The real estate business is fiercely competitive. A staggering 87% of new real estate agents fail within the first five years and one of the main reasons why is that they are unable to market themselves effectively.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median income for real estate brokers in 2017 was $56,730. However, the top 10% of real estate brokers earned more than $150,000 a year.
One fundamental difference between being average and in the top 10% is the best real estate professionals do a great job of marketing themselves. And if you start doing the same, your business is bound to skyrocket.
In this article, we share 50 real estate marketing strategies used by top real estate agents and brokers. These are real-life examples that brokers are using, not just theoretical marketing ideas. We will also share the most useful tools you need to implement these strategies.
These 50 real estate marketing ideas will get you more leads, build your brand, get prospects to trust you, enabling you to close far bigger deals.
The article is divided into different sections, each focusing on a specific aspect of marketing. You can use the contents below to jump to a particular section that interests you.
Contents
- Strategic Focus
- Partnerships and Team
- Showcase Your Properties in Style
- Get More Leads from Your Website
- Content Marketing and SEO
- Craft Exciting Email Marketing Campaigns
- Promote Yourself on Social Media
- Use Videos to Attract a Larger Audience
- Building Your Brand
- Optimize Your Listings
- Offline Real Estate Marketing Ideas
- Build a Stronger Relationship with Your Clients
Strategic Focus
Your strategic focus is the most crucial aspect of your real estate marketing plan. It’s vital that you nail this before you start implementing any of the other techniques.
Target a Particular Niche
People have no shortage of real estate brokers and agents to choose from. So how do you become their first choice? By specializing in a particular niche within the broad domains of residential or commercial real estate.
John A. Jensen Realty Inc. is a great example, as they have carved a niche in the senior housing sector and are one of the leading agencies in that area of the real estate industry.
Focusing on a niche gives you several advantages.
Your marketing messages are targeted towards a specific audience and are therefore far more impactful.
You can dedicate your limited time and resources to building your expertise in one niche.
That expertise helps build your credibility which is necessary to connect with a particular demographic.
Honey Bar Media has a huge list of ideas for niches you can adapt for your business.
However, before using this strategy, you should be familiar with your audience. It’s best to pick a niche in the real estate industry whose audience shares the same interests with you. For example – if you have an interest in the military, you can help army veterans find their future home.
Know Your Audience
How do you ensure you meet your clients’ expectations?
Know as much about your target audience as possible. This is an important driver of succeeding in one particular niche. This is especially vital if you are planning to get into the luxury real estate market.
The better you understand your potential buyers, the easier it will be for you to grasp their needs and give them what they want. You need to spend substantial time developing an in-depth knowledge of your audience’s lifestyle, habits and needs.
This will also help you emotionally connect with your clients, build your relationship with them and earn their trust.
Partnerships and Team
Successful businesses are never built by individuals. They require partnerships and teams.
Co-list with Other Realtors
By co-listing with other agents and brokers you can ensure you will get enough leads to survive, by receiving important referrals that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to. If you are concerned about giving away half your profits to other realtors, remember that you will get the same in return.
Hire a Marketing Team Member/ Virtual Assistant
Executing any marketing plan will require time, and you will never have enough of it. You will never have enough time to do adequate marketing and service your clients at the same time. So go ahead and hire an employee, or a part-time virtual assistant if you are on a budget.
Hiring a virtual assistant from websites like Cut Your Payroll can save time on routine work. Barbara Kauffman from Iron Valley Real Estate says that her virtual assistant helped her qualify prospects in her database and focus only on those who are genuinely interested.
Since real estate agents work out of the office most of the time, they can use the iovox mobile app to easily collaborate with their employees or VAs. You can share records of each phone call with clients directly through the app. You can also have real-time discussions with your team with the built-in messaging functionality.
Showcase Your Properties in Style
Hire a Pro Photographer
Photos are an essential component of real estate marketing materials. 89% of all homebuyers believe photos are useful during their decision-making process.
You can take the DIY route and shoot photos on your own, but there’s nothing like professional photographs to make a great first impression on your potential buyers. Impressing through your marketing materials, encourages people to call you or attend an open house.
(Source: https://www.longandfoster.com/homes-for-sale/1191-Crest-Lane-Mclean-VA-22101-207464160)
Long and Fosters Real Estate use expert photographers who utilize advanced techniques and lighting techniques to showcase a picture-perfect house that clients will love.
Try Out Matterport Scans
Want to go beyond still pictures?
The Matterport 3D camera will be a cutting-edge addition to your real estate marketing toolbox. It combines all the photos of the interiors and exteriors of the property to create a three-dimensional representation. Prospects can remotely explore the property through VR headsets if they choose.
The Vanderblue Team from Connecticut allows you to ‘walk through’ every room of their historic country estate.
Matterport even gives you access a wide range of network of photographers you can hire.
Take Your Audience on a Virtual Tour
Another way to build an immersive experience for your potential clients is through online virtual tours.
Real estate agent, Steven Ho takes homebuyers on a virtual journey through the serene neighborhood of Erin Mills. At the end of the video, the prospects get a decent understanding of the lifestyle that their future home would involve.
Virtual tours also highlight certain amenities such as nearby schools, hospitals that can help home buyers in their decision-making process.
Virtual tours can also be valuable in commercial real estate deals where people are too busy to personally visit every option.
Use Stunning Drone Shots
Camera drones are one of the hottest technologies in photography and videography. However, only 14% of realtors use a drone while shooting for their marketing materials. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to stand out from the competition through attractive aerial shots.
Robert Paul Properties captures sweeping landscapes of their waterfront estate resulting in a beautiful video shot with camera drones. Since buying a home is a huge emotional decision, the music captures the sentiment perfectly.
Get More Leads from Your Website
According to the NAR in a Digital Age 2017 Report, 95% of people visit company websites while looking for a realtor. If you don’t have a website, 95% of your target audience has no way of knowing that you even exist.
Having a website is the foundation of building an online presence. But that’s just the beginning. This section will give you plenty of marketing ideas about how to get more leads from your website.
Design a Compelling Website UI
Outdated websites can turn off most potential buyers, so even if you already have a website, consider giving it an overhaul.
Real estate websites have to achieve three things:
Impress visitors with beautiful design
Make it easy to find the information through intuitive and simple navigation
Prompt potential clients to take action and call you
Your website design reflects your brand and therefore the design should be in sync with the values you want to depict to your target audience. Hilton & Hyland, a leading luxury real estate brokerage, has an incredibly sophisticated design and beautiful property pages.
Ensure that homebuyers can browse through your listings with ease. Add important information such as price, specifications, etc. Real estate veteran, Jason O’Beirne‘s listings page demonstrates this simplicity.
You don’t need to hire an expensive web designer. You can create real estate websites very quickly with Placester.
Make Your Pages Conversion-Centric
Your real estate website only has an average of 8 seconds to convince visitors to stick around longer. That’s why your site’s home page should be simple and visually appealing.
But more importantly, design your pages to entice potential clients to take action.
The Corcoran Group has a homepage that displays a stunning picture of their listing and entices visitors to get an estimate of their home’s value. Visitors enter their address and contact details which is then captured in their database.
Another conversion-centric tactic you should use is call tracking. Buying a home is among the most important purchases we will ever make. Many prospects want to talk to someone instead of just filling out a form on a website and hoping to get a call back later. Immediacy matters. With call tracking solutions like those from iovox, brokerages or individual agents can issue unique telephone numbers for different marketing channels and then review analytics to determine which marketing channels are converting better than others. For brokerages that spend a lot of money on advertising and promoting properties for agents, what better way to remind an agent of your value than something as simple as a call whisper? Call whispers are simply a recorded message the agent would hear before speaking with the caller that can say something as simple as “lead from ABC Brokerage”. Watch this video for tips on how Zoopla – one of the largest property portals in the United Kingdom, uses call tracking from iovox.
Reference: iovox