Real Estate Marketing Tips: How to Get Noticed (& Get Clients) In Your Area
The first few years starting out as a real estate agent require hard work and strategic marketing. Oftentimes, most new real estate agents are still working to build their clientbase and grow their name in the community. You’re often fighting to increase brand awareness and name recognition while landing valuable clients.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a marketing expert to promote your real estate brand successfully.
Check out these nine real estate marketing tips to generate leads that can turn into engaged customers.
Become a Leader in Your Neighborhood Community
Influencer marketing is the process of reaching out to local leaders for their thoughts and endorsements. If you want to become a leader or local influencer, then you need to be actively engaged in your community. Consider joining local community organizations, non-profits, or neighborhood groups to connect with local residents. If possible, take on a leadership role (like president of the HOA or neighborhood watch association) in your area.
Not only will this exposure increase your reach, it will also increase your expertise in the neighborhood. Your neighbors will come to you when it’s time to sell because you care about the neighborhood and know what options are in their best interest.
Network and Promote Others
Business professionals across all industries often mistake networking and promotion for a one-side activity. They look at other people to promote their brands without caring about helping others. In order for networking to be effective, it needs to go both ways.
Start building your rolodex of people who can help your clients when they need to move or buy a home. These people can range from recommended contractors and movers to more subtle needs -- like a speech therapist or dog walker. You can make settling into the area easier for your clients and help community members grow their business. By promoting others, you provide value and encourage them to promote you for any potential real estate needs.
Set Up a Referral Program
Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful and trustworthy tactics in your arsenal; however, many real estate agents wonder what they can offer to incentivize people to refer their friends.
Test out a few options to see how people respond when they refer clients your way. You might give them a spa weekend as thanks or send them tickets to an important sporting event. Once you see what people like, you can start promoting your referral program and invite people to help with lead generation to reap the benefits.
Provide Valuable Information and Insight to Home Buyers
The content you create and the marketing channels you choose should provide value to anyone who engages with your brand. For example, some real estate agents offer home buying classes to walk potential clients through the whole process.
Others use content marketing to provide insight into local schools in the area or generate job market reports. All of these resources make the buying process easier and provide value. Plus, when you prove that you know what you’re talking about, people are more likely to turn to you for their real estate needs.
Create Locally-Focused Content
Don’t underestimate the power of local SEO. Targeting specific location-based keywords in your area can increase your organic rankings while providing value to local customers. Remember, all content you create should provide some sort of information or tool for potential clients.
You might create a blog post with the best golf courses in the area or offer advice for preparing your plants for winter. The more locally-focused you are, the more success you will have generating local traffic.
Tap Into Emotions With Your Marketing Messages
Most people are emotional by nature. While we all like to think we operate logically, we actually drive our choices based on where our emotions lead us. Even if you have the most convincing marketing campaign and logically are the best option, you could still fall flat against a highly-emotional competitor.
Fortunately, real estate is an emotional industry. Homes open up new chapters in your customers’ lives and fill them with hope and excitement. The future is bright in a new home, and you should try to tap into that feeling with your marketing. From welcome gifts to celebratory social media posts, an emotional hook in your content marketing can make people listen to your brand.
Send Out Regular Email Marketing Newsletters
As you develop all of this content (local, emotional, and informational), put it to work and share it in email marketing newsletters. These newsletters drive people to your website and help you connect with leads who aren’t social-friendly.
As you develop your email marketing list, you can start to share news updates about your brand (like the launch of your referral program) and target potential buyers to grow sales.
Keep Up an Active Social Presence
Lead generation is a long-term process, not a short-term marketing tactic that you can complete in a few weeks. Create a publishing calendar for your social media campaigns to make sure you have posts to share and content throughout the week. Then track what works and what doesn’t so you can share what posts offer the highest levels of engagement. This offers a level of organization to make sure your brand never goes dark and your social channels thrive.
Make Sure Your Name Is Listed on Local Online Directories
Consider the statistic that 92% of buyers use the Internet in some way during their home search process. From looking up houses to finding real estate agents, the Internet is crucial for your clients. Make sure you meet your potential customers wherever they are across the Internet with directory listings.
If your name and profile stands out in a business directory website then you’re significantly more likely to get a call. By monitoring and updating your directory presence, you can make sure that your brand isn’t ignored by someone flashier or misleading customers with outdated information.
These are just a few ways you can kick of your marketing strategy as a real estate agent. For more, set up a free consultation with MyArea Network to discuss what has worked for you in the past and what you want to improve. Within a few months, you could have a steady flow of leads streaming into your business.
