Real estate is an extremely competitive field. It’s saturated and ruthless—but professionals who put in that extra effort are going to be rewarded. Real estate marketing has always been something that only a few people figure out. It’s either spammy or just plain disconnected.
Here’s a list of ideas you can pull from. Start implementing some of these today and you’re already improving your marketing efforts for sure.
Ready? Let’s go.
Email Real Estate Marketing Tips
Personalize Emails for 10 Contacts Each Day
Go through your lead list and identify your 10 best leads. The choosing process doesn’t have to be entirely data-backed. We’re going for the quick win here so doing a scan plus gut check is the best method. For the rest of the list, send out your usual automated email. For these 10 people, take a couple of minutes to do that extra personalization. Mention a previous meeting? Something new in their area? A mutual friend? No need to fuss over this small addition to your process. When it pulls in results, you might want to consider doing a Top 20.
Setup an autoresponder or a drip campaign for your email subscribers.
What’s an auto-responder? It’s a sequence of emails that’s sent to new subscribers to take them through a certain campaign or just welcome them to your list. The objective when putting together an autoresponder is to eliminate the feeling that they’re receiving a canned response. Drip campaigns allow you to share branded content with your new leads and pull them into your sales funnel.
Spruce up your email newsletter by using graphics.
People are visual, and with the rest of the real estate world dishing out the same plain newsletter, those who put an effort to differentiate themselves get the best results. If you don’t have your branding pinned down yet, now’s the best time to do it. Having the same color, look and feel for all your content—from newsletters and even your website—helps customers remember your brand and your services.
Polish your existing email scripts.
Sure, personalization is key, but in sales, numbers are also very important. A marketer or real estate agent who says they never use templates when emailing is flat-out lying. Even a simple bone structure for emails is still a template. Now, set aside some time to review your existing email templates, applying best cold email practices wherever possible.
Flex your subject line muscles.
What’s an email good for if no one opens them. Subject lines impact your cold email open rates more than anything else so make sure you test different subject lines. Of course, don’t forget that it’s ok to get creative with these things. Some marketers even swear by using (no subject) as a subject line for certain situations!
Listing Real Estate Marketing Tips
Sharpen your MLS listing descriptions.
Most clients and prospects discover your listings through MLS, so it’s unwise to just put something together and forget about it. You need to use punchy and compelling descriptions for your listings.
Put together a checklist for listing descriptions.
Sure, winging it feels natural and relies on your go-getter energy whenever you work. However, having a checklist that spells out the necessary information for each listing saves you a possible huge headache and lost business. The checklist should include all pertinent info like features, area, school districts, reasons for selling and basic listing information.
Update photos on your listings.
Photos taken by phone are perfectly fine so long as they weren’t taken in 2006. Today, phones can produce photos that are very high-quality. Now that that’s out of the way, you just make sure that you have what the prospects want to see in photos. When you look at a listing, what do you zoom into immediately? Photos. There is no use hiding portions of your listing. There’s always a way to present properties in a better way with just some photography skills.
Put your listings on SlideShare.
Upload new ones as you update. Say, put together a slideshow on SlideShare for all your available listings for the month of March. You can even put them together in categories. Put up a slideshow for all listings for a month, for a quarter, listings that are above a certain price point, listings that are in a certain zip code, and so on.
This practice makes it easier for prospects to go straight to listings that they’re already interested in based on preference. You’ll be surprised with the traffic SlideShare gets.
Mine other people’s listings for potential partnerships.
Go over other people’s listings especially ones that were posted by direct owners or small brokers in an area. Take note of low-priced or reasonably-priced listings. List up to 50 properties, take note of their contact numbers and other pertinent info. Set aside half a day to call up these listings and propose a partnership plan. If it makes sense business-wise, there’s no reason not to partner up with other real estate players.
Social Media Real Estate Marketing Tips
Create profiles for the essential social media stack for real estate professionals:
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn.
Stunning photos that show off your properties and the areas. Instagram uses hashtags similar to twitter and if you’re smart about the hashtags you use, you’ll get prospects making a beeline to your instagram account in no time.
Just who’s not on Facebook these days? For real estate agents, though, the number one reason to get on Facebook is local Facebook groups. Real estate groups are great but it’s mostly filled with other real estate agents as well. Local facebook groups are smaller online communities where people engaged and discuss what’s happening in their particular area. It won’t sound spammy if you update everyone with a new listing in the area, as long as you have the tone of someone wanting to let the community know as opposed to someone wanting to sell to everyone in the community.
Twitter is great for generating traffic to your website, listings and other online assets you have. It’s also one of the first things that prospects will see if they look you up on search engines. An active Twitter feed is one of the marks of a successful professional, so you definitely want to give off that impression by keeping on top of your Twitter game.
Pinterest is so overlooked. However, many marketers report that prospects who search on Pinterest are those who are closer to making a buying decisions more than those who browse on other social media channels. See, Pinterest is like a catalog where you can include a direct link to your listing. This is essential.
LinkedIn groups are great as a venue to talk to other real estate professionals. However, if you’re marketing listings, it can come off as spammy if you post very often on your LinkedIn account. The main selling point of LinkedIn is that it’s the biggest social media platform for professionals. Read: People who have the power to purchase and make decisions. Heads of families, real estate purchasers, entrepreneurs and other successful people are all around LinkedIn, and if you master the art of social selling, there’s no limit to what you can achieve on LinkedIn.
Use social media scheduling tools to automate some of your social media tasks.
There’s Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social and other web apps you can use. Most of them have mobile app counterparts so you can check posts, look at data and check what others are posting in real-time. The scheduling functionality allows you to do what you have to do without having to go back again and again to the social media platforms just to make sure your presence is consistent across social media channels.
Phone Real Estate Marketing Tips
Call your competitors.
Researching the competition? Why not call them directly and get a feel of their style. There’s nothing wrong with calling them and posing as an interested prospect. Call the most successful firms and agents in your area and get them to sell to you. Take note of their style, how they open conversations, what’s the first bits of information they reveal, how the handle pricing questions, how they handle inquiries outside listings, and so on.
Call existing customers and ask for referrals subtly.
Referrals are one of the most powerful lead generation techniques. However, it can be a bit risky to ask outright. Make sure you develop a good relationship with all your existing prospects and customers. When you’re comfortable enough to ask for a referral do so.
To make sure you are continuously getting on the good side of your customers, have a solid customer service plan in place. Call your existing customers just to check in. Make it a regular thing. Once a month is a good number, on top of any calls they request regarding particular concerns. Remember, people don’t always deal with people who have what they need, but they always deal with people they like.
Video Real Estate Marketing Tips
Create virtual tours for your listings.
Depending on the size of your operation, there is always a video marketing strategy that is doable and effective for you. If you’re able to allocate a marketing budget for video, go ahead and get a professional videographer to help you capture the beauty of your listings in video form. If that’s not possible, there’s no issue using what you have. If you can borrow a digital SLR or even a GoPro to take a video of your properties, go ahead and do so. Easy to use video editing software which are user-friendly and intuitive. If you’re using a Mac computer, use iMovie. For Windows users, Movie Maker is simple and easy to use as well.
Can’t take videos? Then make videos!
These days, having no video for real estate listings isn’t a choice at all. If you have no phone capable of taking good videos and no cameras to use, take your best photos and create a video slideshow. You can just put background music and slowly shuffle through photos of your listings. Remember, prospects come to the internet to look for properties and each opportunity to put your listings in front of your target audience is an opportunity worth putting effort into.
Content Marketing for Real Estate
All the content you create on social media, the videos you shoot and the articles you share on your newsletter could be considered a part of a huge movement in online marketing today: content marketing. Notice how prospects flock to you when you release content that’s not promotional? Probably something useful you typed up on a lazy afternoon, pouring your insight and thoughts about real estate buying you wish prospects knew?
Yes. It works and it’s a win-win for you and the prospects. Do you have thoughts you’ve always wanted to share regarding the industry? Want to help educate buyers about the right things to look for when shopping for a property?
These ideas can be transformed into revenue generating pieces by creating content that other people can easily access and consume. You can put your words into a blog on your site, into a video blog, into small snippets on your social media accounts, a webinar (online seminar) maybe?
Creating content that resonates with your target audience and existing clients is a great way to nurture your audience continuously and keep them abreast with what’s up in the industry and what’s up with your business.
What are your go-to tactics for real estate marketing?