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Brokerages and teams who know they need to advertise but have been unable to fully commit to what’s needed while in the midst of recruiting, coaching and closing have a new marketing partner to rely on: Dippidi.
While not the first oddly named company in the real estate marketing space, Dippidi is one of a handful of service providers dedicated solely to helping teams and brokerages budget, create and execute online marketing campaigns.
Adopting what they call the “flywheel model” over a traditional funnel approach to engaging and servicing leads, the team at Dippidi can even help clients leverage their CRM and other technology vendors to maximize online outreach performance.
To that end, the young company has relationships in place with Chime, Sierra Interactive and AgentFire. They’re willing to work with others as needed, too.
“We branded this flywheel approach from Hubspot, really,” said Dippidi Co-Founder Tyler Auerbacher in a call with Inman. “They’re a good North Star for us, but the thing is, funnels focus on getting as many at the top to convert them at the bottom, so it’s a numbers game, a churn-and-burn solution.”
The other problem with funnels, according to Auerbacher, is that they don’t focus on the people you’ve already converted — your existing sphere.
“The flywheel approach is more long term, an autonomous way to grow your business,” he said. “You’re constantly attracting new people and engaging existing people with remarketing, your social media folks, website visitors, the people who have already raised their hand.”
The company uses your leads and vendor tools to write, design and measure online ads. They offer monthly reporting and regular calls to go over campaign performance and provide quarterly strategy plans based on your goals, whether that’s 10 new buyer agreements or 200 people at an open house.
“We’re in our clients’ Facebook accounts every day to optimize their accounts, looking at cost per lead, cost per link,” Auerbacher said.
And while Dippidi’s service is much more hands-on than managing and measuring your own advertising plans, Auerbacher insists that it won’t work without their clients providing goals and branding direction.
“All of our content is going to match their branding and aesthetics,” he said, “We [have] some clients that come on just for branding, but some want massive amounts of lead generation.”
Dippidi’s services can help build lead databases for buyers and sellers. Ads can run at different times and at whatever monthly volume best overlaps with their campaign goals.
Teams and brokerages not using the CRM or marketing tools in which they invest is not new, and lack of adoption is often more a lack of trying than attributable to hard-to-learn technology.
Dippidi typically works alongside a team’s marketing admin, but it encourages those paying the bills to at least be aware of what’s working and where the money is being spent.
Auerbacher’s team develops headlines, body copy and custom imagery for every client differently because every market is different. Some ads have downloadable content, homeseller checklists, testimonials or phone call scheduling tools using Calend.ly.
Most clients, he said, are spending at least $500 each month on Facebook ads. “Typically we spend about 60 percent of that budget on remarketing, whether that’s to their database, website visitors, Google PPC or video viewers.”
The company’s services start with six-month contracts. Otherwise, there’s simply not enough runway to determine if a campaign is working. Advertising ROI takes time, and messages and audiences need to be honed.
“The biggest thing for us to ensure results for our clients based on our efforts, but we can’t bring on clients that aren’t great fits for us,” Auerbacher said, referring to clients who may not understand that audiences are built over time.
He said a few minutes of basic research can reveal how a potential team or brokerage may view his company’s services. “If I get asked, ‘How low a cost-per-lead can you get me?’ it’s a red flag,” he said.
He also ensures clients they don’t produce or manage daily organic social media campaigns. For them, it’s all about deliberate, thought-out advertising campaigns.
Dippidi can also serve as a conduit to its clients’ tech partners for low-level tech support as it relates to marketing and lead processing. They participate in and monitor some proptech’s user groups and support forums, which is a common duty of marketing staff and office admins.
Auerbacher’s company is just more than a year old and working with 54 clients. Not bad considering the business climate thrust upon them.
“There comes a point in every business owner’s trajectory where you have to outsource,” he said. “And we’re not a marketing agency with real estate clients — we’re a real estate marketing agency.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
