Jackson Wilkey- Advertising on YouTube. Is it a Good Strategy for Real Estate Agents?

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 j...