Hooked: Reel in New Buyers on Facebook

The Guild's new tool, Hooked, targets Facebook users with ads for appropriate homes on sale. The Facebook users need not have given any indication they want to move home, as Hooked matches the users with those already registered as prospective purchasers on agents’ databases.

Although these ‘lookalike’ Facebook users have not suggested they want to move, the fact that their social media characteristics are like those of buyers registered on agents’ databases will be sufficient for Hooked to identify appropriate properties and display them.

From this information, Hooked builds a lookalike audience on Facebook. Hooked then looks at the agent’s website and sees when a new property is listed. The system will automatically create a bespoke advert for the property on Facebook and serves it to the lookalike audience.

If they are presented with a ‘perfect property’ before they even think about moving, this may trigger them to consider selling and buying, potentially gaining new instructions for the agent whose property is displayed.

When it is comes to digital marketing, social media is a key element for providing amazing results and is very beneficial to agents who wish to reach a larger targeted audience. Estate agents who are not effectively utilising social media as the profitable source it is, are missing out on marketing opportunities that could result in more income.

With most marketing, the message needs to reach the right audience for it to have the desired result and impact on revenue. Serving up adverts to the wrong people is a massive of waste of time, money, and resources, and will actually end up damaging the business’s image.

Guild member agents will not need to set up - nor even understand - the system as the hard work is already done for them.

Even if agents are tech-savvy and are one of the agents building lookalike audiences for your properties, the reality is doing it yourself can be time consuming and diverts office time away from talking to people and building relationships - the real core of estate agency.

Hooked will be offered to all Guild Members.