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Leverage Content Marketing to Grow Your Business
By Tiana Baur
Time to take the “pitch” out of your marketing strategy. Content is the here and now, and the future of marketing as we know it. Growing your business is all about leads, and attracting said leads comes much easier when leveraging content marketing.
Chances are you’ve heard of content marketing, but maybe you aren’t exactly sure what it entails. According to the Content Marketing Institute, a resource for – you guessed it – all things content marketing, describes it like this:
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
The general concept behind it, is getting rid of the “pitch” aspect many marketers in the past have come to love. With this style, instead of pitching your real estate services as an agent, you are providing truly relevant and useful content for your prospects and current clients, helping them problem solve and get their wanted information. In doing so, they will keep coming back for the valuable content you’re providing them on your agent website or blog, making their decision to choose you for their next transaction an easy one.
Unfortunately, content marketing takes some work. It takes quality planning and regular distribution of content that builds your brand and your awareness in the market. There are three things you must do in order to have the content marketing foundation that will pay dividends:
1. Start with a content calendar
A content calendar is the engine that keeps your car running. It also keeps you focused, with your eyes on the road, knowing which turns to take and which roads to drive on. A little content here and there isn’t going to give you the leads and return you are looking for. Consistency is key. Building a proper content calendar that fits your schedule and style is essential. If you’re looking for a template, we suggest taking some notes from this one.
2. Create unique, highly shareable content
A content calendar means nothing if the content you’re putting out is total crap, so play to your strengths and your specializations. You can’t know everything about every topic; pick three or four main umbrella topics and build out your content from there. Maybe it’s DIY projects, fixer-uppers, or interior design. Maybe it’s deep market analytics and investment properties. You know you best and you want to be able to talk intelligently about the topics when you meet these potential clients in person.
3. Provide value
This can mean different things depending on your unique audience. Think about who you want to target. Is it the neighborhood you do the most business in? Or first-time home buyers? Whatever your ideal client looks like, focus on them.
At the end of the day, you get out of marketing what you put into it. Content marketing can take more planning, creating, and time in general. However, it is a prime example of quality over quantity and your audience will thank you for it. This is what gives prospects that little extra motivation to do the one thing you want them to: pick up the phone and dial your number.
If you want more info on content marketing, see Content Marketing Institute’s getting started guide.
Find (and Keep) Your Talent
By Jillian Igarashi
It’s that time of year again – time for us to renew our gym memberships, swear off holiday desserts forever (or at least until next December), and set lofty, life-changing goals for ourselves. You may love or hate New Year’s resolutions, but no one can deny the importance of setting goals. Ask any brokerage owner what their goals are and sitting comfortably in the top five, year after year, is recruiting and retention. Setting the goal is half the battle. The rest is execution.
According to NAR, 84% of brokerages with four or more offices are actively recruiting. Large brokerages are under pressure to continue their growth, and everyone else must keep up. Therein lies the greatest challenge: execution under that pressure. How can an office manager recruit new agents while they’re juggling everything from helping close a million-dollar sale or unjamming a printer or negotiating to keep top talent? At the end of the day, an office manager may only have the time and energy to hit the button on a blast of traditional mass mailers to an Excel spreadsheet of candidates and pray something hits.
Introducing Moxi Talent
With that, MoxiWorks is excited to present the newest member to the platform: Moxi Talent. Moxi Talent is designed to help office managers and recruiters execute on this year’s resolutions through goal-setting, automation, and a consistent methodology to attract and hire agents. It is built on the core of Moxi Engage, the CRM and productivity tool that increases agent production by an average of 38%. Using Moxi Engage’s focus on goals and its integration with email contacts and calendar events, Moxi Talent is in a unique position to bring the same change in productivity to office managers’ recruiting pipeline and, eventually, retention efforts.
Moxi Talent requires managers and recruiters to set their goals before taking any other action. The goals are used by the system to keep managers focused on a disciplined methodology, despite the noise of daily office life. Best practices in the form of tasks help managers take the right action at the right time, such as posting to the agent’s LinkedIn profile, swinging by the agent’s broker open, or using Moxi Present as a vehicle for marketing materials, a strategy many of our clients are already using today.
Let Technology be Your Wingman
It doesn’t stop there. We’ll continue to expand the feature throughout this year, enabling managers to tell Moxi Talent the profile of their ideal recruit based on volume and the geography of the agent’s listings, which the tool will use to suggest the best candidate for the manager. Say goodbye to mind-numbing spreadsheets of data and hello to intelligent, automated recruiting leads.
Nothing makes us at Moxi happier than to grow with our brokerage clients, and we’re thrilled to take the next step in that continual growth with Moxi Talent, so brokerage owners and managers can make good on this year’s resolutions, unlike my unused gym membership.
Moxi Talent is currently in Beta. Find out more by clicking here.
Moxi Works secures outside investment
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE The real estate technology startup Moxi Works has secured an unspecified investment stake from Hanna Holdings of Pittsburgh. Moxi Works has created an open-platform system, called Moxi Cloud, for large residential real estate brokerages, which serves over 100,000 agents and 50 brokerages nationwide.
The Ultimate Guide to Email Security
By Andrew E.
How to protect your email account from getting hacked or phished
Equifax. Target. Uber. LinkedIn. Yahoo. If there is one thing we have all learned, it is that nothing is safe these days, these companies – and others – clearly cannot be counted on to safeguard you from the dangers of hackers. In 2016 alone over 4 billion data records were stolen across the world.
Your email account should be treated as one the most closely guarded personal effects in your life. What were to happen if your email account were compromised and all the escrow money or their social security numbers your client had entrusted to you vanished due to you clicking on a suspect email link? That is a scenario none of us want.
To help safeguard you, and the interests of those you represent, use these five stages of email password security to protect your email account.
Level #1: “Uh, duh.”
The first stage is all about covering the basic best practices of email security.
Don’t use password, abcedfg or 1234567 as your email password
The best thing you can do today is to not use the things like “password,” abcdefg or 1234567 as your email passwords. According to Betterbuys.com these types of passwords can take a hacker just 0.29 milliseconds to hack and compromise your account.
0.29 Milliseconds: The amount of time it takes a hacker to crack a generic password.
Don’t believe me? Betterbuys.com has this nifty tool you can use to test the strength of your password (don’t worry they don’t keep the passwords.)
“Estimating Password-Cracking Times” by BetterBuys
Use at least 12 characters when creating a password
The longer your password, the longer it takes hackers to crack your accounts and access sensitive information. On average, passwords with at least 12 characters can potentially take two centuries to crack.
Use Lowercase, Uppercase, numeric and special characters
Just how you construct, your password is just as important as a character count. The more thought you put into how your passwords are constructed, the more time it can take hackers to crack your account.
Level #2: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” – Lloyd Christmas
Even with a strong password, your chances of being compromised are still high. Hackers and phishers use a variety of programs and tactics to bilk people out of the personal information and other valuables (Mr. Robot anyone?)
At stage two it is about adding extra protection.
Use two-factor verification
The short version: When you use two-factor verification should someone have your password, they should not be able to login to your account(s) without first entering a security code sent via SMS text or through the use of an authentication app. The thinking behind this is “prove whom you say you are” especially if you are attempting to log in from a new phone or laptop.
Increase your phishing detection skills
Phishing occurs when a nefarious entity falsely represents themselves under the guise of being a legitimate company. Their end goal: tricking you into providing sensitive personal information, erroneously sending them money, and the list goes on.
To help you get better at recognizing fake websites and not giving up the proverbial farm, LifeHacker has some great tips, tricks, and tools you can use to protect you from phishing attempts.
Go here for more information on email verification and validation!
Level #3: “That’s interesting, man.” – The Dude
Proactively monitoring your email account can be a great tool for keeping yourself safe and it is easy to set up. At this stage, it is all about keeping yourself informed about what is going on with your account(s) and making sure nothing funny is going on.
Turn on recent event monitoring
If you use notification messages for any apps on your smartphone or tablet, recent event notifications work in a similar way. This type of security helps you to know the exact time, place, and device that was used each time to access your account. Each email provider has different ways of customizing this type of security, so check with your email provider which options are available. I use both email and text notifications for my Gmail account to make sure I am not potentially missing out on any suspicious activity.
Level #4: “I’m putting it in the vault.” – Jerry Seinfeld
With the new layers of security for your email account (and, hopefully, your other important accounts) it can feel overwhelming trying to manage all the new changes. Fortunately, there’s an app for that.
Invest in a password manager vault app
It may seem counterproductive to stage one, but, utilizing a highly encrypted third-party solution for managing all of your passwords can be a lifesaver both for your sanity and time. The concept is simple: enter your login credentials for an account and utilize this as your single source of truth for managing all your accounts including your email account.
There are a lot of great options out on the market. To help you pick the one that is the best fit for you, LifeHacker has put together a great article highlighting the top five options ranked by consumers (I use LastPass).
Level #5: “You will lose.” – Ivan Drago
This stage is not for the lighthearted. If you want to have the highest level of protection against hacking, then read on.
Invest in a YubiKey
A Yubikey is the ultimate last line of defense in email security. Yubikey is a small thumb drive about the size of a quarter, fits on your keychain, and acts as a physical password vault. Translation: if you do not stick the Yubikey into your device, you can not access your email account.
You might be skeptical, but I can personally attest that this is one of my top three best personal investments of 2017. After experiencing my email account being hacked this year, I swore never to let it happen again, thus stumbling upon Yubikey. You can also have multiple Yubikeys tied to your accounts, so, just like your keys, if it happens to get misplaced, you can use a spare until finding your primary one. There is a variety of Yubikey options, so choose the one that best fits your needs.
Hanna Holdings Invests in MoxiWorks
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Hanna Holdings, the holding company of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, has become an investor in Moxi Works, Moxi Works recently announced. Howard Hanna has committed to providing growth capital and ensuring a future of technology for the company’s agents, as well as Moxi Works’ more than 50 other brokerage clients.
How [Not] to Write a Real Estate Agent Bio
By Maddie Jostol
It’s something you likely only update if you’re thinking about changing brokerages or you get a new website. If you’ve been in the game a while, but haven’t updated your bio – now is the time.
Your bio is your opportunity to tell someone who you are and what you’re about before you meet. It’s a first impression, in a way. The start of a new year is the perfect time to review your online presence and get those websites and LinkedIn profiles updated, so we’ve compiled a list of tips to help guide you to a winning agent bio.
Don’t sound like a robot – Make it human. Use language that reads similarly to how you would speak while remaining professional. Someone is reading your bio to get to know you, not to see a standard agent boilerplate. Start building a human connection when they read your bio.
Don’t write a novel – Keep it short and sweet. Provide the reader with just enough information to make them decide they want to work with you, without telling your entire life story. 200-350 words is plenty.
Don’t look like everybody else – Focus on unique expertise. Do you know a lot about housing for veterans? Do you speak a second language? Are you well-connected in a particular community? Play up your strengths and set yourself apart.
Don’t start from the beginning – Start with what makes you the best now, and then support that with your past experience.
Don’t be a stranger – Real estate is all about community. People take pride in where they live, so use that to your advantage. Talk about your local area as if you love it there and people will respond positively.
Don’t start with how many years you’ve been in the biz – “I’ve been in real estate for 25 years” doesn’t make me want to keep reading. Experience absolutely matters, but because of what you’ve accomplished and the service you provide your clients, not in the number of years. Not to mention, starting your bio this way will sound generic and unimaginative.
Don’t limit yourself to text – Try a video bio. Video gives you the opportunity to show your personality and resonate with viewers as a true consultant.
Don’t use gibberish – We’ve all seen those bios with so many designations following the author’s name that you can’t decipher it all. By all means, note your qualifications and don’t shy away from sharing your designations, just don’t make it look like your cat sat on the keyboard while you were typing. Include your professional experience in a thoughtful, selective way.
Don’t advertise – There’s a time and a place for advertising. Maybe they clicked on an ad to get to your website where they’re reading your bio. However, your bio is an opportunity for someone to get to know you. Sure, the end goal is to win a listing, but that’ll happen because they want to work with YOU.
Prominent Real Estate Company Invests in MoxiWorks Technology
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE January 18, 2018 – Pittsburgh, PA – Hanna Holdings, the holding company of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, has become an investor in Moxi Works, a Seattle-based real estate technology company. Howard Hanna has committed to providing growth capital and ensuring a future of cutting-edge technology for the company’s agents, as well as Moxi Works’ more than 50 other brokerage clients.
Hanna Holdings invests in Seattle real estate tech firm
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Hanna Holdings, the holding company for Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, announced on Thursday it has invested in a Seattle-based real estate technology firm that provides a suite of tools to make agents more productive.
The O’Hara real estate company first partnered with Moxi Works in August 2013, becoming a customer of the Moxi Cloud platform offering tools and services to help real estate agents.
Is eXp Realty Taking Your Agents?
eXp Realty is an agent-owned cloud brokerage. It is quoted as one of the “most innovative real estate companies in the world” by Inman News. At eXp, there are no desk fees, no royalty fees, and agents get to keep somewhere around 80-100% of their commissions. What’s more is they offer every single agent the opportunity to buy into the business and become a shareholder. A “we’re in it together” mentality, surely leaning towards trying to make traditional brokerages look bad. Never heard of them? They’re kind of a big deal. They’re listing agents for properties like these, so you can bet their agents know what they’re doing.
And they’re probably plucking some of your agents (or trying to).
eXp Realty is growing – and fast. Currently in 46 states across the country, they are further proof that clouds are winning. The company increased the number of agents and brokers on the eXp Realty platform by 171 percent to 6,511 agents in 2017, compared to their 2,401 agents in 2016. A 171 percent increase year over year is impressive and it’s alarming. How are traditional brokerages meant to combat this?
Time to get a cloud.
A cloud, or an “open platform” is what it takes to get on the same level as eXp and other cloud brokerages alike. An open platform uses the cloud to connect all of your brokerage systems. This means saying goodbye to tool fatigue and no freedom to change. With an open platform, you get to choose whichever tools you want and they work together – seamlessly, with one sign-in. What’s more is you can change the tools whenever you please, no pain involved. Think of it like a power strip where you can plug-and-play the tools and services you want, and unplug tools and services you aren’t happy with anymore. It’s simple, it’s the future, it’s what you need for your brokerage technology so you don’t end up with a bunch of tangled cords.
“Stop talking to me about clouds.”
You’re tired of hearing the term “cloud” and “brokerage platform,” we get it. While you’re annoyed with the technology industry and having to change and “disrupt” your brokerage, the rest of the world is wondering why the real estate industry is so incredibly far behind. Technology adoption in the industry has historically been depressingly slow, and there is no “tortoise and the hare” analogy that works here because the slow-to-adopt brokerages certainly have not won the race. In fact, many of them have shriveled up and died or are currently clinging on for dear life, losing their agents to cloud brokerages like Compass, eXp, and Keller Williams with the Keller Cloud.
“My brokerage is fine. It’s been fine the last 30 years and it will be fine the next 30.” Answer: We’ll look you up someday in the archaeology archives.
Moxi Works Adds PadStyler to Cloud Open Platform
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Moxi Works has added PadStyler visual home staging experts to its Moxi Cloud open platform, the company recently announced.
