David Patsel, a highly successful real estate broker and relocation specialist in Central Virginia, built his client base by tapping into the latest social media and digital marketing trends.

Spending many years in the restaurant business before getting into real estate, David Patsel always enjoyed serving his community. Today he is an Associate Broker and Relocation Specialist at Napier, REALTORS® in Colonial Heights, Virginia, and is part of a group known as The Patsel Group, CVA Home Pros, which includes himself, his assistant, and seven other agents. Together they assist their residential real estate clients with everything from land purchasing and buying new construction to buying or selling pre-existing homes.

"This is my second career in life," says David. "This is my 19th year. Previously I worked in the restaurant business for 23 years, at 11 restaurants, with 450 employees. And I said, 'You know? I'm ready to try something different.' And I thought I would dip my toe into real estate, and it's been very successful for me."

David is a Certified CARTUS Real Estate Agent, CARTUS Network Affinity Specialist, an Accredited Buyers REALTOR® (ABR), and a Graduate, REALTOR® Institute (GRI). He has had quite a career earning the title of "Top Producer, Closed Units" at Napier for seven consecutive years. This year David was named in the top 500 Richmond Real Producers. 

 

Building Relationships Through Technology

David feels that the driving force behind his success with clients is his belief that "the greatest value is in relationships." He recognizes that to succeed in real estate you must thrive at building relationships, which starts with good communication. 

David has been using Delta Media Group® technology for about 12 years now. He believes a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform is essential for communicating and staying in touch with customers. 

"CRMs are very important," says David, "It's crucial, very important to be able to stay in touch with your database. They say that you need to have at least 18 to 24 touches with your client, at least, in a year's time. It could be some letter in the mail that says 'Happy Birthday' or 'Merry Christmas' or email content such as, 'Don't forget to set your clocks back' or 'Happy 4th of July,' things like that."

He compares building and maintaining client relationships to watering plants. Like with plants, if you want a relationship to grow, you need to continue to foster it.

David asks, "If you were going to plant a seed in some dirt, would you just dig a hole and put that seed in the ground? No. You've got to make sure you water that seed. You've got to make sure that you cultivate it and keep the weeds out from it to where you take care of it. You tend to it. You don't just plant it and forget it, because if you do that, they're going to forget you."

A Website That Delivers

David additionally loves his website and the fact that it provides him with so many options for customization. He appreciates that he can share customer reviews and offer visitors content curated by Delta on his blog. 

"I love our work website." David continues, "I love the reviews on it. I love the different content that you can put in, the blogs of what's going on in neighborhood areas, what's going on in the city this coming weekend, to try to bring people to the website."

His website and the CRM aren't the only things David loves about working with Delta Media Group. He also loves the fact that the staff at Delta is always open to hearing client feedback.

"It's not just a closed book," says David. "If it's something that's not out there, say that you don't offer right now, I do believe that Delta Media has a good open mind and will try to look at what they [customers] are saying and see if they can make that happen."

Staying Current With Social Media

Social Media is another key way David reaches his customer base. He has built his Facebook page up to where he now has over 2,000 followers. 

David feels that having an open dialogue and being a resource for his followers have all been important factors in his success with social media. To keep them interested and up-to-date on the latest in their neighborhood, he offers a variety of content ranging from reels to polls to graphics and more. 

He says, "Monday you put a word of encouragement out, maybe Wednesday, put a question out there: Which one do you like, A, B, C, or D? Someone's going to give their opinion on something. Even if you're just going to a restaurant that just opened up, shoot a little something, 'Hey, a brand new restaurant opened up in the area. Come and check it out.' It could be just a 10-second thing, but you are a resource for people. That's what you want to be."

He has several strategies for increasing engagement on social media as well. One way he keeps his followers engaged is through contests and giveaways. 

"You do giveaways or you put a bunch of marbles in a jar and ask people to guess how many marbles are in that jar, and they're going to comment," says David.

Lastly, David finds that time management is another key element to cultivating a following on social media. You need to be scheduling time for creating content and posting daily.

"Time management is probably just as important as communication," says David. "You've got to be able to time manage your day and you've got to block out time to do some social media, but don't let it take your entire day. You've got to box out the time to do reels and short stories — that's the hot thing everybody is doing now."

Thankfully, David feels that with tools like Social Connector, making time for social media is much easier, noting, "With Delta Media when you've got a minute, you've got the following."

Having witnessed video content become increasingly popular across social media, with the rise of Instagram and TikTok reels in particular, one improvement David would like to see in the future is more editing capabilities for short videos.

"I really would like to see more possibilities for editing videos, maybe like Canva, MailChimp, and different platforms are doing, especially Instagram," says David. "You can shoot a video and you can put verbiage over top of it and scroll right or left where you want that main picture. Well, that may not be the very beginning of that video. You can scroll about 20 seconds into it and catch that part where it's tagging people to catch it and see it."

Helping Out His Team

As the leader of The Patsel Group, David is always looking for ways to not only grow his client base but help the other members of his team. 

To help them grow their client base as well, he encourages them to utilize their database within DeltaNET® and the other tools and features they have available, such as My Customer For Life (MCFL) and sending email blasts, to connect with those customers. He tells them to look beyond a simple phone call.

"I'm constantly working on trying to get them to continue to grow their database," says David. "You want to grow it in numbers, but you want to make it more meat as well. Not just a name and a phone number."

With 19 years of experience in the real estate business and 23 more in customer service, It makes sense why David is someone both his team and his community turn to for help. He has a knack for nurturing relationships and is always getting acquainted with the newest digital marketing trends — such as what he's currently doing with video and automation. With the assistance of Delta Media Group® and the latest marketing technology, David remains a true real estate leader.

To learn more and get in touch with David Patsel, visit his website at davidpatsel.com.