If you’re just starting out in the real estate industry as an agent or are a seasoned veteran, there are always things you can do to improve how you market yourself to potential customers. While there are many tried and true methods, here’s a list of 6 tips to help keep your marketing fresh for 2014. After all, success as a real estate agent is really measured by your ability to market yourself effectively.
Real Estate Marketing Ideas
1) Figure Out The Type Of Customer You Want
Do you know the type of customer you’re trying to attract? If your answer was anybody and everybody that’s probably not the right answer. As the old saying goes, being a Jack Of All trades makes you a master of none. This definitely applies to your real estate business. While it may sound like a great idea to grab any and all business that comes your way, it’s better to find your market niche that plays to your strengths are a real estate agent. Are you someone who specializes in first time homebuyers? Target your marketing efforts towards that niche and own it.
2) Devote A Day To Marketing
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to making your business a success is actually putting aside time to market your business. Being a real estate agent your need to have a focus on many other aspects of your business, but without a clear plan to grow your client base you’re unlikely to grow your business at all.
Pick a day in your week and devote a few hours to investigating, planning or applying new marketing strategies. For a lot of people Mondays work for this kind of task. It’s usually the day of the week people are least likely to want to be bothered, so it gives you some time to focus on how you can expand your business and generate more leads.
3) Boost Your Internet Presence
It’s 2014, you definitely need a quality web presence. While most real estate brokerages have their own web presence they aren’t always focused on growing your business. Having your own website is very important as that should serve as your information hub when it comes to your business. A website is your online business card, where a prospective lead can passively check out what you have to offer without committing one way or the other. Your website is your sales tool, drive customers there using all your other marketing mediums, be they bus, print ad or through social media, you want people going to your website where you can capture that lead.
Having a website that is mobile friend is key, as in the US mobile usage has officially overtaken the desktop when it comes to internet usage. So having an online presence that is easy to use on both desktop and mobile is key. If you’ve caught someone’s interest enough to visit your site, make sure you’re delivering them the best experience on their chosen platform.
4) Stop Cold Calling
Cold calling is something that may have worked in the past, but in recent years has become a much thornier issue with the establishment of Do Not Call Registry legislation in both the United States and Canada. There are many hoops you have jump through to be compliant when it comes to cold calling and in many cases you may be annoying people more than generating potential real estate leads.
While there are whole generations of people who were raised with the telephone, usage as a whole is declining as people either move to mobile only and cancel their traditional landlines. The phone call is no longer the best way to market yourself or your business and in a lot of ways people find the telephone rude and intrusive to their lives. While most consumers have smartphones nowadays, consider less obtrusive ways of marketing to them.
5) Drive traffic With Paid Social Media Advertising
While using social media has started to incur cost when it comes running your business, it has become an amazing resource for targeting advertising. For years companies like Google and Facebook have been trying to learn as much as they possibly can about their users in an effort very specifically be able to target advertising.
Facebook’s ad platform allows you to target geographically within a certain radius and to users with certain area. Say your market niche is helping Baby Boomers downsize, you could rather easily target this group using criteria like age, family, education and interests to narrow down the type of client you are looking to connect with. Your budget to advertise can be dollars a day and can give you returns far better than carpet bombing with expensive direct mail campaigns.
6) Start A Referral Program
Give past clients and your list of contacts an incentive to refer business to you. Be it monetary, a gift card or some other type of incentive people like to be rewarded and this can be what gets your next client. Create a page on your website outlining your offer, mention it on your business card and add some info about your referral program to your email signature. Incentivizing is a great way of differentiating yourself from your competition when it comes to your next lead.
Have any other tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments.
James has been working since 2010 as a web designer for Lone Wolf. He has been blogging for almost as long as there has been blogging. James is part of the organizing committee for the upcoming Ignite Popup event coming to Cambridge in 2014.
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