The announcement forms part of LJ Hooker’s $1 million investment in the Spring launch of its integrated digital and social media platform, LJ Hooker Boost developed by the group’s innovation centre, LJX-Lab.
LJ Hooker Boost is a custom-built, automated Facebook and Instagram advertising platform, powered by strategic partner Tiger Pistol, which will amplify the profile of agents, listings and generate leads through advanced data targeting.
“We are excited to be the pioneer in the real estate space with Facebook, bringing our global best practice digital and social platform to the Australian consumer,” said Chairman L. Janusz Hooker.
“In 2016, our LJX-Lab team had the foresight to identify that the next big thing in real estate was social and harnessing the opportunities of mobile, and started the development of LJ Hooker Boost.
“What the team has built is a game changer for our industry, dramatically improving customer service and satisfaction levels, agent productivity and ROI on marketing spend and the number of qualified buyers matched to properties for sale.
“Importantly, all the data around this will be retained within LJ Hooker’s secure ecosystem,” said Mr Hooker
Facebook Group Industry Director, Paul McCrory, says Facebook shares LJ Hooker’s digital vision for the property market.
“Through the power of Facebook, partnering with platforms such as Tiger Pistol, franchise businesses, like LJ Hooker, are able to drive business outcomes in an automated approach via mobile.
“This allows each individual business owner to create local, tailored campaigns that reach the right audience, through the Facebook and Instagram platforms.”
Developed with automation at its core, LJ Hooker Boost frees up the schedules of agents and support staff to capitalise on the leads it delivers so agents can concentrate on providing exceptional service to their clients.
“Likes and shares on social media are great, but these ‘vanity metrics’ don’t directly translate to leads enquiries, and therefore the ROI of these metrics is negligible,” said LJ Hooker’s Head of Digital, Drew McTavish.
“With Facebook and our marketing partners, we have developed a newfound way to deliver our network leads, supercharge the position our agents as the area specialists, and enhance the profile of the properties they are marketing.
“With most digital outreach campaigns, you’re handing over data which is ultimately used by that digital service supplier or portal in other campaigns.
“Data is the lifeblood of any agent and introducing third parties dilutes the current and future potential of the data, and even worse, leakage of data. With LJ Hooker Boost, we’ll manage and maintain the value of our agents’ engagement activities.”
LJ Hooker Boost provides the support tools, analytics, and interpretive machine learning to capitalise on engagement with audiences at active points of the property cycle.
Offices will also utilise the email marketing and nurturing platform, ActivePipe, to nurture prospects as part of the holistic, ‘best-in-breed’ strategy. They will also have the chance to activate standalone, stylised, SEO-rich websites for properties to enhance exposure in this peak listing period.
LJ Hooker research indicates that vendors consider 1.5 agents on average before listing, highlighting the importance of agent and office profile on high traffic platforms such as Facebook to ensure that the LJ Hooker brand, offices and agents are high in consideration when people think real estate.
“Every single LJ Hooker office will be part of our social and digital media strategy over spring,” said Mr McTavish.
“We’ve piloted LJ Hooker Boost with offices of different sizes and marketplaces around Australia and with this insight we’ve finetuned a product that will push LJ Hooker’s agents to the top of the pecking order of every market we service.”
