As a real estate businessman, you want your business to grow and prosper. Here, real estate marketing ideas and strategies play a significant role in capturing the attention of potential clients. As per the reports of NAR (National Association of Realtors), 5.34 million existing homes and 667,000 newly built homes were sold in 2020. The report also shows the major roles in the business was played by the internet and real estate agents. Hence, it’s obvious there’s a digital market for real estate agents. But how can you reach prospects?
Nowadays competition is tough, and these days you’ll need expertise in online and offline marketing skills to set yourself apart from the crowd.
Here, we’ve gathered some real estate marketing strategies that can help you promote your business. Whether you’re just stepped in or are an experienced realtor looking to attract new clients. These marketing tips will help you to create a successful marketing plan.
Table of Contents
Rule The Estate Trend With Top 20 Real Estate Marketing Ideas
1. Drive More clients With an Exceptional Website Design
Creating an informative and attractive website is essential because many clients go online searching for products and services before they buy. Having a website for your real estate business will show prospective clients what you offer. Include listing on your site and update them regularly. This will keep clients coming to your site as they search for properties.
Moreover, make sure you have a user-friendly website, as tech-savvy people use to spend lots of time on their portable devices in search of various things. So look for a company providing responsive and optimized website building and designing services for your business. Additionally, you can consider developing a mobile application so it becomes easier for the clients.
2. Content Marketing
You can create a blog page and start writing a creative blog and optimized content by using SEO. This will help to show your posts to rank on the Google search engine. There are tools like Google Keyword Planner that can help you find the search terms and keywords. It will provide you with keywords that your clients are looking for and will inspire you with fresh topic ideas.
Make it easy for visitors to navigate to your website and link to your profile pages on other real estate social sites. So they can learn more about you and your business.
3. Reach Out Potential Clients with Email Marketing Campaigns
This is one of the best real estate marketing ideas. Email marketing includes emails that try to convince a recipient who has agreed to receive emails from you. Here you need to share emails related to your website article, current offers, or blogs. Email your targeted customers once every month and reach out to them when a new property listing is available.
There are many popular email marketing systems such as MailChimp, Aweber, and LeadPages. You can establish a way to collect all the email addresses and market those users. LeadPages will allow you to create landing pages that will attract people. So you can use it to collect email addresses that will eventually market through Aweber.
On the other side, MailChimp is also an excellent and automated mail system. It keeps your audience engaged with your business. MailChimp campaign is very easy to use, with lots of features and designs to grow your business.
It might sound confusing and difficult at the initial stage, but email marketing is definitely where the money is. The money is certainly on the list, but it needs to be done appropriately to attract the right people first. Use email campaigns to add lots of value constantly over time and see the outcomes increase rapidly in your real estate business.
4. Hire a Real Estate Photographer
Photos have always been essential when it comes to real estate. However, not as many owners and realtors understand the importance of this single concept while promoting a home or condo online. The fact is, people will judge a book by its cover, especially when browsing through hundreds of listings.
What you want is something that catches the eye of a person that is sifting through countless listing in their area. It needs to aptly convey a quality space through professional standards with the usage of things like a wide-angle lens and careful photoshop editing.
Use Drone For Photography
Take sweep shots off a home’s exterior and nearby landscape by using drone photography. You can buy one or you can book a drone service to capture the perfect shot, such as HouseLense. Use those photos to add an excitement factor to your listing. Video can be used to supplement your virtual tours or walk-through and show exterior features like patios and pools.
5. Animated Video Can Help Establish Your Brand
If we think from the viewer’s side, then we would prefer a video rather than seeing an image. So consider outsourcing a quality animated video for your real estate businesses.
Introducing your real estate business with an attractive short video is the ultimate way to leave a great brand image. Including these real estate marketing ideas in your campaign can drive lots of leads. You should include the type of properties you deal with, small or big properties, property location, and many more. The viewers will easily catch this and will get a clear idea about your services. All in all, create a story and make the viewers a happy audience.
Note: Your animated video doesn’t have to be super sophisticated – check out this short and simple animated (demo) video ad from Rawshorts.
6. Create a Google My Business Page for Your Business.
If you are a real estate agent, then it is difficult to find you on Google Maps, possibly you might lose valuable leads and clients. Why? because clients are frequently going on Google Maps to find the most reliable real estate agents and they are usually adding the term “near me” & “on-sale” to the search request.
You need to pull your socks and stay updated with the strategies. Set up your GMB page now. Google My Business can boost your brand awareness on the local maps, producing in high sales and leads.
7. Reach Out to Social Media Influencers
Do you know who are the social media influencers in the real estate market that you could reach out to? There are many in this sector. Your job is to search for the right influencers on the right platforms that you could collaborate with.
Pic Courtesy: Medium
In case you have a small budget, this is one of the great methods for real estate marketing strategies. Through this, you can get hundreds of thousands of potential users without having to wait years and years to build up a big profile.
8. Build a System for Referrals
Referrals can supercharge your real estate marketing strategies, but for that, you need to build a proper system for referrals. You could integrate this into your email signature so it becomes more passive than active but make sure it is at the opening. Once you’ve completed a few successful tasks, then get in touch with your clients and ask them to refer you to their friends.
You could also provide something in exchange for referrals that can make them happy after receiving. Whatever it is, come up with creative and attractive ideas to pitch your clients and then ensure you treat all of those people the right way.
9. Implement PPC Advertising
PPC is one of the best advertising games for real estate business owners. You might be landed here because you had ups and downs shares in your market and you are stuck out for the past few years. Well, putting money here is a great way to generate leads through Google Ads. PPC is a bit deep, but here we will try to make you understand in a simple language.
Pay-Per-Click is a method of bringing in traffic to your website to market any home, condo, or other real estate services you might be offering. Here you only need to pay when your advertisement gets a click. It is a strategy to drive clients to your website. PPC has lots of benefits for the real estate businesses you need to know.
In PPC campaigns, it displays your service or products at the top of the search engine pages. (As shown in the image).
Note: You may find PPC expensive and a waste of money if you don’t track it properly. That’s the reason it’s important to have an analytics system installed. You want to know where the users came from and whether they resulted in a sale or a lead. This can only be possible if you hire a professional team that can manage the PPC campaign for your real estate business.
So, make sure you have a strong plan before you jump into it. A proper PPC campaign can be expensive, but in parallel you can get great leads.
10. Get On Zillow
You can consider Zillow as the Yelp of the real estate business, and you really need to be on there if you want any chance of being discovered. Zillow offers the ability to the advertisement as an agent on their website. This can get a bit pricey, but considering the huge role, Zillow plays in home buying, it’s probably your best bet. After all, sites like Zillow account for 48% of all site traffic for real estate searches on the web.
Zillow also allows users to review real estate agents, so put on a smile and rack up that rating, as a solid star rating will increase your lead.
11. Track Your Real Estate Business with Google Analytics
Are you running a real-estate business and looking for more leads? If so, then Google Analytics is a must in your real estate marketing ideas. If you don’t have analytics set up on your website, then you are missing out on something great. It is a comprehensive analytical tool to discover how web users interact with your digital assets, including social media.
This is a great way to understand whether your real estate marketing ideas and strategies are working out for you or not. How are your posts are doing? How many views to your post and website? What are the demographics? What is the bounce rate?
All in all, you can track all the events on your website using Google Analytics to study the user conversion strategy. It might confuse you, but as you learn and get into it, your all doubt will be clear.
12. Stand Out With Handwritten Notes
Writing a thank you note seems to be an old and boring method, but actually, it gives a feel of a personalized touch. Many realtors think of going through a high-tech route when contacting clients, but fail to leave a great mark. People are interested in receiving handwritten thank you notes and letters. You might find it silly, but these old-school method has helped many businesses to set themselves apart from the competition.
13. Promote Your Business With Cold Calling
Today, there are many real estate marketing ideas and strategies that are being used by realtors. Among them, a recent trend has been the revival of an old-school marketing technique called “cold calling”. The latest technology software has made it easier than ever for a real estate investor, agent, or broker to cold call with relative ease.
As per the survey, we found that there was about a 3% to 4% lead conversion rate when realtors were implementing the cold-calling techniques. So, if you make a habit of calling for at least an hour a day, you can generate a few leads every day, which equates to sales consistently.
Buying the list and skipping tracing the records for phone numbers can cost between 35 cents to $1 per recording depending on the services you use. So, if you spend $1,000 on generating a list, then diligently call the people on the list, you can expect to produce 30 to 40 leads and hopefully convert one or two of those leads into sales. This is one of the most recommended real estate marketing tips to boost your business.
14. Newsletter: An Old-School Method to Drive Clients
A newsletter is a cost-effective medium for building relationships and maintaining regular contact with clients and prospects. The main purpose of the newsletter is to provide an appropriate amount of information, not a sale-driven.
Companies bombard Internet users with offers, sales, and promotions, hence it becomes annoying for the users. If you want the clients to open and read a newsletter, the content must be genuine and interesting – beyond an attempt to sell them products or services. Users are much more likely to open an email targeted to educate or entertain them, and this is accomplished in the subject line. But with that expectations comes the necessity to follow through on the subject’s promise.
Moreover, we should also use an email-based newsletter on a visually appealing template and include a call to action (CTA) that engages readers and converts leads into clients. If you have decided to add newsletter marketing in your real estate marketing strategy, then start creating killer newsletters now and drive leads for your business.
15. Develop Connections with Local Business
Developing relationships with local traders is one of the best ways to maintain and grow a successful real estate business. If it is done successfully, then you can become the household brand in the local area. This will help you to centralize your listings and sales close to home.
Establishing your business in one geographic area can make you a community expert – not just in the local real estate market. After some time, you’ll know the local residents and businesses better than your competition. As it is said, “your network is your net worth”.
Real estate is a people business. To promote yourself successfully and to attract leads and clients, you need to show them that you care about the local area and community. You need to take part in local events. Efforts will not only make you feel better and more engaged but will also make you stand out from the other agents and brokers who are not so involved in the life of the local community.
16. Take The Advantage Of Instagram Stories
Instagram stories have got a huge hype in 2019. In fact, the number of daily active users on Instagram stories has gone over 500 million. Now the question is how to use Instagram Stories to sell homes and expand your local brand recognition? Engagement is the ultimate key, so try to use features like polls and Q&A stickers in the stories.
Moreover, ask questions, use GIFs and make the content as easy and interesting to engage with as possible. The more people get in touch with you, the more they will remember you. As a result, it will award you with a more organic reach. You can also run contests and giveaways within Instagram stories.
For instance, ask the followers to post a story on their Instagram account writing some positive points about your business. Then request them to send a story screenshot through direct message. After that, surprise your followers by choosing one lucky winner. All in all, you just need to master how to engage people, this will make them come back for more, and you’ll win.
17. Consider Using a Chat Service
In this digital world, there are many challenges that new and established entrepreneurs have to face while setting up and growing their websites and trying to make it more profitable. There are various types of tools designed to help entrepreneurs meet the challenges. Among these tools, “Live Chat Support” for the website is one of the great tools. It helps to win more customers and establish a stronger connection with them.
- 51% of customers say a business should be available 24/7: Yes, you got it right. That’s a big demand, but can be considered from a customer’s point of view. This can only be possible through a chat service.
- 92% of customers feel satisfied using live chat.
- 51% of customers like live chat for multitasking, and 21% of customers like live chat so they can shop while they are working.
It is essential to have a chat process because not everyone has a job or schedule easy for them to receive the phone and make a call. Working in real estate means both you and your clients are working outside of a standard 9-5. That’s the reason experts recommend implementing chat service in your real estate business plan.
18. Drive Clients with Retargeting Ads
In the past few years, retargeting has been a buzzword for a good reason. It is considered one of the effective real estate marketing ideas.
The concept behind retargeting is to bring visitors back to your site hoping to convert them into a client. Usually, clients intentionally take some extra time (months & years) before finally deciding to invest in real estate.
As a result, they’ll spend a lot of time using the web to look at the various options available for them on the Google search engine. This means it’s likely that they’ve visited your website several times to look at any available properties, which presents the perfect opportunity for retargeting.
Hence, you can design a landing page for your ads. Make sure you keep the page clean, including a brand logo, and information form, and a huge “call to action button”. The visitors coming back to your site through the ads have a higher possibility of converting. Overall, make the process simple for the clients so they can easily navigate to the final page.
19. Reviews Make Peoples Trust Your Business
Similar to the housing market, the real estate market has also transformed over the years. Gone are the days where people used to get attracted towards the newspaper offer ads, property magazines, or through the “Flat Sale Sign”. Nowadays, people are mostly inclined towards reviews.
For example, here are housing market predictions 2022 where you can know what will happen with this market next year.
In this digital world, reviews play an important factor in how customers shop. In fact, 97% of customers look for online reviews before making their purchase decision. After all, buying a home is not a small investment. Hence, your client will want to make sure that your real estate business is trustworthy.
Moreover, they also want to know if you have experience in selling many homes or properties. On these factors, they will decide if your business is dependable or not. You need to have a solid review management service and online strategy to make a great impact on buyers and to sell more properties.
20. Make Clients More Clear with 3D Property Tours
The merits of using 3D tours to drive real estate buyers have doubled over the years. If you are not using this technique in your business, then you are missing some great opportunities. There are convincing interactive tools that customers use to see what exactly they want in their dream home. 3D property tours are an alternative to the real estate videography technique.
Do you have a question “How are virtual tours useful for real estate agents like me?” Virtual tours attract qualified prospects and increase conversion rates on high-value properties. Here are some reasons to include a 3D virtual tour in your real estate business strategy.
- Using this technology, you can drive customers who are planning to invest in expensive properties from a foreign country or remote location. Here, buyers can directly click on the 3D views and see each part of the house. For instance, bedroom, kitchen, hall, patios, bathroom, etc.
- It will also allow the clients to comment on any aspect of the home. For instance, a client can ask a question related to the material used to build the countertop, floors, and many more. Being an agent or broker, you can provide feedback in real-time from the comfort of your office.
Related Article: Virtual Tours: Are They Worth It?
The Bottom Line
The competition for the real estate agents is very high, that’s the reason many real estate agents have already differentiated themselves by implementing creative ideas to promote and sell their properties faster and stay ahead of the competition.
Make sure you use the real estate marketing tips given above to make the most of your efforts. Even if you only apply a few of these marketing tactics at the initial stages, you will definitely see an upswing in your real estate business.
We hope this article will open your eyes to find new ideas and grow your business!
