Marketing a real estate agency has always meant engaging in one of the toughest niches online. The reason for the high level of competition is the high level of return for those who can win in this real-life game of Monopoly.
A competitive According to a 2018 National Association of Realtors (NAR) study, 87% of home buyers still purchase homes through a property agent. This proves that there’s still demand for agents, despite the online world making purchasing homes more convenient.
Obviously, if you want to reach out this 87 % of prospects, you need to market yourself. To successfully reach out to your target clientele, check out these 20 creative real estate marketing tactics, and try out as many ideas as you see fit with your real estate business.
1. Venture into experiential marketing to build an emotional connection
This concept revolves around inviting potential clients to participate in your events in an attempt to build a positive brand experience for them with your business.
Here are some experiential marketing ideas you can include in your marketing lineup:
- Bring food trucks, music equipment, or a bounce house for the kids on your open house tours.
- Host a BBQ party or a cocktail night in the property you’re listing. Just be sure to ask the seller for permission.
- Put together a free local tour of the interesting points in the area.
2. Make your website easy to explore, either on desktop or mobile view
Studies have shown that 79% of website visitors leave website when they can’t easily find the information they’re looking for there, especially with mobile sites. This is why website design is a crucial factor in your marketing responsibilities.
You must prioritize making your website easy to navigate, even if it means using simple web design. The flow of information should easily walk leads through the next part of your website you want them to visit.
For example, on your homepage, you can provide a summary of what you do, what properties you’re selling, and your experience as a real estate agency.
Then include a call-to-action button for each, like a See properties for sale here button for the part where you tell visitors what you’re selling.
3. Give away some valuable knowledge for free
Everybody loves learning more about their problems or industries for free. And in terms of your business, free knowledge giveaways can help you build loyalty, establish authority, and increase brand awareness.
Here are some ideas for knowledge freebies (commonly known as lead magnets) you can give away:
- 20-page ebooks about beginner tips for property investments
- A checklist of all duties to be done before selling your home
- A compilation of results from your study about a trend in real estate (ex. market trend of bungalow homes in your farm area)
You can use them as attractive perks to your landing pages, where website visitors must provide their names and email addresses first before they can download these freebies.
Free tools are also great if they help your target market. Here’s one we love: eXp Realty Home Search. eXp Realty Home Search is an online search platform allowing users to search for properties listed by eXp Realty agents. The platform provides users with access to a comprehensive database of properties available for sale, rent, or lease.
Users can search for properties based on various criteria such as location, price range, property type, and more. The platform also provides users with detailed property information, including property features, images, virtual tours, and other relevant details to help them make informed decisions.
Users can save their favorite properties, schedule appointments, and connect with eXp Realty agents directly from the platform. You can access the eXp Realty home search here and find a convenient tool that will enable home buyers, renters, and investors to find their desired properties with ease.
4. List Snapchat as one of your go-to social media platforms
The competition here on Snapchat is not yet saturated compared to Facebook and Instagram, but the population of potential clients here is huge, especially the millennial demographic.
One amazing feature of Snapchat worth checking out is the geofilter feature, where you can customise a filter that matches your business. It’s only usable when people are in the specified location of your filter.
You can use these filters for your behind-the-scenes photos, “just listed” announcements and open-house tours.
5. Become the local expert through all-local newsletters
Feed your email with titbits of local news, updates, and features. Has a business opened recently in your area? Feature them on your local guide series.
Are there any notable locals living in your area who have special stories they’ve encountered during their long stay in the neighbourhood? Share their stories in the newsletter.
You can also include personal recommendations here, such as the best places to visit during a specific season/holiday and the best people/businesses to call for home renovations, constructions, and repairs.
6. Check out Instagram Stories
Quick updates, special announcements, and time-sensitive posts you want to prioritize are better placed in your Instagram Stories than your feed. They don’t drown in the millions of photos posted on the platform daily, and they stay on top of people’s feeds for 24 hours!
You can also celebrate a newly-purchased property with your clients here, with a photo of you and your clients in front of the property. Don’t forget to tag them too.
7. Dedicate a Pinterest board for every listing you have
Pinterest is also a good platform to share your content and listings, with 250 million active users and Pins having an average three-and-a-half-month lifespan.
You can create boards for each of your listings and categorise per specific area of your listing, theme, or price. Then, you can create sub-boards for each property that falls into the category, complete with details of the property and a link that directs to a specific landing page.
8. Establish good PR with the media by being a reliable source for journalists
You can register as a source on this website called Help A Reporter Out.
You answer questions from journalists working on real estate articles, and in exchange for your answer, they’ll credit you as a source in the article with a link back to your website.
9. Include VR tours of your properties on your website
Virtual reality video tours give a more personalised view of the properties you’re selling instead of static photos.
The property is laid in 3D view in these tours, with an interactive floor plan by the side. Leads can interact and inspect any areas of the property that pique their interests.
10. Send a New Homeowner’s Care Package to recent buyers
Your relationship with clients doesn’t stop with the buying part. You need to nurture them if you want more repeat clients and referrals for your real estate business.
For the recent buyers, you can send them a care package on their first week in their new home/property, which can include:
- A list of contact details for electricians, repairmen, hardware stores, and other local establishments
- A local map highlighting interesting and important points in the community
- A package full of home supplies, toiletries, and toys or art supplies for their kids
11. Evaluate your competitor’s online marketing strategies
Which of their posts and content receive a lot of attention from their followers and visitors? List them down, then extract ideas from these content to serve as your reference when making marketing materials in the future.
If you’re lucky, you can also find tips from people in the comments section on how to improve your services and marketing efforts as a property agent.
12. Build relationships with local businesses in your farm area
You can work out some partnership deals with businesses in your farm area. For example, you can partner with a local diner where they’ll allow you to buy their supplies and dinnerware with a small logo of your agency.
In exchange, you can distribute meal vouchers to your followers, email list, and even previous clients through a contest.
13. Pay attention to online reviews about your real estate business
One survey discovered that 86% of customers read reviews before transacting with a business, and it takes an average of 10 reviews to build loyalty with a business.
So check out the feedback/comments you’re receiving on listing sites like Zillow, or on your Google My Business or Facebook page. Thank those who left positive comments, and address issues from negative ones.
You can also use social listening tools like Hootsuite to efficiently monitor people’s comments/feedback about you on social media.
14. Let people visualise their life in your property through videos
To do this, you can work with an influencer that matches your target clients.
You can shoot a lifestyle-type of video, showcasing a quiet life close to nature, or an exciting one with the bustle of the metro city in the background.
15. Send out visually-appealing, personalised postcards to residents in your farm area
You can send these small, single-page mailers to everyone in your farm area to gain more leads and increase brand exposure.
Some postcard ideas where you can unleash your creativity (be sure to include your complete contact details here):
- Just listed card, complete with front view photos, basic details of the listing, and your contact details in the back
- Just sold postcard, with details of the property and the names of the new neighbours in the area
- Expired listings postcard, including a creative and/or humorous copy to convince people with expired listings to hire you as their new agent
- Open house postcards, with full where and when details and your best photo of the listing
- Free-offer postcards, like a free home valuation session
16. Incorporate drone shots to your visual marketing for that added luxury vibe
If you’ve got the extra marketing budget and your target clients include people with luxurious lifestyles, drone photography is a good option for you.
You can highlight the amenities of your listings in a cinematic way, either in aerial view or up close, with professionally-captured drone shots.
17. Include eye-catching furniture items before listing it
Give more life to your newly-added property by adding some interior decors, particularly those that catch people’s interest at first glance.
Aside from the added personality of the property, people will have an easier reference when inquiring about it. How much is that two-story house with the retro wallpapers? Is the bungalow house with the ethnic elephant statue still available?
18. Focus on targeting your ads locally
In real estate, local is the name of the game. That’s why you need to invest in locally-targeted ads and keywords, those that put your website on top when people search for properties or agent in your area.
You can save more with this strategy since only those actively looking for properties and agents in your area will click through the ads.
19. Enhance your landing pages with home valuation tools
Aside from freebies, one of the best lead magnets out there are these home valuation tools. You can dedicate a small space in your website for this, or include a pop-up, where people can enter their address and click the “Get Home Value” button next.
But before they get their results, they’ll need to provide you with their email ads, promising them to send the results via email.
With this strategy, you lead a potential client through the sales funnel and include a subscriber willing to digest your future email content.
20. Let your business’ mission shape your marketing efforts
“People don’t buy what you do. They buy WHY you do it.”
These wise words from Simon Sinek prove that people buy more than a product/service. They’re likely to support your business when they see you supporting a cause.
Shape your marketing strategies to show your target customers you have a mission aside from getting sales. Is it to raise awareness about property investment? Is it to help nurture your local community?
With these creative real estate marketing tactics, creating a marketing plan won’t be as frustrating and puzzling as it was before.
But marketing doesn’t end with just the implementation part. Be sure to evaluate your results and analyse your key metrics to determine which strategies work for you finally!
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