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Real estate agents are plagued with so many options of where to spend their time and money. Is YouTube advertising a good one or not? In today's episode, we delve deep into that topic to find out with 'Digital Mayor' Jackson Wilkey.
Show Notes
Welcome to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm excited to be broadcasting this week from Kona, Hawaii. That's how committed I am to this audience and really, this passion project for me of delivering value to real estate agents. So, I apologize for any poor a bandwidth issues out here from this rock in the middle of the sea. The topic I want to talk about is this: YouTube advertising, number one, "Why would you do it?" And number two, "How hard is it?" So, I have with me today, Jackson Wilkey with NextHome Realty Group. Jackson is a great real estate agent and really forward thinking when it comes to the digital space. He and Jesse Dau, if you're in the Portland area, you've probably seen them for sure. They've developed a FB group called Digital Mayor Now, which I'm going to really encourage you to go check out. I'm learning things from it every day. They're fantastic guys. And so today, Jackson, thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, man.
Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here.
So let's talk about this YouTube. And I'm gonna come at you a little bit. I want you to defend this because, I'm a guy that does business by referral. I'm very relational and, you're telling me that I should take some of the money that I may be spending on my sphere, or maybe not, maybe you're saying you should come up with new money to advertise on Youtube. So first of all, let's talk about why would somebody do this? What is the point of advertising on Youtube?
Well, YouTube is obviously owned by Google now, as everybody knows. And if you don't, Google owns YouTube. So whenever you're searching anything on Google, they're really trying to push videos upfront, which I actually saw the other day, they were actually putting some Facebook videos up there too. It's crazy, but interesting. I think living in the youtube space that video never goes anywhere. It's there forever. And if you can start really pinpointing with SEO and keyword optimization, things people are searching, your stuff is going to really start rising to the top. Because competing with blogs these days is impossible. There's billions of blogs. So, you know, having that video available is going to help bring you to the first page. And Google and YouTube are super cheap right now. I mean it's super, super cheap because I think it's a really tough thing to learn, but once once you get it, um, and, and in our group, I teach exactly how to do it. You can really start getting in front of a lot of people.
Okay. So let's, let's go back to this. Let's say that I'm a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon or Sacramento, California or Los Angeles. And let's say again that I, I want to do business by referral. Does that still make sense or does this really just work for someone who is buying leads and is doing business more via cold market prospecting?
It's funny because you're going to get a guy who cold calls and feels that's the only way you should do business. And you get a guy who, you know, door knock. So, I'm a video guy. I'm doing videos every day. To me I feel it's so important. We are competing not against other real estate agents in this community. We're we're competing against these huge names, the Redfins, the Opendoors. I mean they're not going away. And I see that as my, my competitor, not these local real estate agents. So I've got to get out there ahead of everybody else. And there's 5 billion videos being watched on Google or on YouTube a day. And so people are living in that space and Google is ranking those videos. I feel if you're not in those spaces, you could get washed away because even your closest friends are starting to see these, Redfin's every day and the Opendoors. My whole premise behind it is just I get out to the masses like really quick, really cheap and I'm getting better at the call to action for these people to start clicking on these ads.
Okay. So I get your point of what you said. Yes. Redfin, Opendoor these companies are starting to infiltrate even our databases. That makes sense to me. Let's say that I've got $30 and I've got someone who's given me 10 referrals over the past three years. Does it make sense to take that $30 that I could go buy a book that is very centered towards what that person cares about and they've given me referrals and instead put it in YouTube to just get in front of a bunch of strangers?! Defend that a little bit.
Okay. And I should have answered that at the start. Here's the thing. I don't know how many people really delve into doing videos. What I would say to that is take that $30 and brand yourself, like you build your brand, take your phone and do a very personal video to that person. I'm starting, I've done that to you know, open house clients or past clients and you will not believe the response you get. It's better than going and giving them a book. They can't believe that you actually shot them a video. It's a very emotional thing that you've done for them. So I would say them a really personal video or say, "I'm sending you this $5 gift card to your favorite spot to go get coffee. But I just wanted to tell you how important you are to me." And then take the other $25 and put into branding. Because again, what's interesting is we're living in a space where branding is going to be huge. I'm sure everybody listening here has listened to Gary V, but we're in that space where your personal brand means so much and keeping those sphere client's happy can be as simple as sending them a very simple thank you video. People love them.
So, what you're telling me is if I had $30, spend $5 on the past client and couple that with a free video that I can send them. Then take the other $25 and put it into branding.
I mean, look, you're going to get people who do bat an eye at that. That's fine because we all have different beliefs. And I think if you're already this ginormous influencer in this town who has worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, I haven't yet. Yeah, those personal relationships, the Buffini model really works for them. I'm just saying, and I'm an up and comer. I'm coming up. So I've got to get out to the absolute masses. And then I take care of the clients, personally by doing really heartfelt videos and they eat them up. They love them.
So one thing that I want to say that's going to support what you're saying, because part of me disagrees. So I'll, be frank. I think there's people around you who if you delve deeper into those relationships, the ROI on that would be far better than just having views. However, in defense of your stance here, we're entering into an entire new realm of buying, of how people choose who they're buying from and working with. And one thing that I heard you say is that YouTube videos are going to last forever, right? And obviously the more you do, the better you do them. You start to become, for lack of a better term, a 'Digital Mayor,' and you're not just betting on today's business, you're building this catalog of business for the future. Right? If things are trending that way, they're not going to go backwards. People are not going to stop looking at video in order to choose providers. That's only going to increase, is my belief. And so what I hear you saying is that now while YouTube is cheap, it's actually a really good time for you to get in and build this audience. Then, you'll be able to monetize in the future. Is that, is that what I hear you say?
Yeah, totally. Totally. And I'll, I'll take it back a second too, because I'm not like totally saying go away from your, your sphere. Like, absolutely not. You know, advertising. It just makes sense to build your personal brand because you wouldn't believe how many of your sphere watches what you do and is interested in what you do. And you can take a little bit of ad spend and get in front of your entire sphere in one day with a really cool video. So, I'm not just strictly YouTube. I'm diving into it because it's so cheap right now. And quite frankly you don't really see any Google pre-roll ads with real estate agents. You see all these website designers and stuff. But I'm also diving super, super deep into my community and shooting incredible videos of all the most popular spots.
That in turn has led to me shooting a video, which I just posted last night and it went like mini community viral. It's getting shared by every teacher. I went and filmed the fifth grade class of Scholls Heights Elementary as they released a bunch of trout into a lake. They reached out to me and said, "We absolutely love what you're doing in this community. We love your highlights. We would love for you to come and film us. We've done it for years and we've never had anybody film us." And I filmed it, put it out last night and so I'm hitting that entire sphere. Plus all of their friends they're all sharing it. They're all putting it into these groups. So I'm going heavy into video. I'm also doing the Youtube ads, but I'm staying close with my sphere too, I just do it in a different way than taking one person out. I'll just give them a ton of value via video.
You found that there's a way to add value that's different than handing somebody a book, like in the example that I shared that you can actually go highlight their business, highlight their cause, highlight what matters to them, document it via video and add significant value.
Yeah, there's so many ways to do this and in your sphere is super, super important and those people have supported you. I'm not saying don't meet up with them. I'm not. But if we wanted to have this talk about, Google pre roll ads, the space is wide open and it is almost free. I mean it's like 3 cents per view and these people have to watch 30 seconds of your video for YouTube to even charge you. So if someone watches 25 seconds of my video, all my branding is uploaded up front, that was a free video. So it takes 20-30 or even 40,000 impressions to get you're a 200 hundred views. So the money is really well concentrated. And you can also get into your Google Adwords account and see exactly who's watching it. And then you start really funneling your money to hitting the exact people watching your videos.
Here's the part that as I watched your video, and I'm gonna encourage everybody to go find it. In fact, for those that are watching right now, go find the Facebook group, Digital Mayor Now. And just over the weekend probably or maybe Friday, that you posted a video on how to do YouTube preroll ad videos. So for those that don't know what that is, when you go to YouTube and there's this five second video that you have to watch, Jackson talks about how you do that. I thought it was pretty interesting because as you opened up behind the scenes, you show just how targeted you can get, you can go find what people are moving to your zip code. And you can find that info online by searching moving patterns. You can see where people are moving from. Then you could go to that particular zip code, let's say it's in Colorado, and you could target just the people in that zip code.
So again, at the beginning of this video I was saying you're putting this out to a bunch of strangers, just to the masses that you don't know. It's actually a very targeted group that you can get in front of us. Again, keep in mind, I'm a very relationship based guy, but I do believe in the future. I do believe that things are changing and I do believe that you ought to have two strategies. One is love on and care for in a really big way the people that are giving you business now that should never stop. You should always do that. That will always matter. How you go about doing that, may be your own personality. For Jackson, it's pouring into them with very valuable videos. I also think that there's this space that if you're going to be relevant in the future, you've got at least be familiar with.
And I'm the most relationship person you'll find. I mean, I have, incredible amounts of friends and family that are usually over at the house and I am relationship first. I am just a fun guy to be around. But what you said I'm really preparing for the future by leveraging video and then it gets in front of your whole sphere and guess who shares that for you? Your sphere. So it's just a quick way to... and we were talking on YouTube and now we're just talking video... but I see the power in these videos that you can do about your community and the impact it has on some people. It's just a really great way to stay in front of your sphere because it's hard to stay in front of the entire sphere. But we're the number two relocated city in the U.S. So there's a lot of people looking to live here and if you can hit those pain points or answer their questions, they're going to Google and they're going to YouTube. And once they watch your video, they feel like they know you, you trust you, they're going to be calling. So it's crazy to watch. You know, you can target the United States and Canada and then after a week you'll see the exact cities of who is watching your videos, crunched all the way down to the exact people, the exact age, whether males, females, whoever, and then your money is really well spent on that.
I'm going to put up here on the screen for those of you that haven't found this group yet. If you go to Facebook search Digital Mayor Now, you'll see Jackson and Jesse Dau. You'll see these two just pouring content daily into people. If you feel like this is a part of your overall real estate business that you're wanting to expand and you feel like you're going to be in business five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, I don't think you can overdo the attention that you give to this, as long as you don't give up the fundamentals that have gotten you to where you're at. I do think you need to start making some wise investments in showing up in the future--Showing up in front of how people are shopping now and these are great guys as well to learn from. I highly recommend them. So Jackson I want to thank you for your time.Good stuff. Go everybody, find the video that Jackson did on Youtube preroll ads. I think you'd be surprised at how easy it is. It demystified it for me. And it was enlightening to see just how inexpensive it is. So anyway, thanks for your time and I really appreciate it.
Yeah, not a problem. And that group also is not just, you know the extreme out there, it's also your basics from learning how to distribute quick videos on your cell phone and edit them right there that you can do it in a short amount of time, quick edits on I movie. I also go deep into social media targeting, retargeting your area. And then we do live calls every week. It doesn't matter what your question is, we will help you do it, to learn whatever pain point or whatever you want to start learning, whether it's YouTube or Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram. We're teaching it all. So, a really cool spot.
Great stuff, man--tons of value. I really appreciate you sharing this with my community today. So go find these guys and have a great day everybody. Thanks Jackson, I appreciate it.
Yeah, man--have a great day. Go, go have some fun!
Okay.
Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here.
So let's talk about this YouTube. And I'm gonna come at you a little bit. I want you to defend this because, I'm a guy that does business by referral. I'm very relational and, you're telling me that I should take some of the money that I may be spending on my sphere, or maybe not, maybe you're saying you should come up with new money to advertise on Youtube. So first of all, let's talk about why would somebody do this? What is the point of advertising on Youtube?
Well, YouTube is obviously owned by Google now, as everybody knows. And if you don't, Google owns YouTube. So whenever you're searching anything on Google, they're really trying to push videos upfront, which I actually saw the other day, they were actually putting some Facebook videos up there too. It's crazy, but interesting. I think living in the youtube space that video never goes anywhere. It's there forever. And if you can start really pinpointing with SEO and keyword optimization, things people are searching, your stuff is going to really start rising to the top. Because competing with blogs these days is impossible. There's billions of blogs. So, you know, having that video available is going to help bring you to the first page. And Google and YouTube are super cheap right now. I mean it's super, super cheap because I think it's a really tough thing to learn, but once once you get it, um, and, and in our group, I teach exactly how to do it. You can really start getting in front of a lot of people.
Okay. So let's, let's go back to this. Let's say that I'm a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon or Sacramento, California or Los Angeles. And let's say again that I, I want to do business by referral. Does that still make sense or does this really just work for someone who is buying leads and is doing business more via cold market prospecting?
It's funny because you're going to get a guy who cold calls and feels that's the only way you should do business. And you get a guy who, you know, door knock. So, I'm a video guy. I'm doing videos every day. To me I feel it's so important. We are competing not against other real estate agents in this community. We're we're competing against these huge names, the Redfins, the Opendoors. I mean they're not going away. And I see that as my, my competitor, not these local real estate agents. So I've got to get out there ahead of everybody else. And there's 5 billion videos being watched on Google or on YouTube a day. And so people are living in that space and Google is ranking those videos. I feel if you're not in those spaces, you could get washed away because even your closest friends are starting to see these, Redfin's every day and the Opendoors. My whole premise behind it is just I get out to the masses like really quick, really cheap and I'm getting better at the call to action for these people to start clicking on these ads.
Okay. So I get your point of what you said. Yes. Redfin, Opendoor these companies are starting to infiltrate even our databases. That makes sense to me. Let's say that I've got $30 and I've got someone who's given me 10 referrals over the past three years. Does it make sense to take that $30 that I could go buy a book that is very centered towards what that person cares about and they've given me referrals and instead put it in YouTube to just get in front of a bunch of strangers?! Defend that a little bit.
Okay. And I should have answered that at the start. Here's the thing. I don't know how many people really delve into doing videos. What I would say to that is take that $30 and brand yourself, like you build your brand, take your phone and do a very personal video to that person. I'm starting, I've done that to you know, open house clients or past clients and you will not believe the response you get. It's better than going and giving them a book. They can't believe that you actually shot them a video. It's a very emotional thing that you've done for them. So I would say them a really personal video or say, "I'm sending you this $5 gift card to your favorite spot to go get coffee. But I just wanted to tell you how important you are to me." And then take the other $25 and put into branding. Because again, what's interesting is we're living in a space where branding is going to be huge. I'm sure everybody listening here has listened to Gary V, but we're in that space where your personal brand means so much and keeping those sphere client's happy can be as simple as sending them a very simple thank you video. People love them.
So, what you're telling me is if I had $30, spend $5 on the past client and couple that with a free video that I can send them. Then take the other $25 and put it into branding.
I mean, look, you're going to get people who do bat an eye at that. That's fine because we all have different beliefs. And I think if you're already this ginormous influencer in this town who has worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, I haven't yet. Yeah, those personal relationships, the Buffini model really works for them. I'm just saying, and I'm an up and comer. I'm coming up. So I've got to get out to the absolute masses. And then I take care of the clients, personally by doing really heartfelt videos and they eat them up. They love them.
So one thing that I want to say that's going to support what you're saying, because part of me disagrees. So I'll, be frank. I think there's people around you who if you delve deeper into those relationships, the ROI on that would be far better than just having views. However, in defense of your stance here, we're entering into an entire new realm of buying, of how people choose who they're buying from and working with. And one thing that I heard you say is that YouTube videos are going to last forever, right? And obviously the more you do, the better you do them. You start to become, for lack of a better term, a 'Digital Mayor,' and you're not just betting on today's business, you're building this catalog of business for the future. Right? If things are trending that way, they're not going to go backwards. People are not going to stop looking at video in order to choose providers. That's only going to increase, is my belief. And so what I hear you saying is that now while YouTube is cheap, it's actually a really good time for you to get in and build this audience. Then, you'll be able to monetize in the future. Is that, is that what I hear you say?
Yeah, totally. Totally. And I'll, I'll take it back a second too, because I'm not like totally saying go away from your, your sphere. Like, absolutely not. You know, advertising. It just makes sense to build your personal brand because you wouldn't believe how many of your sphere watches what you do and is interested in what you do. And you can take a little bit of ad spend and get in front of your entire sphere in one day with a really cool video. So, I'm not just strictly YouTube. I'm diving into it because it's so cheap right now. And quite frankly you don't really see any Google pre-roll ads with real estate agents. You see all these website designers and stuff. But I'm also diving super, super deep into my community and shooting incredible videos of all the most popular spots.
That in turn has led to me shooting a video, which I just posted last night and it went like mini community viral. It's getting shared by every teacher. I went and filmed the fifth grade class of Scholls Heights Elementary as they released a bunch of trout into a lake. They reached out to me and said, "We absolutely love what you're doing in this community. We love your highlights. We would love for you to come and film us. We've done it for years and we've never had anybody film us." And I filmed it, put it out last night and so I'm hitting that entire sphere. Plus all of their friends they're all sharing it. They're all putting it into these groups. So I'm going heavy into video. I'm also doing the Youtube ads, but I'm staying close with my sphere too, I just do it in a different way than taking one person out. I'll just give them a ton of value via video.
You found that there's a way to add value that's different than handing somebody a book, like in the example that I shared that you can actually go highlight their business, highlight their cause, highlight what matters to them, document it via video and add significant value.
Yeah, there's so many ways to do this and in your sphere is super, super important and those people have supported you. I'm not saying don't meet up with them. I'm not. But if we wanted to have this talk about, Google pre roll ads, the space is wide open and it is almost free. I mean it's like 3 cents per view and these people have to watch 30 seconds of your video for YouTube to even charge you. So if someone watches 25 seconds of my video, all my branding is uploaded up front, that was a free video. So it takes 20-30 or even 40,000 impressions to get you're a 200 hundred views. So the money is really well concentrated. And you can also get into your Google Adwords account and see exactly who's watching it. And then you start really funneling your money to hitting the exact people watching your videos.
Here's the part that as I watched your video, and I'm gonna encourage everybody to go find it. In fact, for those that are watching right now, go find the Facebook group, Digital Mayor Now. And just over the weekend probably or maybe Friday, that you posted a video on how to do YouTube preroll ad videos. So for those that don't know what that is, when you go to YouTube and there's this five second video that you have to watch, Jackson talks about how you do that. I thought it was pretty interesting because as you opened up behind the scenes, you show just how targeted you can get, you can go find what people are moving to your zip code. And you can find that info online by searching moving patterns. You can see where people are moving from. Then you could go to that particular zip code, let's say it's in Colorado, and you could target just the people in that zip code.
So again, at the beginning of this video I was saying you're putting this out to a bunch of strangers, just to the masses that you don't know. It's actually a very targeted group that you can get in front of us. Again, keep in mind, I'm a very relationship based guy, but I do believe in the future. I do believe that things are changing and I do believe that you ought to have two strategies. One is love on and care for in a really big way the people that are giving you business now that should never stop. You should always do that. That will always matter. How you go about doing that, may be your own personality. For Jackson, it's pouring into them with very valuable videos. I also think that there's this space that if you're going to be relevant in the future, you've got at least be familiar with.
And I'm the most relationship person you'll find. I mean, I have, incredible amounts of friends and family that are usually over at the house and I am relationship first. I am just a fun guy to be around. But what you said I'm really preparing for the future by leveraging video and then it gets in front of your whole sphere and guess who shares that for you? Your sphere. So it's just a quick way to... and we were talking on YouTube and now we're just talking video... but I see the power in these videos that you can do about your community and the impact it has on some people. It's just a really great way to stay in front of your sphere because it's hard to stay in front of the entire sphere. But we're the number two relocated city in the U.S. So there's a lot of people looking to live here and if you can hit those pain points or answer their questions, they're going to Google and they're going to YouTube. And once they watch your video, they feel like they know you, you trust you, they're going to be calling. So it's crazy to watch. You know, you can target the United States and Canada and then after a week you'll see the exact cities of who is watching your videos, crunched all the way down to the exact people, the exact age, whether males, females, whoever, and then your money is really well spent on that.
I'm going to put up here on the screen for those of you that haven't found this group yet. If you go to Facebook search Digital Mayor Now, you'll see Jackson and Jesse Dau. You'll see these two just pouring content daily into people. If you feel like this is a part of your overall real estate business that you're wanting to expand and you feel like you're going to be in business five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, I don't think you can overdo the attention that you give to this, as long as you don't give up the fundamentals that have gotten you to where you're at. I do think you need to start making some wise investments in showing up in the future--Showing up in front of how people are shopping now and these are great guys as well to learn from. I highly recommend them. So Jackson I want to thank you for your time.Good stuff. Go everybody, find the video that Jackson did on Youtube preroll ads. I think you'd be surprised at how easy it is. It demystified it for me. And it was enlightening to see just how inexpensive it is. So anyway, thanks for your time and I really appreciate it.
Yeah, not a problem. And that group also is not just, you know the extreme out there, it's also your basics from learning how to distribute quick videos on your cell phone and edit them right there that you can do it in a short amount of time, quick edits on I movie. I also go deep into social media targeting, retargeting your area. And then we do live calls every week. It doesn't matter what your question is, we will help you do it, to learn whatever pain point or whatever you want to start learning, whether it's YouTube or Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram. We're teaching it all. So, a really cool spot.
Great stuff, man--tons of value. I really appreciate you sharing this with my community today. So go find these guys and have a great day everybody. Thanks Jackson, I appreciate it.
Yeah, man--have a great day. Go, go have some fun!
Okay.
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Host
Justin Stoddart
What is Think Bigger Real Estate?
The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.