Sales And Marketing

How to communicate… let me count the ways!

Paul Watkins takes a look at who uses what forms of digital marketing and how to manage multiple platforms.

Paul Watkins is a marketing adviser to the financial services industry.

In recent months there’s been the ‘perfect storm’ of changes, adversely impacting both existing and prospective clients. As you know, these include changes to LVR (Loan to Value Ratio), the introduction of the CCCFA (Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act), interest rate rises, and of course the ever-rising (and apparently not able to be checked) price of houses. Added to the list are Brightline tests, high density-enabled plans for Auckland, a nationwide foreignbuyer ban, the current building boom, the failed KiwiBuild scheme and tax changes targeting property investors and speculators.

While any one of these could have an impact on the home-buying public, all at the same time can cause stress and frustration. So what is your role in all of this? The answer is by communicating these changes to clients and empathising with them, thereby being seen as the sympathetic expert in their eyes.

How to communicate is also changing. The proven platforms are your website blog, client newsletters, LinkedIn and Facebook. I do hope you are using all of the above, as not only do they all work well, they are how the world now gets information. Using them also helps draw search results in Google. Add in the new kids on the promotion block, such as Pinterest and TikTok, and it can all become confusing.

Who uses what

This article will briefly explain each of these platforms, who uses them, and what your message should be, in light of recent changes.

Facebook is still the 90-pound gorilla in the room. The biggest users are those aged 25-34 (first-home buyers) followed by 35-44-year-olds. If you also offer investment products, the 55+ group accounts for 11% of all daily users, so don’t write them off on this medium. Gender-wise, Facebook is 43% male and 57% female. This should form the basis of your promotional activities. As discussed many times, short videos on Facebook are very powerful.

Instagram is owned by Facebook and its use is steadily rising (up 18% in the last two years). When you place Facebook ads, you can click on Instagram during the placement and your short video will show there too. The biggest users are those aged 25-34 (once again, first-home buyers), with females representing 57% of those who look at it daily and males 43%.

Twitter is, I think, an annoying platform, or at least the last US President made it so; interestingly, it has an above-average number of users with degrees, at 42%, and two-thirds of its users are male, aged 30-49. Its growth has been static, but I’m not sure how it fits with a mortgage broker’s promotional plan.

‘Facebook is still the 90-pound gorilla in the room’

YouTube is massive. It’s used regularly by nearly 75% of all internet users, with each person on it for an average of 41 minutes per day, and men and women almost equal in the demographics. It covers all age groups, with 77% of those aged 26-35 using it, 70% of 46-55-yearolds and 67% of those aged 56 or above. Ignore it at your peril.

LinkedIn holds two million profiles from Kiwis, which is most of the educated working public. The largest users are aged 40-55, with males and females almost equal. According to LinkedIn themselves, it’s the top-rated social network for lead generation. Once again, short educational videos are the key to being noticed on it.

Pinterest is hugely gender-skewed - 80% of users are female - and is product-focused. It attracts those with an aspirational nature, such as those seeking home design or home renovations.

And do not forget the exponential use of podcasts, which are worth considering for the more educated market. TikTok and Snapchat, on the other hand, attract much younger audiences and are best used to post fun thoughts which entertain rather than ads. Don’t bother with these two.

How to manage multiple platforms

You now have a bewildering range of options, but all is not lost. Let me explain how you can manage all of them easily, by using slightly edited variations on each other.

The critical first step is to know who you are targeting. One size does not fit all when it comes to messaging. A couple in their fifties worried about refixing their loan at a higher rate will not respond to the same message as a first-home buyer. You can use different messages on different platforms.

The example I’ll give here is for couples aged 35-55 wanting to buy a new house or re-fix, but it’s exactly the same process for a different stream aimed at first-home buyers if that is your chosen market:

1 First, make some YouTube videos.

These can be casual cell-phonein-the-face-filmed and chatty. Do not over-rehearse it, just talk as if a client were sitting in front of you.

Make them educational and not promotional – the implied expertise is your advertising. Research the best headlines, as these will show up in search results.

2 Now extract the audio from these

YouTube videos, which then becomes your podcast. 3 Transcribe the videos into text (Microsoft now has this function) to publish as blog posts on your website. 4 Edited versions of these text articles can become some of your newsletter articles.

3 Transcribe the videos into text (Microsoft now has this function) to publish as blog posts on your website.

4 Edited versions of these text articles can become some of your newsletter articles.

5 Edit the videos to less than 60 seconds and post these to your social media accounts, notably Facebook and Instagram.

6 The longer YouTube version you created can become your LinkedIn post. Notice how one thing has now become many?

7 Create a “Six critical things to consider” type picture-post for Pinterest. I might do an article on how to do this in the next issue, as Pinterest is a very underrated platform – one which is mostly ignored by advertisers.

8 If you then collect these articles up, in no time you’ll have enough to turn them into a free e-book for use as a ‘lead-magnet’ to build your email - and therefore lead - list.

Each medium is highly targetable, so tailor your message to suit. No one size will ever fit.

So, how do you do all of these steps in a cost-effective way? None is expensive, but all are labour-intensive. First, make the raw YouTube video. Then find someone on Fiverr.com or Upwork.com to edit, transcribe, turn into a podcast, turn into an e-book and all the other bits.

This will not cost you much at all. In no time, you’ll be across multi-media platforms with targeted messages.

The landscape may have changed in terms of house prices and the hoops client have to jump through to borrow, but so has the promotional landscape. It’s worth taking the time to get a new promotional plan together and to then find some inexpensive ways to implement it.

In the words of the great marketer, Gary Vaynerchuck, “What used to work is the thing that will put you out of business.” ✚