Ferrari. I've got some money I've got to sock away now. Oh, I never even thought about commercial real estate before. That's something I should consider. Who is this person who just called me again? Type their name in, bingo, nothing happens? You don't exist.
Develop Online Content To Reach Specific Buyer Needs
Adam Gower: How do you drive traffic?
David Meerman Scott: So, it's really about understanding the buyer's needs. Understanding what, I call them buyer personas, but understanding the buyer's needs and creating the kind of content that will be interesting to them. So, the mistake that most people make in any kind of sales role, you know, in the very, very, very broad view of sales, is they focus too much on the product or the service or the idea that they're selling and they don't think about it enough from the perspective of the person that they're trying to reach and what their needs and goals are. And so, what works way better is to think, who are the people I'm trying to reach? Can I slice them into, I call them buyer personas. So, the people that you're trying to reach. Can they be turned into different groups of people with different needs? People who are looking for a hotel might be an independent business traveler who is spending their own money to buy a hotel room for the night or a corporate travel department who's looking to cut a deal for several hundred room nights a year for their people to spend the night or a company that wants to have an event at a hotel or a couple planning on getting married, who wants to have a wedding reception at a hotel or a family traveling to Boston who wants to visit for vacation. So, what the ideal buyer personas are, is that you understand deeply the needs of each of those particular buyer personas.
