The real estate industry can be a very lucrative and profitable industry to get into. But it’s also crowded. When real estate and marketing intersect, there is no time to waste on ineffective methods.
The vast majority of real estate agents fail within the first five years. Many businesses fail to scale because they cannot generate enough leads.
Real Estate Marketing Ideas
1. Target a Real Estate Niche
People trust realtors because they are seen as experts in the field of real estate. However, realtors often choose to specialize in one area instead of trying to do everything. For example, they might only work with residential properties, or just commercial properties, or just farm properties.
It can be tough to say no to a commission, but if you focus your branding on a particular niche, they will become experts in that area and stand out more.
A smaller group of potential customers will identify and connect with your brand if it is done correctly. And when the time comes for people to buy or sell, you will be one of the first they contact.
Of course, you’ll need to balance your niche recommendations against a few critical criteria, including:
- What is the potential for revenue within that niche? Are there enough opportunities to buy and sell?
- Average sale prices
- Market turnover rate
- How many other real estate agents are targeting the same market niche?
Types of Real Estate Marketing Niches
There are several ways to identify profitable real estate niches, but we have covered the five most common ways. Realtors can find and focus on their profitable niches by looking at the obvious division between commercial and residential real estate, or by considering other factors such as location, type of property, type of customer, and type of transaction.
Geographic Niches
This type of real estate niche is most common, as these realtors focus on a very specific local area. Your agent may focus on a smaller area in order to provide more specific services. This could include focusing on a school district or homes near water.
Demographic Niches
Instead of focusing on the homes that their customers are buying or selling, they are focusing on the buyers or sellers themselves. Your agency can develop targeted messaging for specific types of customers, such as empty nesters, divorcing couples, military families, or newlyweds, to reach them across all channels.
If you’re looking to target buyers in major cities, consider appealing to those who are willing to commute in order to find more affordable housing options just outside of the city limits.
Homestyle Niches
Who doesn’t love a Craftsman home? Surprisingly, plenty of people. Some people love Brownstones, others love Victorian architecture. A focus on a specific type of property, like estates, will likely result in fewer sales, but each sale will be for a higher value. This could result in increased competition for these properties, and bidding wars could ensue. If the focus is on fixer-upper homes, this could result in increased competition for these properties and bidding wars.
Lifestyle Niches
Which type of customer is the ideal target for the product? If you want to help your real estate clients, try to understand what stage of life they are in. This will help them figure out what is most important to them. Nearby nightlife, great schools, shopping, and public transportation are all things that could make an area appealing.
Feature & Function Niches
Some buyers focus on how they can use the property just as much as they focus on the home itself. There are a few niches your clients could explore if they want a hobby farm, a golf course home, a walkable community, or an eco-friendly home.
2. Schedule Email and Text Messages to Your Nurturing Clients
Do you still send every email and text message to your clients one at a time? Many of the messages you can send to clients still in the nurturing stage of their journey can be designed so that you stay in their thoughts. A CRM program can allow you to schedule automated messages rather than wasting time every day, so you can focus on clients that are ready to close.
3. Use Paid Lead Sources to A/B Test Marketing & Nurturing Ideas Quickly
Statistics can be tricky. If you got 100 leads, and closed 50 of them, that would be a 50% closing rate.
To see if a real estate marketing strategy is effective, you need leads. Lots and lots of leads. If you want to run a seller’s drip campaign, you will need to generate seller leads. You will need buyer leads if you want to run an SMS drip campaign to buyers.
Instead of working with a middleman, you can buy leads directly. Once you have a good number of leads, you can test different strategies with different sets of leads to see what works best.
4. Engage Former Clients With Experiential Marketing Instead of News & Ads
Why Experiential Marketing Will Work Better Than Facebook
Instead of sending potential clients a barrage of market news or pictures of your latest listing, try giving them an offline experience they’ll remember.
That’s right, OFFLINE.
In-person contact with former clients is much more valuable than Facebook posts, according to experienced brokers. When you meet with your friends and family in person, you stop being a distraction to them and become an actual person again.
You’ll Give Them Something to Talk About & Share
If that’s not enough to convince you to take your marketing offline more, studies have shown that your former clients will not only be more engaged, but are likely to share the experience you offer them on social media as well.
In fact, a recent study by the Event Marketing Institute found that 98% of consumers capture content (photos, videos) at live events, and 100% of those that do share it across social media.
In other words, what’s more likely to get shared by your past clients, do you think? Which would you rather watch: a video from a Saturday spent whale watching, beer tasting, or your latest market report?
You’ll Get More Engagement if You Plan Events Around Your Passion or Hobbies
It is easier to promote events you care about. The best way to plan events is to base them around your own interests and hobbies. Here are some ideas you can try:
- Organize a tour of a local historic neighborhood
- Set up a wine or beer tasting at a local micro brewery
- Host an end-of-season party for your local youth soccer team
- Run an educational seminar on a real estate or investing topic like Bitcoin
- Charter a fishing or whale-watching boat
- Organize a cleanup day at a local park or beach for charity
- Hire a local interior designer or professional organizer and host a class or decorating Q&A
- Hold informational seminars or mixers for first-time buyers
- Rent out a local bar and host a film showing
- Organize a kickball game and provide a box lunch & drinks
How Top Producing Agents Are Using Experiential Marketing
Need some real world inspiration? Each of these agents have utilized their passions and hobbies to create successful events that their former clients would enjoy.
Jeffrey Goodman, Halstead Property, New York City
Jeffrey Goodman, an agent from New York City, created historic walking tours with the help of a local tour guide. Goodman has a history degree from Vassar and loves Manhattan. With the name “Rediscovering New York”, Goodman advertises his tours to his email list and typically has more than seventy people attend each tour.
This person enjoys rediscovering New York and enjoys producing a TV show about it because it is a passion of theirs. They love showcasing New York’s different neighborhoods to people who want to experience them.
The proof lies in the CGI increase, which Goodman attributes to his tours.
Debbie Sonenshine, The Sonenshine Team, Atlanta
A top 1% agent of Coldwell Banker internationally, Debbie Sonenshine not only hosts great events for her local community, but also started a website called The Faces of Sandy Springs which profiles members of the community.
Chadwick Ciocci, Chilton and Chadwick, Connecticut
Chadwick Ciocci, the CEO of a global real estate concierge service called Chilton and Chadwick, runs seminars for first-time home buyers at high-end rental communities. He told us that these seminars help people become more educated consumers, and also give him a chance to engage with potential customers face-to-face. In order to ensure a packed room, he offers wine and cheese to potential clients along with his expert real estate knowledge.
Leanne Stella & Karen Gastiaburo, The Gastiaburo + Stella Team, Halstead New York City
Halstead Property’s Leanne Stella and Karen Gastiaburo use art events to brand their business.
The couple not only organizes and hosts art events for well-heeled Manhattan art lovers, but also donates a portion of their commissions to Public Art Uptown, a non—profit dedicated to installing art in public spaces.
So far, things are going well. The duo has gotten 2 high-end listings from their art events, one owned by an artist and one referred from an artist.
5. Sell the Lifestyle, Not the House
It is important that you help your clients to ensure that their messaging focuses on the underlying values and desires, even though your agency will not always be directly involved in developing the house listings. Sellers should make their homes look presentable to potential buyers by cleaning up and making any necessary repairs, just as buyers promise their clients when showing a home. The idea is that you should focus on things that make you feel emotion. For instance, people want:
- The perfect home
- Privacy
- A safe neighborhood
- A happy family
- A carefree life
It may be helpful to create a post format or set of best practices for describing the most notable features of a property so that realtors can do so quickly and easily. If you did this, it would make your marketing agency more unique than the others. Below are some real estate ad examples that are known to generate a lot of business.
6. Go Oldschool
There is too much competition online, so sending a physical letter to potential customers can help you reach a different, targeted group of people. There are many ways to get your message out there. This can be done by writing articles for community newspapers, creating direct-mail postcards, or using the tried and true door hanger method.
Word-of-mouth is especially useful in smaller, tight-knit communities. The typical consumer reached by this method is older, and may have less experience with technology but more money to invest in real estate. This target audience is also more likely to have more equity in their current homes. Another option for your clients, depending on how much money they are willing to spend, is investing in advertising on local radio or TV stations.
Then there are the classic billboard ads. The reason you see realtors dominating bus stops in every neighborhood is because they work hard. A great creative team at your ad agency can make your client’s message really stand out and become recognizable, almost like a local celebrity.
7. Network In the Wild
Think outside the box. Many professionals would like to use a real estate agent they have met in a work setting. You should get your business cards ready and have your clients meet you in person!
Do some research to find events that are likely to have your target market in attendance. Many referrals for real estate come from other agents. The selling agent might refer the potential client to the buying agent if they have established a connection.
8. Keep Your Website In Tip Top Shape
It is important to have SEO for real estate websites because it will help draw in clients. Make sure that the content on the site is localized and that the site is regularly updated to show that you are an expert in the field.
Here are 10 things to optimize your real estate websites:
- Perform an SEO audit to identify areas in need of improvement, and then implement changes to improve your website’s ranking.
- Optimize for search–especially local search.
- Optimize for mobile.
- Make sure to add your site to relevant local directories such as Google My Business and Yelp.
- Make sure your website is ADA accessible to appeal to a wider range of customers and improve your SEO.
- Connect your social media accounts to build authority.
- Publish compelling articles on your website.
- Your website should include videos, like Q&A, virtual tours, and open house videos.
- Generate structured data for your website that will show rich snippets in search results. This will allow users to get a better sense of what your website is about before they click on the result.
- Google Local Services Ads can help you connect with local customers who are looking for the services you offer.
9. Work on a Seamless Brand Image
People in the real estate industry claim that the three most important factors in selling property are location, location, and location. In real estate marketing, branding is key. Consider your brand when creating marketing materials, and be sure to target your audience with laser precision.
Focus on the most important decision-making criteria most buyers and sellers have when picking a real estate agent:
- Market knowledge
- Engagement level
- Honesty
- Accessibility
And make sure to address the deal-breakers:
- Poor communication
- Lack of care or urgency
10. Write Copy With Heart
People buying or selling homes are stressed. They want to have their problems solved, and fast. You want to look smart, honest, and professional, and to show that you are capable of solving problems. The people you are hoping to attract as customers want to see that there are real people behind the company and not just people who are only interested in making money. The best language is the simplest and most direct.
