In order to establish yourself as a successful realtor in the market, you need to find ways to stay ahead of your competition. With the right marketing tactics, you can maximize your business opportunities and position yourself as a reliable real estate agent in the market. If you want to earn new business and expand your client list, there are several ways to market yourself in the real estate industry.
Create a Personal Brand
You need to build a reputation as a realtor if you want success. Reputation helps you create a personal brand. In other words, it establishes your credibility as a real estate agent and separates you from your peers. Real estate personal branding identifies your USP, which no one else can offer. Here’s what you can do to position yourself as a trusted authority in the real estate industry.
Start by identifying the unique skills, expertise, or qualities that set you apart from other real estate professionals. Your unique value proposition will help you develop a compelling brand message that your target audience can resonate with. You need to communicate the advantages and value you offer as a real estate agent. It takes time and consistent effort to create a strong personal brand. So, start working towards building trust and credibility with clients.
Leverage Social Media Platforms
As you start building a reputation as a real estate agent, you will need a strong online presence to maintain it. Social media platforms have made it easier for professionals like you to stay connected with clients and other prospects while showcasing your expertise, achievements, and the unique value you have to offer. Through social media platforms, create useful and relevant content that helps engage with your target audience and drive them to your website.
Before jumping on the social media bandwagon, you need to figure out which social media platform(s) align with your individual marketing goals. While Facebook and Instagram can help you stay in touch with regular posts, live videos, stories, and more, LinkedIn lets you make connections and build relationships in the professional sphere. If you are interested in creating entertaining or informative video content, TikTok and YouTube are the right platforms for you.
Once you have found the right platform for your real estate business, you need to use social media advertising, such as Facebook ads and Google Ads, to your advantage. Also, post interactive content in the form of contests, polls, quizzes, etc., to engage with your audience.
Utilize Video Marketing
A majority of homeowners and potential home-buyers are likely to do business with real estate agents who use video for listing. Videos also help the buyers get a better idea about the property before they get a physical tour of it. Moreover, you can engage with your target audience by posting videos on expert tips, customer testimonials, live Q&A sessions, and more. Basically, videos can help you market your property listings and services better to your prospects.
A recent study suggests that property listings with videos get 403% more inquiries than properties without any video listings. This is because your potential clients can get a quick look at the property you are selling. Moreover, the video allows you to showcase highlighted areas and amenities of the building or property that impress the leads.
Besides the listing videos, you can use social media videos to promote your personal brand. You can also promote informative videos where you share quick facts about the property, the neighborhood, and more.
Host Virtual Open Houses
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that we do not always need to get out of our homes to accomplish certain tasks. It was also the time when virtual meetings became a norm. The real estate sector continues to take advantage of virtual staging and house tours – which makes the job of realtors a lot easier. Instead of inviting interested buyers to explore the property physically, you can now host open houses with a personalized virtual tour and answer their questions in real-time.
You can send out invitations via social media, email, and newsletters. Since people can attend the virtual tour from their homes, there is less chance of someone missing it. Moreover, you can enjoy a number of benefits by shifting to virtual open houses from physical ones.
- It delivers greater convenience to the buyers.
- It lets you stand out on an online platform.
- You can avoid instances of cancellation.
- Get the property out in front of more prospects.
- Save more time by inviting everyone to a single virtual tour.
- Get more inquiries about the property.
Collaborate with Local Influencers
If you are still new in the real estate business and do not have enough experience in marketing your brand all by yourself, you should consider collaborating with local influencers. Since these influencers know the area where you are selling property, they can be quite helpful in promoting your marketing campaigns by sharing their personal experience and knowledge. Moreover, when the prospects hear about certain properties from a familiar face, they tend to find it more trustworthy.
Another great thing about these local influencers is that they can help you reach a wider and more targeted audience. Besides, such public figures help you build a positive image for your real estate business by sharing their testimonials and experiences about your properties. And since these influencers have a significant number of followers, they can help drive more traffic to your website and social media accounts by linking them to your listings or contact details in their stories or posts.
Remember to collaborate with influencers who are right for your niche. Unless the influencer has a relevant audience for your properties, the collaboration may not work. Once you have shortlisted the right set of people to collaborate with, set the goals and expectations before getting started.
Create a Podcast or Webinar Series
This is a great time to start a podcast, as its popularity is at an all-time high. Publishing informative content as a realtor can help you connect with your target audience as your content allows them to learn, stay informed, and be entertained. Since podcasts only engage their auditory senses, users can consume the content while doing their regular chores and tasks. Since most people these days have a busy schedule, podcasts are more effective as a medium for marketing.
You can start a podcast that covers a variety of real estate topics, starting from market trends to advice for first-time buyers. With well-scripted content, you can reach a wider audience and establish yourself as a thought leader in the real estate industry. The casual and conversational style of podcasts will allow you to connect with your audience and build credibility and trust, which can lead to new business.
Alternatively, you can create a webinar series that you can co-host with a local lender, staging service provider, or title company. There are plenty of topics that can interest your target audience. You can use a series of webinars to offer unique insights and information on such topics, attracting more potential clients. Also, co-hosting a webinar helps you increase your reach in the local market.
Offer Free Home Staging or Design Consultations
Everybody loves free services and professional suggestions. The real estate market is not different. If you want to market your own brand as a real estate agent, consider giving away free services like home staging or design consultations to your clients. Home staging and design consultations will help your potential clients to envision themselves in the property. Since home staging makes the property look more move-in-ready, the chances of selling the property improve significantly.
Apart from staging, you can also delight your potential clients with design consultations for specific properties. Since you already have prepared a virtual tour of the property, you can add design elements to the virtual property and allow the prospects to understand how beautiful the interior may look if they choose to implement the suggestions. This tactic helps you boost the appeal of the property as you continue marketing your personal brand among the clients.
Develop a Referral Program
As an individual realtor, finding the right clients on your own can be a huge challenge during the initial phase of your real estate career. This is where referrals can be extremely helpful. A majority of clients find their real estate agents through referrals from friends and family. If you aren’t asking your contacts and clients for referrals, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to market your brand. When you have made a sale, nurture relationships with those clients and leverage referrals, as they can be a powerful source of new business.
Apart from asking everyone in your network for referrals, you can make it more interesting for your clients and other connections by offering something useful in return. A good referral program generally offers attractive rewards such as discounts on services offered, monetary rewards, free trial offers, or exclusive access to new listings. You can talk about these referral programs in your social media posts, podcasts, or in newsletters, and emails.
Engage with Local Community Organizations
Partnering with local community organizations for cross-promotion and joint events can improve your reach within the community. As you increase your exposure with such collaborations, you are also able to support the local economy. You need to identify businesses that share your client base or values and then propose collaborative initiatives that can benefit both parties. Such partnerships can significantly increase your community engagement.
Moreover, you can support local events through sponsorships, which is a strong gesture that connects your brand to positive community experiences. You can choose events that resonate with your brand and community’s values. Sponsorship opportunities help you increase your visibility and also allow you to have meaningful interactions with community members. Reach out to event organizers to understand how you can contribute and decide if your participation adds real value to the event and its attendees.
Create Informative Blog Content
While you build relationships in your local community, you also need to find ways to promote your brand on the internet. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to do it. As long as you are able to create optimized content for search engine optimization, there is a higher chance that your content may show up in prospect search results. Before choosing the blog topics, you will have to spend some time finding the right search terms and keywords your target audience is looking for. This may help you find fresh topics that can help bring qualified leads.
You can demonstrate industry expertise using your blog content. Such content can also be a great outlet for sharing advice for potential clients, industry news, and major events. As you can build credibility and trust within the community with well-written blogs, you should also consider improving the user experience on your website so that people who come to your website to read the blogs can easily explore other offerings on the site.
Use Innovative Print Advertising
While it is important to explore all the trending marketing tactics to establish your brand in the market, you should also consider leveraging the traditional advertising media for your real estate business. Print advertising and billboards are still effective and can be more effective than digital marketing efforts in certain areas.
Since a real estate agent needs to promote their brand in the local market, traditional advertising works best for them. You can target specific geographic areas and promote local property listings using print ads. Instead of treating conventional advertising and digital marketing as two separate strategies, you can combine both to increase brand awareness.
In-Store Advertising
Lastly, you should consider incorporating in-store advertising in your marketing strategies to find qualified leads in a specific geographic location. Grocery stores, supermarkets, and other major stores that witness a massive number of footfalls every day can be great places to find potential clients. You can use in-store advertising to convert those prospects to qualified leads.
Once you identify the stores that your potential customers may visit on a regular basis, you need to talk to the store managers and partner up for the advertising campaign. You have several options to consider.
- Grocery cart advertising
- Checkout stand advertising
- Grocery divider advertising
- Bench advertising
These well-placed advertisements can help your personal brand gain a significant amount of visibility. Also, repeatedly targeting your potential customers can help you cut through the noise of the competition.
The shopping cart advertising program at Indoor Media lets you build brand awareness and trust among your customers. With personalized cart advertising strategies, you can achieve local celebrity status. This strategic approach also helps you assure your customers that they are choosing a reliable, long-standing community member and not a fly-by-night organization with shopping cart advertisements.
Bottom Line
While it may be a good idea to hire a real estate advertising agency to help you with your marketing efforts, some of these aforementioned strategies do not require third-party support. With the right execution of these marketing ideas, you can entice potential customers and attract them to your services. But before you start working on these ideas, make sure they align with your marketing goals.
By Eric Shafer