close more deals with linkedin
As the co-founder of a full-service marketing agency, Bryant Hughes knows a thing or two about marketing on social media. Bryant’s company, Authentic Form and Function specializes in working with developers, architects and real estate professionals to maximize their marketing efforts. So we thought it’d be great to chat with him to get his five marketing rules for our favourite platform, LinkedIn.
1 – Consistency
The first rule of LinkedIn is to post consistently and unlike Fight Club, you’re encouraged to talk about it. All jokes aside, consistency will play a huge role in developing your audience and building your brand. You can start small with even one post per week. Bryant recommends, however, that even before diving into your LinkedIn strategy, you start by defining your SMART goals. Set out your Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely goals to help you track your success. This practice will set you on the right foot and give you benchmarks to watch for. Once you have consistent posting down, start to focus on engagement statistics like views, clicks, likes and comments. If the numbers go up and stay green, you are doing something right!
2 – Know your client
Keep your customer top of mind. Think about your property from the vantage point of your ideal tenant and then write about its value from their perspective. Explore through your writing the value propositions and pain points your ideal tenant would experience. To do this effectively, Bryant suggests that it can be helpful to define your tenant persona; an exercise that essentially describes your ideal customer down to their likes, dislikes and demographic information to give you the clearest picture of who you are speaking to. Once you have that information clearly defined, you can ask yourself, ‘why would someone be attracted to my property?’ and ‘what does my property have that others don’t.’
If you decide to explore thought leadership, it will take this same approach. You can explore topics from the perspective of your ideal tenant while thinking about what they would want to learn.
Exercise the ability to see trends relevant to your audience and get ahead of them by educating prospective leads. Bryant suggests a great example of this type of post is “positive news Friday” where you share positive events that happened that week, a way of combating the constant negative news.
3 – Grow your audience
Once your content is laid out, make sure to tag the people involved in your projects. You can also post with the goal in mind to get the content in front of their extended audience, as well. When you stay consistent you will be able to more easily iterate and optimize your strategy.
If you are looking to attract landlords, consider sharing your successes and closed deals. Bryant also suggests adding a link to your website that has a portfolio of your current and closed deals.
Similar to the approach to tenants, understand why a landlord would want to work with you and then tap into that information. Do you know what makes you different and desirable to work with? Maybe it’s your work process, your network, or your track record. Whatever it is, leverage that experience or expertise.
Pro Tip: Make your content look good with eye-catching graphics. Don’t have a graphic design degree? No problem. Check out Canva. It is the easiest solution to graphic design for non-designers.
4 – Sales funnel
Bryant says that LinkedIn can act as a top-of-funnel for your sales cycle and is a great way to attract new business. Since the goal for CRE professionals is to get in front of business owners who need commercial space LinkedIn offers a way to target audiences more easily than on other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. One of the added benefits of posting on LinkedIn is its sophisticated targeting with its advertising options, including the ability to tag relevant people in posts. Use LinkedIn at the top of your funnel to get people to your website. You can achieve this by posting new, interesting, and consistent content.
5 – Consistency
It is worth saying again that consistency is one of the most important (if not the most important) aspects of any marketing strategy. It is the glue that holds all the pieces together and helps your audience to see the big picture. Consistency not only means how often you post or engage with your audience but also consistency across your brand. Check out this article on building your personal brand.
If you are starting your LinkedIn journey, Bryant suggests picking a simple plan and sticking to it. As you get more comfortable creating content, managing the platform etc., you can add more to your strategy if you feel it is called for.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is a tool, and like any tool, it takes practice to understand how best to use it for your context. Approach your LinkedIn marketing like a scientist, starting with a hypothesis and smart goals and from there making tweaks to get to the outcome you desire. With a bit of patience and ‘sticktoitiveness’, you’ll reap the benefits of the platform.