Social Media Marketing
At some point in life, most people start renting or planning to buy a house if they’re lucky. As a real estate agent (or agency), you strive to make their dreams come true by finding the right home for your client’s needs and budget.
To do so effectively, you need to be armed with powerful real estate marketing ideas and a solid business plan.
No matter if you’re just starting your real estate business or have been in the market for years, you need reliable and practical real estate marketing ideas to showcase your listings and get more leads.
Most real estate agents have learned the hard way that plain descriptions of properties no longer work. If you want your success to last, you’ll need to be more proactive with your business plan and more creative with your advertising.
Statistics show that 92% of buyers use the internet to start their house-hunting journey. Once you learn how to harness the enormous potential of digital marketing, your real estate business will begin its exponential growth.
We have gathered some of the best ideas for your real estate marketing plan to help you promote your business as a real estate agent. Now grab your planner, and let’s get started!
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Use the Power of Photography
Photos are by far the easiest and fastest way to get people’s attention. You could use long texts or presentations to describe how exceptional your property is, but not everyone will be willing to read the entire text.
Photos are one of the most useful real estate marketing tools, and they’re the first thing home seekers expect to see when they view a listing. A good photo can be more descriptive than a thousand words. The quality and sharpness of your images play a huge part in determining whether your viewers decide to explore your listing or scroll right through it.
Photos of poor quality can make even the most luxurious houses look unappealing. If your budget allows it, hire a professional photographer to help you out with this responsible task. But if you have an eye for right angles and lighting, you can take it upon yourself to photograph the properties you’re presenting.
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Make It Dynamic With Videos
When it comes to promoting any kind of product or service online, photos are great, but videos are even better! A well-made video allows you to communicate a lot of information without it being too overwhelming or difficult for viewers to follow. This makes videos a perfect tool for marketing your real estate business.
If you want to increase engagement on your listings, you should make use of both well-captured photos and dynamic videos. There are a lot of ways to use videos for marketing. Your clients will surely appreciate video walkthroughs, as those are a much more accurate representation of a house compared to stagnant images.
Aside from making a walkthrough video, you can also try video slideshows for your listing. A video slideshow is an excellent option if you don’t have much time or the right equipment to shoot a professional video. The only thing required of you is to put together the photos you have already taken, and voilà — you have a brand-new slideshow!
To squeeze extra information into your slideshow video, you can add a voice-over and give more details about the house and its benefits.
Lastly, another type of video that should be included in your real estate video marketing strategy is an explainer. Explainer videos are short clips that introduce your business to prospective clients. They describe your services in an engaging way and are highly efficient in promoting your real estate business.
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Go Live on Social Media
It’s no secret that if you want to build a successful online presence, your name should appear online often and in the right places. Social media is the perfect place where you can instantly reach out to millions of people and introduce your services. It’s crucial to make social networks part of your real estate marketing plan if you haven’t already.
An excellent social media tool that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and is often underutilized by businesses is video live stream. Can live streaming be useful in selling real estate? It surely can. Let’s see how.
Apart from letting us share bigger parts of our lives with an audience, live streams can also be used for marketing purposes. And that’s because people tend to react surprisingly well to live content. Live content is unedited and more authentic. Viewers feel like they are right there at the live event, which encourages them to pay closer attention to what’s being shared.
Typically, Facebook is the best platform for real estate live streams. But you can utilize other platforms as well, depending on where your audience is most active.
Make sure you have at least a few live stream tours for different properties. As the video above suggests, there are a few steps you need to take before going live, such as setting up your gear, testing the internet connection, and so on.
Once you start streaming, walk around the house and discuss its benefits as you do. You can also answer some questions that may arise in the comments.
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Interact With Users on Social Networks
The most effective way to make your audience feel involved in your brand is to engage them in active discussions. You can do so on social media networks or online forums. Platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Reddit, and more specialized real estate forums are a great medium to connect to a community of buyers, sellers, and renters.
Source: Reddit
Commit to getting back to any questions and comments you receive or come across on social platforms. By providing valuable, reliable information to people interested in real estate, you’ll establish yourself as a credible business.
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Do Virtual Reality Tours
With the growth of technology and its role in marketing, incorporating virtual reality tours for open houses is gaining more popularity among real estate agents.
You can’t always take all your clients to an open house, and some buyers might want to see more than just photos or videos. This is where virtual reality steps in. VR tours are tempting in and of themselves and will help you stand out as a real estate agent. They will also ensure your customers that there won’t be any twisting in insurance and will build trust for your company.
Let your potential buyers virtually take a tour of the house they’re interested in before they get the chance to pay a personal visit. Making a virtual reality tour might sound confusing if you haven’t dealt with it before. But with today’s technology, it’s more accessible than you might think.
How to make a VR tour for your clients? First, you’ll need to buy a 360 camera to shoot your videos with. Check out the video below for a step-by-step guide on how to work with those cameras.
If you want to make a memorable impression on your clients, consider creating a VR catalog of all your open houses and let buyers take a VR tour any time they wish through your website.
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Register in Online Business Directories
Buyers often turn to local business listings to find suggested companies, so make sure your real estate business appears on those websites. You can start with the big ones like Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, Facebook, LinkedIn Company Directory, etc. Next, target business directories that are more niche to your industry or area.
Source: Google My Business
There’s no shortage of business listing websites. Pick the ones that are popular among businesses similar to yours. Having business directories link to your website will increase the latter’s authority for search engines.
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Tell Stories
They say it is easier to fall in love with a house if it has a story behind it. Let’s say right before buying a house you find out that it previously belonged to a celebrity you admire, or that the land the house is built on has historical significance. Wouldn’t you be more excited to move into that place? The answer is almost always a resounding yes!
Here is a perfect example of this. In 2009, Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn bought 100 extremely cheap objects and asked 100 writers to create a fictional story for each one. The results exceeded all expectations. After adding the stories to the objects, the 100 items worth $128.74 in total were sold for $3,612.51. This sounds absurd, but nonetheless, it is true. Imagine what can happen if you tell the story of a house worth $500,000.
This interesting case study only goes to prove that we, as humans, are strongly attracted to stories. So if there’s a unique story connected to the property you’re selling, make sure it gets told. Stories are not tangible, but the value they bring certainly is.
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Present the Surrounding Area
Every successful real estate agent knows that they’re never just selling a house; they’re also selling its neighborhood. The surrounding area of any real estate property adds to its story. Always let your clients know about the nearby schools, museums, parks, restaurants, bus stops or metro stations, etc.
The key is to not only tell but also show the area. Whether it’s a photo or video, make sure the footage accompanying your listing includes some aerial shots. Fly a drone around the neighborhood to capture it in its totality. This is a great way to attract quality leads that will be interested in the area.
Photo by Matt Donders on Unsplash
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Create a Functional Website
Having a website is much like having an office in the online world. It’s a one-stop shop where your clients can expect to learn credible information about your real estate business. You can use your online platform to showcase listings, offer consultancy, and talk about your background as an agent or agency. Don’t forget to include your contact details and other social media channels as well.
Already have a website? Great! But how functional is your site? Can your visitors effortlessly navigate your menu and quickly find what they’re looking for? It’s crucial that you have an intuitive navigation menu that’s simple to work with. Otherwise, you’re running the risk of losing potential clients.
If web design and development are not your forte, and you don’t have the funds to hire a professional, there’s an easy solution for you. You can use ready-made templates to build your real estate business website by just adding your text, images, contacts, and anything else you need.
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Optimize Your Website
Creating a real estate website is only the first step of building your online presence. Next on your agenda should be to optimize the site for search engines and your visitors. First things first, make sure that your website navigation is intuitive and user-friendly.
Have a well-designed landing page in place that will guide your first-time visitors and answer their queries. Also, keep in mind that a large segment of your guests will likely be using their mobile phones, so make your website fully compatible with mobile.
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Offer Knowledge to Your Audience
One of the most effective ways to build an audience organically is to share valuable knowledge. It can be real estate news, market analysis, guides for first-time homebuyers, an ebook, so on and so forth.
If people find your information useful, they’ll gravitate toward you. It’s the ultimate win-win scenario, where you offer your expertise and gain your audience’s trust in return.
There are a ton of ways to put this idea into practice, both online and offline. If you choose to go with the former, blog articles, webinars, and social media posts are your best friends. Consider incorporating a blog on your website and consistently putting out high-quality content. Some real estate SEO services can actually help you with that. Content marketing is great way to drive traffic to your site.
Source: The New York Times
Your offline options can range from doing seminars and interviews to organizing public events and meetups. Hosting or even taking part in real estate events will allow you to make new connections and expand your social circle.
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Build a Presence on Real Estate Websites
If you’re just getting started with your real estate business and don’t have a large client base, real estate websites are exactly what you need. Having a profile on popular websites will allow you to connect to thousands if not millions of homebuyers and renters.
The leading real estate website for buyers, renters, and realtors is Zillow. The platform hosts 36 million unique visitors per month, which makes it ideal for promoting your real estate business. You should not only create a basic profile on Zillow but also fully complete it with all the necessary information about your real estate business.
Make sure your profile shows your bio, recent sales, active listings, and contact details. You can also include an explainer or real estate promo video. Reviews and ratings play a significant part in building up a strong Zillow profile. Ask your clients for testimonials, as good reviews will help to establish your authority as a real estate business or agent.
Source: Alex Kogan on Zillow
Trulia and Realtor are also great real estate websites with huge traffic that will give you instant access to millions of people looking to buy or rent a home.
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Encourage Referrals
Happy customers are your best ambassadors. Once you strike a successful deal with a client, ask them for a referral. If they’re satisfied with your services, chances are they’ll be more than willing to refer your business to their friends.
It’s crucial that you nurture your relationships with clients even when the transaction is over. You don’t have to go over the top and repeatedly disturb them, but a small gift after the transaction or an occasional holiday greeting card would be fitting.
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Run Paid Ads
Online advertising is often the quickest way to spread brand awareness and introduce your real estate business to a broader audience. Both Zillow and Trulia allow paid advertisements. Besides those two, you can use social networks like Facebook and Instagram to run your ads.
Source: Zillow
Keep in mind that targeted ad campaigns tend to perform better. Luckily, most platforms give you the opportunity to narrow down your audience based on location and demographics. Plan and select your target audience carefully and always keep track of the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
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Start an Email Newsletter
An excellent way to boost customer loyalty is to implement email marketing. It helps to build lasting relationships with clients and keep them aware of your business news. Your website is a great place to start collecting email subscribers. You can offer users a freebie in exchange for their email addresses. It can be a free template, ebook, discount, special offer, etc.
Once you do acquire the email address of a prospect, send relevant emails that will be of value to them. You can even personalize the emails based on demographic, behavioral, or any other data you have in your possession. Don’t spam your subscribers with incessant information or irrelevant offers; otherwise, it’s fairly easy to unsubscribe from an unwanted newsletter.
To Sum Up
It’s time to enliven your business with fresh and powerful real estate marketing ideas. If you are interested in showcasing your listings in a way that will attract more attention, try implementing the tips and tricks mentioned in this article.
Build a professional website, take advantage of real estate platforms, and don’t forget to serve high-quality content to your audience. These simple tips will help you become more effective in assisting your clients on their journey from a homebuyer to a homeowner.
The way you present your business to customers shapes their perception of you. A well-made real estate promo will help to present your services in a professional light. You can create your promo online using customizable templates.
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