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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a real estate broker that's figured out how to always be part of our customer's journey. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. And this can be nothing more than having the one and only Kelsi Carter here with us today. Hello, Keli Carter.
Kelsi Carter:Hello, Oh god. I don't know if we wanna include that one.
Dave Charest:No. I think we're gonna keep that one. That sounded that sounded beautiful. It's funny. Right?
Dave Charest:I'm trying to think of, like, new ways to introduce you every time, and I feel like it's gonna get old really quick.
Kelsi Carter:I know. I keep trying to think of new ways to say my name too, and I feel like I didn't even know. But it's okay.
Dave Charest:Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. So, Kelsi, obviously, right, when we we we talk to these small business owners all the time, and they're wearing a lot of hats when they start their businesses. And I'm wondering from you, have you ever had a job where you ended up doing, like, way more than you, like, originally signed up for?
Dave Charest:Like, I mean, like, you know, suddenly, I don't know, you're not just, you know, producing a podcast, but you're also on the on the air as talent as well, you know, amongst other things. Anything like that ever happened to you?
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. I feel like that has happened, like, a lot in my previous jobs where I end up just doing something that I wasn't originally, like, hired to do or signed on for. I'll just give, like, a previous, my last job, I was hired as an associate producer. So just helping produce shoots and going on shoots as sort of the producer. So, like, scheduling, making sure talent is on time.
Kelsi Carter:But I ended up getting roped into recording sound on some Mhmm. Of the shoots, which I like doing, but I wasn't like, that wasn't what I got hired for and that wasn't why I applied for the job. But I still did it, so that was definitely unexpected. So I ended up traveling for, like, two weeks just recording audio.
Dave Charest:Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where sometimes, obviously, it can be a a a good thing as a business owner. Of course, it's your business, so you're gonna do whatever you can to make it be successful. But, yeah, it's like when you get hired for a job sometimes when those other things start to creep in. It's like, wait a minute.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, I didn't sign on for this. But I think what's interesting about our guest here today is she really kinda takes that idea of wearing multiple hats and doing multiple things really to, like, the next level. Right? And the difference here though is that she's really done it intentionally and and, I guess, I would argue in many instances, brilliantly, right, in some in some cases here.
Dave Charest:So why don't you tell us a little bit about who our guest is today?
Kelsi Carter:Of course. So today, our guest is Jackie Liberto. She is the broker slash owner of Realty ONE Group in One Family Property Services located in Destin, Florida. She's also the owner of Defender Insurance, a partner with Gulf Coast Beachfronts, and the broker slash owner with Emerald Coast Referral Network and Nest Vacant Property Management. I'm a little out of breath saying that.
Dave Charest:Right? A lot of things. Right? Like, it's amazing. But it actually makes a lot of sense as we start to dig into it a bit here.
Dave Charest:So Jackie realized that as she was doing her regular sales kind of in the real estate world, she didn't do property management as an example. And so she would end up referring customers to an outside company that would, you know, have its own contracts and do all those types of things. And so when the owner would end up selling the property, she'd end up losing that customer as part of, like, just the natural attrition of the ownership process. And so Jackie's idea was to really always be part of her customer's journey by really playing a role in all the pieces of the ownership process, which is pretty cool.
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. And that entrepreneurial mindset really reminds me of our last real estate episode with Markie Lemons Ryle because Markie is a big believer that in order to be successful in real estate, you have to be an entrepreneur. So I think she'd honestly really appreciate that Jackie shares that mindset as well.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I think, Marky would have a big high five for for Jackie here. And, it's really a bit brilliant piece of business advice if you think about it as Jackie is really just diversifying her income streams and and thinking just beyond that initial sale. And so, you know, when she's selling a property or whatever she's doing, she's she's asking herself, okay. What are all the things that they can do with this property?
Dave Charest:And and Jackie really wants to be part of that entire journey. So we've got a great episode here where we talk to Jackie, and she talks to us about really why you have to beat the drum to get people to come to your door, of course, how to stand out in a crowded marketplace, and why everything you say and everything you do is marketing. So let's go to Jackie as she shares why she got started in real estate in the first place.
Jacqui Luberto:Because I had two kids in middle school, and my husband was retired air force. His job was about forty five minutes from home, and those babies wanted to be dropped off every day and picked up every day. And the job that I had at the time, which was outside sales for a magazine, it just couldn't accommodate that. So we had tossed it around a few times while my husband was active duty, but it's hard when you're moving all the time. So what was the tale of the military spouse?
Jacqui Luberto:Right? We're always having to uproot, and it's really hard in real estate. It takes a long time to build a following and a sphere of influence and a network. So it always seemed like it wouldn't be the right time until he retired. So it was just kind of that perfect storm.
Jacqui Luberto:He's retired. I can make some choices. And he said, you know what? I'll follow you. And so I got my real estate license, and here we are.
Dave Charest:Was, real estate kinda something you've always been interested in? Or
Jacqui Luberto:Not really. Not really. I decided on real estate because I knew that there was flexibility. Mhmm. I didn't know that meant I could work all of the hours available.
Dave Charest:Very flexible for you, isn't it? Surprise.
Jacqui Luberto:But it worked out great. You know what? I'm very proud to say I never missed anything that my kids did.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:I did every band, every football, every pickup, every drop off, and all of my customers that I was working with understood, and they were willing to work with me on that. So it was wonderful.
Dave Charest:What about this idea of just starting your own business? Was that something that was kind of you grew up with? Like, do you have any family that own their own businesses? Like, how did you get to that point where that was like, okay. Here's the option.
Jacqui Luberto:Always been on the table. Yeah. My parents opened a video store before Blockbuster existed.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:They were like the OGs of figure it out. And, I mean, you go back and you think about early eighties VHS tapes. How did my mother get those? How did she even figure out where to order them from
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:And the cases? And she built this very large business in our small town, just out of thin air. And I, you know, I'm just I sit in admiration of that as a entrepreneur myself. I'm like, I don't know how she did that. She didn't have the Internet.
Jacqui Luberto:She didn't have these resources, but she made it work. So after being in real estate for the three and a half years just as an agent, I saw things that I wanted to do differently, and it was a just a natural progression of the stream of consciousness. If I were an owner, this is how I would wanna do it. If I could do it myself, this is what I would charge. And I found Realty ONE Group through a quick Google search and it was Kismet.
Jacqui Luberto:Rest is history. Love it.
Dave Charest:So what was it about Realty ONE then that attracted you to taking or stepping out with them?
Jacqui Luberto:The Google search was national flat fee brokerage because I knew if I was going to open a company, I did not want to figure out websites, and I didn't wanna figure out how to get certain tools. It was never my intent to open a large brokerage at that time. It was just that if I do it on my own and someone wants to join me, I would have nothing to offer. So I wanted to just plug into a franchise so that there were things to offer. And so I Google searched national flat fee brokerage because I had the foresight that the flat fee was going to be the way of the future, and I'd still believe it is.
Jacqui Luberto:And Realty ONE Group came up, and their marketing, it's beautiful. That's what got me, was the visual. Right? It just looks so pretty, and they put a lot of work into their marketing. And, it shows.
Jacqui Luberto:And I was just smitten. Loved it.
Dave Charest:Any doubts come into your mind as you're starting this process off?
Jacqui Luberto:You know, I would lie if I said I didn't have any doubts, but the the road is paved with dead squirrels who had doubts. So we just have to move, and you'll be able to figure it out. You know? It's real estate. No one dies.
Jacqui Luberto:This is not surgery. It's you can change your mind. You can change course. But if you're not moving swiftly and intentionally, you're just gonna get left behind.
Dave Charest:So you you mentioned you opened or started just before kind of the shutdown happens. So what's going through your mind at this point?
Jacqui Luberto:Well, this is bad. It was our, our grand opening, and everybody was texting, sorry. Can't make it. It was actually Saint Patrick's Day, of 2020. So everyone's texting, sorry.
Jacqui Luberto:I'm not gonna be able to make it. The governor's shutting down. And I sat down at my desk and kind of the the tears welled in my eyes, and my husband grabs my face as he sweetly does and says, just do what you do. Just do what you do. You'll be fine.
Jacqui Luberto:We'll be fine. And I over the next couple of weeks of being in quarantine and coming out and going back, I made this decision. We're just gonna go to work. We're going back to the office. I can't sit at home and build a business.
Jacqui Luberto:I have to go to the office and be with people and go to work. I can't do this in fear, so I've gotta move forward.
Dave Charest:Did it come to a surprise to you and tell me if this was the same for you, but I know some of real estate people that we talked to at the time, like, you know, commercial was one thing, but residential was boomed at that time. So did you benefit from that happening? And did you expect that to be a thing?
Jacqui Luberto:So I remember very well the first couple of weeks watching the inventory on our MLS go to the highest I'd ever seen it in the four years. And I just kept thinking, like, they're these sellers are gonna keep putting their houses on the market, and there's not gonna be any buyers. It's gonna destroy our market. And as you know now and as I know now, that was the the opposite was true. Buyers came out of out of the woodwork.
Jacqui Luberto:And I think it was again, I I know I said before, but a perfect storm for us as a company being new and agents were joining and agents were moving, and it was just it was a great time for them. They were very, very happy and very well fed and interested to learn and to get into the market in a great time. So it allowed us to grow quickly with the market.
Dave Charest:How many people do you have on your team now?
Jacqui Luberto:All the companies, staff, and ten ninety nines. We have a total of about two twenty right now.
Dave Charest:Oh, wow. Has that grown since you started? Like, where did you start?
Jacqui Luberto:Started with, just me and my husband. We had, an assistant. Her name is Cora. Shout out to Cora. She's still with me.
Jacqui Luberto:Love her dearly. And we had a transaction coordinator. And from there, I mean, Cora has grown from my assistant to my marketing manager to an agent and my partner now, in sales. And, you know, we just incrementally adjust our staff as we grow, but Realty ONE Group has a 65 agents and my husband's the, operations director or excuse me, director of operations. He always corrects me.
Dave Charest:Let's not get that wrong. We gotta get that.
Jacqui Luberto:We gotta get it right.
Dave Charest:What do you love most about owning your own business?
Jacqui Luberto:The people. It's just the people. I know if I call one of my agents, they'll answer. If I need something, they'll jump in and help, and they know the same of me.
Dave Charest:What do you find most challenging about owning your own business?
Jacqui Luberto:The people.
Dave Charest:I knew that was gonna happen.
Jacqui Luberto:Yeah. It wasn't that was a easy one.
Dave Charest:Well, why is that?
Jacqui Luberto:It's, trying to stay ahead of what their needs are. Am I training in the right way? Am I giving them what they need? Because sometimes the loudest yell is silent. You gotta tell me.
Jacqui Luberto:You gotta tell me what you need. And it's always the ones that are in front of you. It's easy to have those conversations, but you have to pay attention to who's not in front of you. And I'm I'm not perfect again. I know my agents are gonna hear this later, and I always wanna say, just because I know it exists doesn't mean I'm perfect at executing it.
Jacqui Luberto:But I'm aware of it, and I try to be cognizant that I need to be proactive with everybody. And that gets hard to do at scale sometimes.
Dave Charest:Well, I was gonna ask, how challenging is that when you think about you also have these different areas of the business that you're running as well, and I would assume each has its own little quirks and quibbles and different ways of getting things done. And so how do you I don't even know if you need to, but do you have to shift your brain a little bit between the different areas? What does that look like for you?
Jacqui Luberto:Yeah. Definitely. And and I have to recognize that while different companies and the people who work for them have different styles of communicating and, getting work done, they also have different processes, different timelines. They also have different pieces of technology that they use to track and measure and look at their key metrics. But I will tell you that I work on every single business every single day.
Jacqui Luberto:It's not a a day or even really, I couldn't devote a four hour timeframe to any one company. I just have to stay fluid and move through them. And I think it's a big part of it is really knowing them intimately, is not being shocked by what's happening. You didn't pay attention to it for six weeks. Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:You you'd be shocked what's going on over there.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So the marketing piece, how'd you get into marketing?
Jacqui Luberto:Let's see. Where did that start? Yeah. So my son is 42. I was pregnant with him, and I had been working in the medical field.
Jacqui Luberto:And two of my patients worked at a marketing agency, and they helped me get my foot in the door with their company in Downtown Pensacola. And I was very excited about that. And there were different little projects that I got to play a part in. A Pensacola baseball team needed someone to help out. So I did seventh inning stretch work, brought in the back kids and and organized them.
Jacqui Luberto:So it really started very low key and it just built and built. I worked on my degree the entire time my husband was active duty, a class here, a class there, and I ultimately ended up with a bachelor's degree with a minor in marketing. And I just would say, gosh, I've had every kind of job. I've done newspaper sales in the desert. I've done, again, talk about air force marketing.
Jacqui Luberto:That's the MWR side, which is morale, welfare, and recreation. It's trying to keep these guys busy and the families engaged while their spouses are fighting a war, and it can be incredibly challenging to get people out of their house. There was a lot of lot of coordination, a lot of fun, a lot of different things that I've been blessed to be able to do over the years.
Dave Charest:What do you love most about marketing? What attracts you to that?
Jacqui Luberto:The people. You just get to meet so many different people, and you're just very, open to all walks of life and meeting them where they're at. And if you know, gosh, the Air Force, we would do, like, a golf tournament. And everyone who shows up to that golf tournament has a story. Right?
Dave Charest:Mhmm.
Jacqui Luberto:They have a reason why they're there at that one. And I would say 50% is probably I love golf. 50% is I just needed a break. I needed to get out. I needed, you know, to to change up the scenery.
Jacqui Luberto:And being able to talk to people in those situations has just been so very cool in getting to know people.
Dave Charest:So I feel as though I know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Where does marketing rank on your list of priorities for the business
Jacqui Luberto:now? It's number one. I think you have to no matter what business you're in, you have to recognize that we're in a marketing and media world. And if you're not telling people what you're doing, the information just comes at you so fast. If you are changing oil and that's your business, you have to be marketing and telling people and promoting it and advertising and beating that drum to get people to come to your door.
Jacqui Luberto:They're gonna pass 30 people on their way. Are they gonna stop early because it's more convenient? Are they coming because of you and you build some sort of relationship that you may not even know that you built through your marketing? There can be some pull and emotion over things that you've put out over a certain amount of time over the years that makes that person dedicated to come to you for their oil changes. So it it doesn't matter what you are in the business of, it's important that you lead with, what does my digital billboard say every day?
Jacqui Luberto:What am I telling the world about my company and my business and how I operate and why I'm different? If you don't tell them none of the work matters.
Dave Charest:Who's involved with the marketing now?
Jacqui Luberto:So we do get a a considerable amount of support on the marketing side from Realty ONE Group on that. All of the other companies have logos that I designed with my staff, and it's just me and a staff of two that put together all of our marketing, but mostly Melinda. Shout out to Melinda when she's listening later. She's my constant contact guru. She helps me so much with what you guys offer.
Dave Charest:I'm wondering, you've obviously got this unique perspective on there as a military wife and, like, relocating and doing all of these things all the time and all of the challenges that you face in those areas. Right? Like, how has that experience influenced how you approach what you do in real estate and with your clients and just how you market the business?
Jacqui Luberto:Well, specifically with how I deal with buyers and sellers is that I definitely know what it feels like to move. We've moved a lot, so I definitely can take on that, deeper understanding. If someone moves every twenty years, they don't really remember. You move every three years for twenty years, you're gonna remember what that feels like. So, especially, I primarily work with VA buyers, and secondarily, I work with a lot of investors.
Jacqui Luberto:So they're buying short term rentals for investments. Those are almost always going to be sight unseen. So I have to be their eyes and their ears and their nose when helping them make good decisions. And I think that my nomadic background really helps me put myself in their shoes. What would I want if I was moving to the middle of Nowheresville, Idaho tomorrow?
Jacqui Luberto:What am I looking for in a person to give me some realistic perspective? With my agents, you know, I say, I guess I just, again, see myself in them, what I my first three and a half years were like and what I wish I had had differently or better or, you know, keeping some of the things that I loved, keeping those the same and just trying to be responsive to their needs. I do try to ask a lot for feedback and what am I missing because I only know what I know. I haven't done this before. It's my first time too.
Jacqui Luberto:So I try to be very open to those conversations.
Dave Charest:You mentioned, the importance of being different, standing out. What are some of the things that you do or what you believe make your brokerage stand out?
Jacqui Luberto:We do a lot of social events that are publicly promoted, and and, yeah, I promote them. I let everybody know, and everybody's welcome. One of the things that we do is an event called First Friday. It's first Friday of every month. We meet at a local drinking establishment that also serves food.
Jacqui Luberto:So it's a restaurant, and it's it's twofold. Number one, it's, really important for us to spend time together socially. Real estate can be hard. Insurance is hard. Any business that you're in in 2024 is hard.
Jacqui Luberto:The economy just is a little bit different, and so we're all navigating new waters together. But I feel like we can navigate them better, sometimes over a cold drink on a Friday afternoon. And when we build a better relationship socially, it's easier to come together when there's a difficult transaction. And when my husband was active duty, one of his base commanders started first Friday, and I always loved it. The active duty guys and gals, that was a non gender specific statement, the active duty individuals have no problem getting together for a drink on Friday afternoon.
Jacqui Luberto:But it's not often that the GS, the, civilian world would get invited, and often the enlisted and the officer are two different groups that would that would hang out together. So Colonel Minahan, I believe he just retired a four star. He started an all hands first Friday, and it was everybody is welcome. And it was everybody together. And I just loved that concept.
Jacqui Luberto:I loved that idea. So it was one of the very first things that we instituted at Realty ONE Group when I opened was just that every Friday every first Friday, no matter what, we're getting together somewhere somehow.
Dave Charest:When you think about actually getting stuff done when it comes to marketing, how do you find the time to do that?
Jacqui Luberto:You know, I think it comes naturally to me, and I know that's not a great answer for people who are like, Tell me more. I'm listening to this later. But I think if you do it long enough, you really start to understand that everything that you say and everything that you do, every Facebook post, whether it's personal or not, is marketing. Everything that you're putting out there is you telling a story without telling the story. One of the things that I give my new agents is always stay positive on social media.
Jacqui Luberto:And it's really important because people are judging you and they're making decisions about you. Doesn't mean you can't have an opinion. It's just maybe is that opinion necessarily in the right place there? You have to be very sure that people are making choices about you and assumptions about you based on every little piece of that puzzle. So when you begin to do it second nature, it's not something that you have to work as hard on.
Jacqui Luberto:It's just part of everything that we do.
Dave Charest:So walk me through. Can you to can you talk me a little bit through kind of your like, the things you are doing to market the business?
Jacqui Luberto:Yeah. So number one, we do pretty much all the social media channels. We have not done TikTok yet. I know. My agents are on me all the time.
Jacqui Luberto:I will get it done. It'll happen. But everything else is on the table. We have, Facebook and LinkedIn. We have, Instagram.
Jacqui Luberto:We have YouTube, and we're constantly kind of adding to that flavor. So we're we're really good at posts. We're not really good at short form video. So that's a constant conversation in the office of, if we could record the short form video, we could use it across three or four different platforms so we can reuse that material. It's not the time to create it.
Jacqui Luberto:It's the to me, I always get caught up and get in my head about the messaging. Again, am I gonna say the wrong thing? I hate cancel culture, man. I hate it. So we have to be very careful that we're always on brand and we're always putting out the right feeling and the right message to everyone.
Dave Charest:Gotcha. Well, you know, I guess to to add to this, so you're doing social media. I mean, what what else are you doing? You're obviously doing more than that.
Jacqui Luberto:Oh, yeah. We're doing, emails. We use all of all of our companies cross pollinate to all of the other companies. So for example, real estate agents are going to be some of the best customers for my insurance company because they're helping new buyers with their property, or they're talking with someone they sold a property two years ago who needs to be requoted and add blood insurance. My agents at Realty ONE Group use Constant Contact to email to other agents in our market across different MLS platforms of listings that they have so they can get additional eyes on those.
Jacqui Luberto:The short term rental company has twofold, right, or three. We want agents to recommend us to new owners. We want them to be our guests in the unit, and then we want the agents across the board to be referring to us. So, again, we try to take each company and parcel it out. How can it benefit from the other company?
Jacqui Luberto:And then we do cross marketing amongst all of them.
Dave Charest:Tell me a little bit about, like, what does that, I guess, that process look like for you then? Are you, you know, are you whiteboarding this with people, like, and and seeing, like, okay, where and when? I'm I'm picturing, you know, those, the detectives trying to figure out the solve of the murder a little bit. I'm I'm picturing this in my mind. I'm sure it's not that intense, but maybe it is.
Dave Charest:So what does that look like to you?
Jacqui Luberto:So, really, what it looks like for us is very independent.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:Right? So we we know what all of the companies can do and can offer. So we keep our email lists up to date but segmented.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:So we know that Gulf Coast Beachfronts, their best day for short term rentals is gonna be Wednesday. We don't wanna wait till the weekend. So Wednesday is when we send out, don't forget to book or remember us for your new owners. So Wednesday is the day that we take care of them. Monday is the day that the insurance company is probably gonna have most of their work because people have looked at their mail over the weekend, and they are like, Monday morning, what's my to do list?
Jacqui Luberto:Who do I need to call? So our email work goes out on Monday for them. We also use the texting aspect of Constant Contact to email all of our internal agents, the 165@Realty1Group, to let them know about upcoming trainings for the week so they can prepare their schedule and know where they need to be all week long. Yes. It's a whiteboard with pens.
Dave Charest:So, actually, before I go there, so timing obviously is very important. I love how you know particular days. And so are you is there a is there a master calendar that has all of these kind of important moments and times to be able to do these things? Like, how do you organize that?
Jacqui Luberto:Google Calendar?
Dave Charest:Google Calendar. Yeah. Good.
Jacqui Luberto:Yep. We just set those reminders as all day events on the day they need to go out. Because time for us, time is not as important as the day.
Dave Charest:It just
Jacqui Luberto:needs to go out sometime this day. I would rather send the message at 11PM and have it completely correct than send it at eight and have to do a revision and a correction later. So
Dave Charest:Right. Right. Right. So what brought you to Constant Contact?
Jacqui Luberto:We looked at a lot of different platforms, and it was brand name first. Right? You're that well known. You must be doing something right. Let me see what that is.
Jacqui Luberto:As compared to other similar companies, we found you had more capabilities within the platform to make them specific. So I didn't need five separate accounts. I need one account that can do all of the things and can help shift from Monday to Wednesday really quickly. And Constant Contact did all of that on paper. But I'll tell you what really got me was my salesman.
Jacqui Luberto:I don't remember his name, but I called in, and he was just so amazing. I think I've talked to him for over an hour, and he's been the support has been so proactive and responsive. And for me, that's that's what gets me. Answer my call, be proactive, help me figure out, troubleshoot when there is a small issue here and there. But I have I have not had any regrets.
Jacqui Luberto:It's been able to keep up with our growth over the four years and adjust. We've we've gone up a few times in what you guys can offer, like, okay. That's a little more than what we could do at this level. Alright. Add it.
Jacqui Luberto:Because I know what my reach can be.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm happy to hear that. That's amazing. What would you say would be the notable results that you're seeing as a result of using Constant Contact then?
Jacqui Luberto:One of the things that I really love is our ability to see after a campaign how well it did and and to track and change. And that's why I was saying earlier, like, knowing the day of the week based on the company type, that comes from real data that you guys help us with. So we just have to stay engaged on that backside and pay attention to those and make adjustments when needed. We are always looking at that, how did last week do as we're designing this week. Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:Two weeks ago was much better. What did we do different? I see. I like that. We had emojis in the subject line or whatever the case may be.
Jacqui Luberto:Sometimes they're very small changes, but they have a huge impact in the number of opens and click throughs, which is what we all need.
Dave Charest:You know, you mentioned certain days of the week, of course. Are you sending on a weekly basis? Are you sending on a monthly basis? Or does it vary depending on what you have going on? Talk me through how you think about frequency.
Jacqui Luberto:Yeah. So insurance is once a week. Long term rentals, we have not integrated an email product for them yet.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:Short term is once a week, but it changes who it's going to and what the message is. So let's say, I think it's every other week, we're saying, hey, book now on our short term rentals. Here's a great property. Every other week, we're talking to agents so that they can help when they're talking to their buyers and sellers about what we offer and why we're a superior company. With Realty ONE Group, we send recruiting emails once a week, and those come via corporate asset through HTML, and we just paste those in.
Jacqui Luberto:And then for our current agents, we only use the text and that's every Monday. And, again, that's just so they can plan for the week with the training.
Dave Charest:Talk me through a little bit about the SMS portion of that. You know, you mentioned to your agents. I guess, how is that helping you, and how are you using that specifically?
Jacqui Luberto:So we do a lot of different training, and all of the we are a member of four different MLSs. So four different associations, I should say. And each association has training that's available to the agents that join that association. And then we have corporate who offers training. And the one thing I can tell you about real estate is you're gonna need more training.
Jacqui Luberto:You're gonna need more. It's gonna change all the time. So it's really important that agents at every stage in their career, because some have only been in real estate for thirty days, some have been in real estate for thirty years. I can never assume that an agent saw an email from corporate or saw an email from an association. It's my job as their broker to make sure that they have every opportunity for education, growth, and advancement.
Jacqui Luberto:So putting it into their cell phone by 9AM on Monday morning is the best way I have found to do that. I will after sending that text, we also put it in our private Facebook group, and then we also put it on our Google site. Other than that, I don't know. Other than taking the class form, there's not much other ways I could put that information out there. We didn't start the texts until about maybe two years ago
Dave Charest:Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:Because we still found that agents still weren't getting it. They're busy.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:They're running. And we got a lot of moms and dads and, you know, most for most people, real estate is not a first career. So people have a lot of other competing interests and their phones are busy. So putting it just delivering it right to their cell phone was hugely helpful. We immediately saw a spike in attendance to our in person and online meetings.
Dave Charest:Love that. Love to see that because that's I mean, that's the promise there, right, of of the SMS is that you're you're getting that message on your phone. You're looking at it right away or at least you're it almost forces you to pay attention to it in a way that you know, not that again, I I never think it's about using one channel over the other necessarily, but it's a you can glance over an email and not have to open it necessarily at that moment, but you're kind of, oh, okay. I'm gonna read this and consume that portion of it. So I love that you're doing that that way.
Dave Charest:What are some of the things that you do to grow that email list that you have?
Jacqui Luberto:So that is an area that we have identified we have not been strong. So with the associations, we can gather that pretty easily.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Jacqui Luberto:So the current active agents in our different markets, we can just grab that data. Our short term rental sales, we have our prior guests and we have our owners, but we don't have our interested guests. Prospective guests. People who come to the website and then abandon cart. Right?
Dave Charest:They're Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:They were there for a reason, but they didn't check out. So we are actively working on some campaigns to get them to sign up at first visit Mhmm. To add them to that list and continue to grow the book now guest list
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Jacqui Luberto:And and ways to just, retarget them on the backside as needed. We wanna follow them around.
Dave Charest:Is there anything that you're doing to like, what is the enticement? What's the enticement to get them to give you the email address? Is there something that you're working on there to offer them?
Jacqui Luberto:Yeah. So we have a new website that we're designing for that company, and it will have a discount code that gets emailed to them.
Dave Charest:Got it. Got it. I I I love to hear you say that, and I I love how that you're putting the priority on getting that email list because I'm often talking to business owners and saying, okay. Well, what happens when someone comes to your website or they come to your your store and then they leave? Right?
Dave Charest:You're just waiting for them to come of their own fruition again or do something. But if you have that way to contact them, you have the ability to influence whether or not they're going to come back to you and you're able to communicate with them. So I love that you're doing that. What do you like most about Constant Contact?
Jacqui Luberto:Versatility. That I don't have to change as my business grows. That you grow with me. You have the you've already thought of everything I haven't yet. You have those pieces that I still haven't utilized everything that it can do.
Jacqui Luberto:And it's it's just so well worth it to me to use it with all of my companies and how they work together. But again, I still know there's so much more that we can do. And as we grow, we'll continue to use more of those resources within the program.
Dave Charest:What would it be like trying to run your business without Constant Contact?
Jacqui Luberto:We would not be where we are. We wouldn't have the ability to reach the same number of people. We wouldn't have, as many people calling us. We would be outbound calling, and it it was just not effective. It is a time consuming process to make outbound calls.
Jacqui Luberto:You want to spur inbound calls.
Dave Charest:What would you recommend to another person hanging their shingle, getting started, doing their own thing? What would be your number one tip for them if they were getting started with Constant Contact?
Jacqui Luberto:Look on the platform first and learn all of the things that it can do, but then get on a call with someone. Let them show you how it works. It was so eye opening for me. I thought it's an email platform. Oh, it's so much more than that.
Jacqui Luberto:It's so much more than that. It really helps every piece work together. And, again, I know I haven't even gotten to all of the things that I need to be using, but I know they're there. And I know I can call the sales team and you guys are support team, and you guys will help me figure it out.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, put yourself in your customer's shoes. Coming from a military family yourself, Jackie knows what it's like to have to make a purchase that is sight unseen. She knows she has to be the ears and eyes for her customers. So she does whatever she can to make it a pleasant process for them while asking for feedback along the way.
Dave Charest:When you have empathy and better understand the needs of your clients, not only can you serve them better, but that level of service can also make you stand out from the competition. So how well do you know the needs of your customers? Number two, steal great ideas from everywhere. Jackie mentioned one of the other things that makes her business stand out is that she holds an event that's open to everyone on the first Friday of every month. She got the idea from one of her husband's base commanders when he was on active duty.
Dave Charest:She instituted the idea at her business, and it's a popular event within her community. If you've seen something that's worked well, think about how you can adopt and adapt it for your business. There are great ideas everywhere if you are open to seeing them. Number three. Remember, people are watching you.
Dave Charest:Jackie reminds us that everything we share, particularly on social media, is telling a story. And whether we like it or not, that also means people are judging and making decisions about you and your business. Jackie instructs her agents to stay positive on social media. It doesn't mean you can't have an opinion. It just means you have to gauge whether or not social media is the right place to share it.
Dave Charest:So here's an action item for you today. Find the timing that works for you. You know, Jackie mentioned that she has different send times for emails and texts based on the needs of the audience receiving them. If you take a look at your reports, you can also figure out what makes sense for your business and the segment that you're sending to. I'm going to include some resources for you in the show notes.
Dave Charest:I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.