How a stale email list produced $250k in bottom-line revenue for Done For You Real Estate USA in less than two months using a Content Funnel™.
The Challenge
For the last 14 years, Steve and Kevin, from Done For You Real Estate USA, have been helping people get into real estate investing, without them having to become real estate investors.
Sounds a bit crazy, right? That’s because they solve many of the difficult, time-consuming, or tricky parts in this process such as finding the deals, negotiating the deals, and managing the financing. They let their clients just focus on the fun stuff – getting the rent check each month.
You may be wondering how a company with such amazing statistics and background would have a challenge.
Like most business owners, Steve and Kevin were very busy running the business, and while things were going great, both owners had the feeling there were still other things they could do to grow.
They started thinking that creating content to try to reach their audience in a deeper way would be the best way to go.
They had an email list of 3,000 people interested in SFR investing that they accumulated over the past 10 years and they had some other ideas on things they could do. However, the truth was that:
- They were not engaging with that audience outside of sending them some new deals or general updates, so the value perceived by their audience was very low.
- Their audience didn’t know the people behind the company, thus the trust factor was lower than it needed to be for such a high-ticket transaction.
- Both Steven and Kevin felt they didn’t have time to create effective content that would engage their audience and nurture them deeper into the sales funnel.
- Steve felt his personality wasn’t a good fit for a podcast, so he was very reluctant and had the idea that people wouldn’t want to listen to their content.
The Solution
Launch a podcast!
We helped them create an evergreen content funnel that scaled their ability to develop recognition, likeability, and trust with their existing audience and reach new people.
The objectives were:
- Get existing audience members to do their first transaction with DFY Real Estate.
- Get existing customers to do additional business.
- Create awareness (top of the funnel) with a cold audience that is interested in real estate to keep their pipeline full and flowing.
Create an omnipresence that is nurturing their audience
It was more simple for them than it sounds!
- We created all the content in-house: podcast, blog, email, graphics.
- All they did was show up and record (about 30 minutes for each episosde) and we did the rest (editing, writing, scheduling, social media, etc)
Additional highlights
- From concept to launch, it was 6 weeks. We came up with the name, branding, the concept for the first episodes, launch strategy, etc.
- We coached them through setting up their recording area and how to use the equipment so that they looked and sounded like professional content creators.
The Results
Within 2 months they were able to directly attribute $250,000 in bottom-line revenue to the podcast.
Within 2 months they were able to directly attribute $250,000 in bottom-line revenue to the podcast.
How? Well, there were 3 big drivers:
- An email subscriber, who had been on their list for years and never done business with them, read one of our emails then went and listened to the launch episodes of the podcast. This elevated her trust factor of both of the owners and she reached out about doing business with them. But it wasn’t just one small transaction – she wanted to buy 11 properties.
- In another scenario, a young entrepreneur who had recently sold his software company heard the podcast and began the process of doing his first deal with them, and has the intention to do several more.
- It has created a better relationship with their leads and customers. Previously, their touchpoint with their audience was very sales-focused. With this strategy, we’ve pivoted to a value-first approach. This creates a much stronger bond and amplifies the trust factor.
It’s important to note, that:
- They did this with less than 5,000 total downloads on the podcast (they have much more than this now).
- It was all organic traction. $0 was spent on paid advertisements of any kind.
- That’s roughly $50 per download – talk about ROI!
And the impact went beyond that:
- It has helped them with their systems. They were able to update all their customer service replies (default template replies for common questions) to include a reference to the podcast for greater value. Meaning, they would have a short 2-3 sentence reply to the question then they would provide a link to the podcast and say “If you want to hear Kevin and Steve talk about this for 20 minutes, here is a link to an episode of Replace Your Income that covers this in-depth.”
- It had no impact on their productivity. Now they batch record once per month by blocking out 4 hours and they have content for the entire month for the podcast, email, and social media.
- Traction keeps increasing. They continuously get feedback through their lead form that the podcast was what took them over the fence and got them to complete the application. Their leads are consuming the content to confirm “they know what they’re talking about” before completing the application.
Lessons Learned
The Importance of “owning your audience”
A mainstream approach for many business owners today is paying to get in front of an audience. While the cost of ads varies from platform to platform, this is not a cheap approach and the price is constantly increasing.
What is worse is that if your audience is built on Facebook, Google, or another company’s platform, then you are at their mercy.
With podcasts, you own those subscribers on your RSS Feed and you can move them wherever you want. They like what you offer and they follow you because they chose to, not because you paid to be seen.
Leverage what you already have
If you actually look at DFY Real Estate USA’s website you will see that they have a big pop-up inviting people to listen to their podcast.
They are getting people organically visiting their website each day and many of them are shopping around. Introducing them to the podcast right off the bat, allows them to build trust and differentiate themselves from the market by providing value for free.
Content marketing is a powerful revenue driver
If you approach marketing with a “give, then receive” mindset you’ll be surprised by the results.
The human mind hates to be sold but is easily attracted by value. Offer value to the right person and you will get the sell without ever having to “sell” them.
It’s just a matter of approach and method. Look for areas of your business that might have untapped value, such as the email list in their case.
Evergreen content is an investment that never stops paying back
When you pay for an ad, you get the impressions, views, followers, or conversions you are paying for. That’s it. You need to pay again if you want to get more of those perks and accept the price that the process entails.
When you create evergreen, quality content you sow a seed that will remain there forever.
Ready to launch your Content Funnel™?!
Schedule a call with me below
Ryan Helms
Founder & CEO