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How to Implement Naming and Folder Architectures at Your Brokerage
By Andrew E.
If you handle marketing or create content for your brokerage, have we got a treat for you. Incorporating a folder architecture and file naming convention for your brokerage’s data management system can do wonders for boosting brokerage efficiency and agent productivity.
Setting up a standardized way of naming and finding all brokerage assets and collateral can make your brokerage look – and act – like a well-oiled machine. Plus, there’s an added benefit: tears of joy and applause from all your colleagues. This simple act can have far reaching effects top-down and back again.
At MoxiWorks, we utilize a naming convention and folder architecture derived from Platform as a Service (PaaS) best practices. Here is a sneak peek into how we use folders across a number of our teams and help to keep everyone sane.
Parent-level (team) Folders
In our ecosystem, there are platform components where teams utilize common tools. To help each easily distinguish “where to play,” we start with parent or “team-level” folders.
- Admin
- Marketing
- Account Management
- Sales
- Relocation Services
- Finance
- (z)Testing
- (z)Training
By calling out these folders initially, each team can easily navigate to their pertinent place of truth.
Child-level Folders
Child folders are those that live within the parent or team-level folders. As a best practice in the marketing team, we name child-level folders to align with either asset or marketing channel type.
Marketing (Parent Folder)
Child Folders
- Calendar: Launch dates for campaigns and programs with parents, vendors, internal, etc.
- Campaigns: Years, type/channel
- Content: Images, videos, collateral like case studies, infographics, white papers, Bit.ly links, etc.
- Emails: Sent emails, draft emails, and email templates
- Forms
- Landing Pages
- Search Marketing: PPC, Google, Bing, Paid Social Etc.
- Social Media: Content media posts, copy, mockups, etc.
Grandchild and Great Grandchild Folders
I know what you are thinking right now: “you guys have a lot of folders!” Yes, we do, but it keeps us extremely organized and our productivity up!
Grandchild folders nest under the child folders. An example would look like this:
Marketing (Parent)
- Campaigns (Child)
- 2015 (Grandchild)
- 2016 (Grandchild)
- 2017 (Grandchild)
- 2018 (Grandchild)
- Advertising (Great Grandchild)
- Blog (Great Grand Grandchild)
- Direct Mail (Great Grandchild)
- Email (Great Grandchild)
- Public Relations (Great Grandchild)
- Seminars/Trade Shows (Great Grandchild)
- Social Media (Great Grandchild)
We utilize channel at the great grandchild level to quickly navigate between past and present for easier benchmarking and reference of initiatives Year-over-Year.
Naming Conventions for Assets and Collateral
Just like your folders have a naming structure and architecture, so should your files. First, you should define which types of files need naming. For marketing assets, here are some suggestions:
- Header: Email headers images
- Footer: Email footers images
- Content: (White papers, case studies, flyers, onesheets, etc.)
- Social Icon: Images for your social media channels
- Logo: Brokerage and partner logos
- Ad: Digital advertisements for PPC or paid social
Here are some working examples how you might be able to customize naming for your own brokerage:
[File Type] [Purpose or Name] [Intended Audience] (where applicable)
Header – 2018 Market Trends Webinar – Real Estate Agents.png
Content – Brokerage Communication Success Guide – CMOs.pdf
Content – Agent Success White Paper – Agents.pdf
Logo – 2017 Your Brokerage Here – Large – New Prospects.png
No two brokerages or teams are alike, so, what works for you may not work for someone else. So, figure out what best aligns within your own organization.
How to Compete Now That Marketing Has Gone One-To-One
By Andrew Eberting
Fact: The average person is exposed to as many as 5,000 ads per day (Source: Media Dynamics, Inc.). The ability to cut through the noise and compete for people’s attention is growing more precious with each passing minute.
Blanket, unimaginative marketing efforts like sending out a yearly calendar isn’t enough nowadays and likely isn’t moving the needle or making your brand standout as a real estate agent. Alternatively, to put it another way: marketing like this today is the equivalent of the old Publishers Clearing House mailers or getting yet another invite to Play Candy Crush – people tune it out.
If you are still marketing like this today, then you are losing potential clients and money with each calendar you send out. Utilize these three techniques to revamp your marketing and start branding yourself as someone potential prospects will want to work with vs. wanting to avoid.
One-to-One Marketing
Personalizing your marketing is the new Marketing 101, or, as it is more commonly referred to, one-to-one marketing. Simply speaking, each marketing touch you put out to the market should have a personal or targeted element to it.
Facebook Ads
With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the standard for where many of us go to catch up with news, friends, and share moments of our lives. Placing online advertisements on Facebook then only makes sense, as this is where all the eyeballs are.
Let’s say you won a new listing (yay!) and you want to promote this to people in your area. By creating a new listing advertisement for your client via Facebook, you can promote your new listing to people using criteria like:
- Geographic radius
- Income
- Age range
Why this is important: 93% of buying decisions are now influenced by Social Media.
(Source: Erik Qualman, Socialnomics)
These things can help to optimize your Facebook ad and get it in front of the types of individuals who are most likely to be interested in your new listing. This helps you spend your marketing dollars more effectively while making your client happy. Moxi Works now offers a native Facebook tool to help you jumpstart your marketing efforts; you can check it out here.
Direct Mail That Actually Works
Remember that calendar of yours I mentioned earlier? Well, it isn’t personable. However, as we head towards the holiday season, this is the perfect opportunity to share something personable from you to your past clients. Run down to Kinkos and put your favorite cookie, pie or other holiday dessert recipe onto a set of postcards along with a small description of why it is your favorite. It is okay to pull the curtain back a little bit, sincerity and authenticity go a long way. Mailing something like this out to clients is more memorable and thoughtful than a calendar ever will be.
Bonus tip: If you really want to make a lasting impression, measure out some of the dry ingredients in the recipe, put them in mailable bags or packaging, and also include that with the recipe card.
Join Nextdoor
Confession: I am grossly addicted to Nextdoor, a social media network specific to the neighborhood you live. I have been able to network with people in my immediate and surrounding neighborhoods to find folks that are great gardeners, woodworkers, mechanics, and the list goes on. I cannot begin to quantify the number of posts from my neighbors asking for recommendations on a landscaper, painter, real estate agent, or someone else that can help them with something monetarily associated with the upkeep or value of their home. Whether it is the office or the neighborhood, every group needs a go-to person that specializes in something – why can’t the real estate pro in your neighborhood be you?
When it comes to one-to-one marketing, these tips, and techniques only scratch the surface, there is so much more out there that you can do.
Want to know how you can take your one-to-one marketing efforts even further? Check out this article from our August edition of Mile 62 magazine for more personalized marketing strategies that you can implement in your own market.
Why Agents Are Loving Advertise Your Listing
By Tiana Baur
Advertise Your Listing is a newly launched Facebook Ad tool from MoxiWorks that allows agents who just won a listing to create a Facebook ad for said listing with ease. By ease, we mean in three steps and typically in less than five minutes. Advertise Your Listing helps you impress your clients, stay competitive, win more business, and generate more repeat and referral business.
Advertise Your Listing also sends reports directly to your clients. These reports are automatic and help in showcasing you as the trusted advisors you are, without taking up more hours in the day. The best part? Agents don’t need a Facebook Page to run ads. Tie your business page or keep your personal, personal. Either way you can use Advertise Your Listing and win more listing presentations, prove value to your client, and make yourself visible to your farm.
Here’s a quick list of some of the many reasons Advertise Your Listing can up your marketing game:
- It helps you win listings by showing potential sellers how you’ll be promoting their home
- Demonstrates to potential sellers your digital savviness
- Can automatically send a report to your seller showing how many people have seen the ad for their home
- By increasing client satisfaction, you earn more repeat and referral business
- Makes you visible in the neighborhood, potentially generating leads for you
- Each ad is typically seen by thousands of people
- Shows the people in your area you have active listings
- Proves to your seller you are working hard for them to earn your commission
- By showing past ad campaign performances in your listing presentation, you can demonstrate that you can promote their home to thousands of people
- The ads include your Facebook business page, potentially driving many people to your page
We’ve been hearing feedback from agents and thought we’d share one of our favorites from Frankie Hagan, a stellar agent based out of the Fonville Morisey (a Long & Foster Company) office in Raleigh, North Carolina. Here’s what he had to say about it:
Agents love Advertise Your Listing because it gets more eyes on their listings, positions them as marketing pros, and allows them to spend more time on doing what they do best: sell.
You can now start reaching more of the 2 billion people on Facebook (that’s more people than the population of China by the way) and impress your clients at the same time right from the Moxi account you already have. Showcasing listings on Facebook will make you look like a digital marketing superstar and add to the reasons why you deserve more repeat and referral business. Start today.
Have you heard about our Halloween Promo? Today, October 31, is your LAST chance to get 25% off and enter to win the new iPhone X! Each time you choose to advertise your listings using this tool, you’re entered to win. Click here to start.
Everyone Is Moving to The Cloud
By Andrew E.
Fact: 70% of U.S. organizations are now utilizing cloud technology to run at least one application of their businesses. The growth of cloud technology adoption is on the rise as the business benefits have proven to be worth their weight in gold regarding profitability and efficiency standards.
Gone are the days of investing heavily in never ending hardware, and with good reason. The infrastructure of old limited growth of organizations in several key areas that we all have come to demand from our “on-the-go” lifestyles. Vendors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft Azure are the leaders in cloud computing space that run backend of many of businesses today. While each company offers their own competitive advantages for cloud technology, they all offer standardized benefits regardless of industry, size, or sophistication.
Accessibility
Like being able to get an email or watch Netflix on your phone, tablet, or watch from nearly anywhere in the world? Enter the cloud. The ability to get anything at any time while anywhere regardless of device used is by far the most tangible benefit each of us utilize of cloud computing each day.
Customization
Remember AOL CDs? Well, gone are the days of needing a new disc to update applications or programs in order to have the most current version for your business operations. The Cloud provides scalability at lightning speed to meet your brokerage’s everchanging needs. This gives you the power to keep yours happy with the latest and greatest tools while sunsetting those that have fallen out of favor.
Affordability
With the burden of data transfer, storage, and throughput now shifted online, the need for fixed computing servers or other hardware and the demand of routinely updating them drastically decreases the technology costs required to stay competitive.
Security
Another advantage of the cloud is capitalizing on the nonstop landscape of data safety and encryption advances. Along the same lines of affordability, cloud-based utilization by organizations keeps them in stride with how to best protect their digital currency – their data – vs. being landlocked to onsite systems that require dedicated personnel bandwidth to oversee and maintain a high level of both technical hardware operating efficiency but also protection of those systems.
With so many benefits it can be naive to think that migrating to cloud is an easy task to administer. The Cloud just like anything else can be challenging to get right unless the correct systems are in place to connect everything together.
Open Platform to the Rescue – Cloud Migration
Like clockwork every year heading into the holiday season, it seems like the amount of lights and other powered decorations we need to plug into a power strip seems to grow. Enter Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or, simply put, an open platform.
Think of all your different brokerage data sources, vendor apps, etc. as all those holiday lights, inflatable snow globes, and everything else you put up in front of the house each year. An open platform, or, brokerage “power strip”, enables you to plug all of those different things together into one common place so that they all work together at the same time. The Moxi Cloud is that power strip.
As an open platform, the Moxi Cloud empowers brokerages to capitalize on the many benefits of the cloud in one common place without all the headache of hooking everything up by itself with no ability to get everything working together. Quite the opposite, utilizing our open platform permits you to turn on and off parts of those “decorations” or swap them out for something else entirely if you feel like it. Your brokerage, your business, your way.
Want to learn more about how an open platform can save you money while also growing your profits? Click here to watch the video.
Partner Spotlight: iTourMedia’s New Social Boost
One of our fabulous partners has some new exciting features you have to see! iTour’s Social Boost allows agents to get the maximum exposure to social audiences, helping take their online game to a whole new level. Here is how it works:
1. Automate the process of uploading listings to your office Facebook account.
2. Expand the exposure for your listings automatically, without agent involvement.
3. Reduce the time you spend dealing with Facebook posting and boosting.
4. Create beautiful video posts in seconds that auto-play and engage the audience.
5. Know that your listings are receiving maximum exposure and you are benefiting from upcoming BoostBucks for social marketing credits.
Plus, with Social Boost, you can…
- Access via an office dashboard account (web/mobile)
- Manual Social Boost button for each office listing
- Connect your office Facebook page / Business Facebook Account
- Push, Push + Boost, Boost available for all office listings to an office FB page
- Push automation through the Social Boost scheduler
- Uses the clients’ Business Facebook Ad account
- 100% of all Ad $ goes toward the Facebook advertising – no hidden fees
- Audience targeting customization through Ad Settings
iTour prides themselves on creating tools that truly make a difference, and Social Boost is no exception. One of the many reasons why they’re a best-in-class tool on the Moxi Cloud open platform!
MoxiWorks Adds AskAvenue to Cloud Open Platform
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE MoxiWorks has added AskAvenue, a chat tool for real estate websites, to its Moxi Cloud open platform, the company recently announced. “The AskAvenue chat tool gives agents the ability to follow up with visitors on their website right away,” says Mike McHenry, vice president of Channels and Partnerships at MoxiWorks. “We live in a mobile world and potential homebuyers expect answers in real-time. AskAvenue allows agents to accomplish this.”
Technology-Poor Agents are Losing Their Spheres
By Maddie Jostol
Technology is woven into almost everything we do. It’s integrated into our everyday lives, whether we like it or not. Professionals are having to find a balance, using technology to their advantage without forgetting to maintain interpersonal relationships. This is particularly true for real estate agents who primarily manage relationships, but need technology to optimize their business.
The home sales process is a personal one.
People work with agents because they see the value in having a trusted advisor who can lend a professional opinion, truly listen to their needs, and hold their hand through the process. This isn’t going to change – there’s something about the human aspect of a transaction like this that people need to rely on. Does that mean technology should be omitted from the equation? Not at all.
The sphere selling methodology is all about building strong relationships.
Sphere selling is incredibly powerful, and it’ll only continue to gain importance in the future. It’s centered around creating a sphere of influence filled with people who know and trust you. It’s called a sphere of influence because you’re their go-to advisor – the influential, trustworthy voice when it comes to real estate. This doesn’t just mean you should make sure your contacts are in your agent CRM – that’s an important step, but it goes beyond that. Truly nurturing your sphere over the long-term isn’t really an option, it’s a requirement to growing your pool of repeat and referral business, which enables you to rely less on low quality paid leads.
Agents leveraging a sphere selling methodology are able to achieve sustainable growth in their business. Why? Because it allows agents to improve sales by nurturing strong human relationships while simultaneously embracing technology.
Technology is required to help you maintain relationships with your sphere.
Keeping up with your sphere isn’t easy. It takes time and a great deal of organization and small, repetitive tasks – this is where technology comes into play. Agents are continually juggling tasks, clients, and transactions, and more. The heart of a good agent CRM is functionality that enables agents to do their jobs better, in less time, with fewer mistakes, and with less stress.
Moxi Engage, the CRM we’ve built for agents, is geared towards enabling the agent to be more efficient and thorough in how they maintain their sphere of influence. The integration with other tech tools means you always know what actions you’ve taken with a contact and where you stand with that contact. The heart of a good agent CRM is really giving the agent the opportunity to better manage and maintain their sphere. Here’s how:
• Automate repetitive tasks, such as monthly newsletters
• Manage data and integrate with the MLS and other tools, so data is always up to date
• Keep track of all the contacts in your sphere
• Help you stay one top of all your tasks so you don’t miss a beat
• Remind you of important dates
• Recommend actions to take to maintain your sphere
When agents don’t have the technology they need to properly nurture their contacts, they lose their sphere. Without maintaining contact, people take their business elsewhere. This is a dangerous game for agents in today’s market where leads are already scarce. Not only having a great agent CRM, but using it to your full advantage, will ensure you stay competitive and continue to grow your business. Don’t lose out – use sphere methodology and the right tech tools to grow and maintain your sphere.
10 Easy Ways Agents Can Run a More Profitable Business
By Tiana Baur
There are some simple, yet essential ways to make sure your business is as profitable and thriving as it can be. These ten tips will hopefully serve as a check list for when tax season comes around, as well as the rest of the year in order to prepare and set your business up for the brightest possible future.
1. Remember to file quarterly taxes
This may seem obvious to most, but even though you know you need to do it, you don’t always remember to. Life gets busy. Filing quarterly taxes means avoiding penalties and additional interest owed. Not doing so can also raise a red flag with the IRS and hurt your business in the long run.
2. Home office deduction
Make sure you deduct for a home office, but make sure you don’t over exaggerate the size of the space. There’s a fine line with this one. Let’s say your home office is 250 square feet
of a 2,500-square foot home, the percentage of the deduction you can take is 10 percent. Remember you can only do this if you aren’t already deducting your office space at your brokerage’s office. Whatever you do, make sure you choose one to deduct so you don’t miss out on hard earned cash.
3. Mileage reporting
Don’t. Be. Sloppy. If you only remember to track miles on some days, you’re missing out. Tracking all your miles is the key to tax saving success. QuickBooks Self-Employed app auto tracks the mileage, so you don’t have to worry about remembering. With this program, you can deduct an average of over $7,000 dollars a year. Capture everything you need automatically, then categorize mileage with the click of a button.
4. Deduct your big purchases
Buying a laptop, phone, printer, furniture or anything else related to your business? Deduct! These big ones might get forgotten if you purchased them in the first two quarters of the year.
5. Coffee, lunches, dinners, cocktail hours
If you’re constantly taking your clients out for a bite or a coffee, make sure you keep your receipts. Scratch that. Snap a photo in your QuickBooks Self-Employed app. No more leaving receipts in boxes or in the glove box of your car. No more! Doing this correctly means saving agents an average of over $4,000 a year.
6. Avoid an audit
The more money you make, the more likely you’ll be audited. If your income is creeping up, it’s time to use a little extra paper to employ better tracking of receipts, donations to charitable causes, and mileage. Maybe also time to consider hiring a professional to keep an eye on your records, rather than trying to keep track of it all yourself. Maybe.
7. Deduct software
This one might surprise you. You can fully deduct any software needed to run your business, including accounting and lead generation software. QuickBooks Self-Employed for example, which automatically tracks your expenses and mileage, can be fully deducted. Win-win.
8. Further education
Lots of states require continued education to keep a real estate license, while in others, it’s not only required, but crucial to stay competitive. You are probably able to deduct registration costs, transportation, and accommodation costs for coaching, courses, etc. This goes for in-person and online courses.
9. Desk fees
Your desk fees are deductible regardless of your brokerage. With QuickBooks Self-Employed you can set a rule to automatically categorize this expense whenever you pay that desk fee. Keep in mind, you can only do this if you aren’t doing the home office deduction.
10. Travel
If you’re travelling to a conference, having QuickBooks Self-Employed makes life way easier. It allows agents to focus on networking and the purpose of their trip, by linking their bank account to the app. As soon as agents incur any expense associated with travel, all they do is tap a button to categorize it in one of the IRS approved categories.
Get started with QuickBooks Self-Employed today and start running a more profitable, professional business.
Positioning Your Value Proposition Against Zillow Instant Offers
By Tiana Baur, Content Marketing Manager
We’ve been talking a lot about Zillow Instant Offers. At some point, there will be buzz in your offices about them and your agents need to know how to clearly articulate their value. In our last post on this topic, we talked about what they potentially mean for real estate agents and how important it is to continue to provide comfort and trust to their clients. But what does that mean in tangible terms? How does one properly position themselves then? Providing value, client satisfaction, and being the trusted advisor to all clients is easier said than done.
To review, Instant Offers works like this: It connects homeowners with investors, helping them receive multiple offers based on their “home details and comparative sales.” All the homeowner has to do is answer some questions, submit some photos, and pick an offer from a verified investor. They then schedule a free home inspection and close on the date they choose. Simple, painless, virtually no work done by the homeowner. There is an option to use an agent, but the fact that homeowners don’t have to is the key.
Here’s how you can combat this and position your value proposition against it:
Have their back.
Agents need to keep doing what they’re good at. Show your prospects and clients that you care. That you’re human. That you’ll be with them every step of the way. Show them your unique knowledge of their neighborhood that you specialize in with articles and statistics and information that only you could know by working in the that area for a decade or even before Zillow existed. Agents are the experts.
If they’re thinking of using Instant Offers, show them why you’re worth it.
Instant Offers doesn’t answer phone calls at 2am when the home seller is crying and stressed because something unforeseen went wrong last minute during the transaction. Instant Offers doesn’t send a bottle of champagne to congratulate them on their great home sale. Instant Offers doesn’t promise to hold their hand from the very beginning, all the way until they’ve moved and settled into their new home. Instant Offers doesn’t care that the people who bought the home aren’t a right fit for the unique neighborhood’s culture. Agents do. Even if your prospect went this route, call them, check up on them, see how they’re doing. Chances are, they’ll regret their decision and realize they need to change their route.
Show you know more than an algorithm.
There are a lot of things an algorithm knows about people. Arguably, too much. But what they don’t know is that the house they’re trying to sell actually has more square footage than the neighbor’s house that sold last month, and because their view is only partially blocked, can actually make more than what Zillow Zestimates says it’s worth (which is wrong most of the time…ahem). The thing is, Zillow and these other websites are only as good as their data, which isn’t always accurate. Even an error margin of 8% (not uncommon with Zillow), means homeowners are missing out on money. The average listing fee is 6%, so even when it’s all said and done, you’d still be making more by going through an agent.
The bottom line.
Technology will continue to grow and evolve. Look at us. We’re a tech company that is changing the way the industry operates. The difference? We want to help the brokerage. Our entire business model is built around the purpose of making brokerages more profitable, by helping make their agents be more productive. Not all technology is out to eliminate agents from the real estate game. There will always be certain things in life that require a human element: Starting a family, comforting someone dear to you, and helping people find the right home to do both of those in.
How to Compete With Keller Williams’ $1 Billion for Technology
By Maddie Jostol
It’s no secret that Keller Williams is investing heavily in technology. With the unveiling of the Keller Cloud earlier this year followed by a recent announcement that they’re setting aside $1 billion to invest in technology development, they’re generating a lot of hype in the industry. As a brokerage with over 800 offices and 150,000+ associates worldwide, it’s hard not to be intimidated by these numbers.
The truth is, you don’t need $1 billion in spare cash to keep up. At the end of the day, it isn’t about having a fancy proprietary solution, it’s about investing in your agents, delivering a competitive experience, and meeting consumer expectations.
Consumer expectations are changing – they now expect agents to deliver fast, accurate information. Agents need an organized, integrated database in order to deliver on these expectations. It enables you to elevate your consumer experience in a scalable way.
Technology is woven into almost every part of an agent’s day-to-day life. They need tools that will enable them to work faster and smarter, so they can stay competitive while enjoying a healthy work/life balance. When you invest in your agents and their success, it rolls up into your brokerages’ success.
Keller Williams happens to be doing this through a platform, where the brokerage can run its entire business. We agree they’re onto something here as they’re jumping onboard with an important trend. The open platform is where the entire industry is heading as it helps brokerages integrate technologies across the entire organization, increasing efficiency and profits.
You need best-in-class tools to compete. You need a power strip to plug-and-play. But you don’t necessarily need to build this in-house. There are ways to keep up with the competition, even if you don’t have a spare $1B. After all, you are real estate experts, not a tech firm. That’s why MoxiWorks strives to complement brokerages, offering a comprehensive open platform, the Moxi Cloud, which integrates all their brokerages’ technology. We take care of your tech so you can place your focus on real estate. An open platform is the ecosystem for your brokerage technology. It’s where all of your tech tools live, sharing data and integrating your entire organization. You have the flexibility to change along with the industry. In fact, the beauty of the Moxi Cloud open platform is that you aren’t limited to MoxiWorks tools, but can plug and play the tech tools and services that best fit your brokerages’ culture and needs.
How does this help you compete? You can do everything they can do, and you don’t have to invest $1 billion to do it.
