It’s difficult to come up with real estate marketing ideas every day that meet each of these criteria: unique, original, and remarkable. This is especially true when you spend a lot of your time on the road meeting with clients and leads.
The best way to fix marketing fatigue is to be different from the competition. This can be done by focusing on your website, SEO, email marketing, paid advertising, and social media content.
This guide is divided into sections to make it easy to find what you’re looking for. Click on the links to jump to a specific topic of interest.
Build a Rock Solid Marketing Foundation
The success of your real estate business depends on your ability to market to potential home buyers online. A large percentage of all home buyers, and nearly all Millennial buyers, start their search for properties online. If you want your business to be successful, you need to have a professional website.
As people look for houses, they want to find ones that are high quality and fit what they’re looking for. The perfect real estate agent for them would be someone who meets these needs. Tools that help you stand out include:
- Branded messaging and images
- Responsive design
- IDX integration
- Blog content
- Lead capture landing pages
- Area pages
A responsive brand provides customers with immediate understanding about who you are, your expertise, and how you can help them. A responsive website means that your pages load perfectly no matter what type of device your customers are using.
1. Build your brand, and make sure it’s consistent
While it’s understandable for sales-driven industries like real estate to focus on quick wins, it’s more beneficial to think long-term and invest in something else entirely: yourself, or more specifically, your brand.
Entrepreneur and marketing expert Gary Vaynerchuk advises:
It is significantly more advantageous to construct a brand so that people are attracted to you.
The National Association of REALTORS has found that 82 percent of agents who earned more than $150,000 last year had their own websites, in addition to the profile pages on their brokerages’ websites.
Having an effective brand can do a lot for your business, like helping you generate referrals.
The term “branding” comes from the practice of cattle ranchers using branding irons to identify their animals more than a century ago.
Branding today refers to the attributes that make a product or service different from its competitors. This could be something as simple as a logo or color scheme, but it could also include the way the company communicates, its writing style, and even its typography.
IDX allows you to integrate your listings into your website. This is useful because it allows potential homebuyers to see pictures of the houses you are selling. Good quality pictures are important in order to make your listings stand out and give potential homebuyers a clear idea of what the house will look like once they purchase it.
It’s important to figure out who you are as a business, who your target market is, and what makes you different. This will determine the look and feel of your real estate website, real estate flyers, listing presentations, and mailers.
2. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Almost half of all web page views worldwide come from mobile devices as of February 2019, according to Statista. This means that it is not a luxury to have your website optimized for mobile devices, but a requirement.
If you don’t make sure your website works well on mobile devices, it could have negative consequences for your business and your real estate marketing. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, Google says that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% will visit a competitor’s site instead.
If you have a poorly designed mobile site, 57% of users say they won’t recommend your business, according to socPub. That can really hurt your reputation.
If you don’t want your real estate business to look old-fashioned, you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Fortunately, this is easier than you might think, since many website builders are designed to be mobile-ready.
3. Film an explainer video that goes into detail about your agency.
Dress like Steve Jobs and record a video explaining your real estate services in a way that sets you apart from other agents in your market. Alternatively, pretend to be a political candidate and make a pitch to potential clients explaining why you’re the best person for the job. You could also take a cue from the TV show “Arrested Development” and make fun of terrible 1-800 lawyer commercials.
The purpose of these videos is to present your agency as successful and worth hiring by explaining your value proposition and what makes you successful. However, it is also important to remember that personality plays a role in influencing buyers and sellers, so have fun while still conveying essential information about your brand.
4. Provide a complimentary moving truck
If you want to be distinctive in your local market, purchase a moving truck and have your company’s branding printed on it. After your clients have bought or sold a property, offer to let them use the truck. Your business will get additional brand exposure and advertising each time the truck is used.
When you don’t have moving jobs lined up, get creative with where you park your truck. Take it to home shows or park it in high-traffic areas of town to benefit from all the foot and vehicle traffic.
5. Answer buyer/seller questions on your blog
An effective way to get ideas for blog content is to identify questions your target market is asking. Two tools help you find these lists of questions:
- Answer The Public
- People Also Ask
Answer The Public is a free tool that generates a list of questions based on your keyword search. For example, if you type in “los angeles homes”, the questions received from this search may include:
- Should I buy a los angeles home?
- How much is it to buy a los angeles home?
6. Add some flavor to your real estate video marketing.
Sending a holiday greeting email to your contacts is not as effective as blog posts and promotional email messages in nurturing your leads through the sales funnel. However, participating in widely celebrated local or national events can help humanize your brand.
At Modern Life Realty and ERA Justin Realty, the team has done something interesting with their video marketing technique. The man in the video speaks to the camera with whatever he’s wearing, which is different from most other marketing videos. The ERA Justin Realty team has taken advantage of the “Call Me Maybe” craze by making their own video. Although the craze is over, they were able to capitalize on it while it was popular.
Both parties involved took a risk, which is something you occasionally have to do with your real estate marketing strategy as these methods can often lead to large profits.
As well as creating outlandish videos, you could also conduct interviews with members of the public. The subjects of these videos could be about anything, not just restricted to your business or real estate. You could ask them philosophical questions, like what the meaning of life is, or get their opinion on a local college or professional sports team.
7. Develop a blog post or video series highlighting great area restaurants and entertainment.
For the modern home buyer, the top considerations are property price, size, style, and features. However, an increasingly important factor is living in a community with plenty of food and entertainment options.
There are many websites that offer reviews and details about movie theaters, restaurants, and similar businesses, but it can be difficult to sort through all of the information to find what you’re looking for. As a real estate agent, you have a lot of knowledge about your local area and can help people find the information they need.
Develop a series of blog posts and/or videos highlighting the best restaurants and businesses in your area for people who are interested in buying a home there.
Think of your favorite places to see a play or grab a bite with friends and write about why you love those places. You can share your opinions with the world, like REALTOR® Michelle Calkins does in her blog post series and REALTOR® David Gonzalez does in the YouTube clip below.
8. Order unique business cards that stand out.
Although technology has changed the way we do business, business cards will never go out of style. You will still have in-person meetings and meet-ups with buyers, sellers, and other industry professionals, so it’s crucial to have your information on hand to share with them. But a dull card that lists your business name and contact details in the smallest, plainest font won’t be memorable.
Why not break the mold and order some truly original business cards? These examples featured on ViralNova are definitely next-level.
It is important to research the best business card creation services as this can help you to create a memorable card which will make people think of you long after meeting you. This is especially important in today’s competitive market, where even small details can make a difference.
9. Incorporate your pet into some of your real estate listing photos.
A study showing that pictures of animals on real estate websites generally don’t bother potential home buyers and can even be appealing.
Showcase your listing by featuring your own pet, or borrow one from a family member or friend. (If you can get your dog to pose as relaxed as the one above, you should start a side business as a dog whisperer).
10. Use Instagram Stories
You can use Instagram Stories to participate in conversations with your followers or just to show them what your brand is up to. If you want to build your brand on Instagram, you need to focus on getting your followers to engage with you. You can use Instagram Stories to participate in conversations with your followers or just to show them what your brand is up to. By doing this, you’ll not only increase engagement, but also gain brand recognition.
If you want to use Instagram Stories to run a contest or giveaway, tell your followers to take screenshots of your IG Live segment and message you. Then, choose a winner and give them a prize that is either fun or helpful.
If you want your social media followers to discover you on Instagram, try cross-pollinating your channels by posting content from one platform on another. For example, you could post a link to your Instagram profile on your Facebook page, or tweet about a recent Instagram post.
11. Devise a fun game to accompany awards shows or televised events
You could create an interactive or printable bingo chart, of sorts, for people to use during these events and see if your amusing insights and predictions come true. This marketing collateral would be branded with your logo to get those who partake in your game to remember where they got it.
12. Create in-depth graphs, guides, charts, or maps.
Adding graphics to your real estate marketing plan can help make your posts more engaging. Try to use graphics that convey useful information to your audience, like statistics or data about the local market.
This infographic from Startup Seattle does a great job of explaining the current startup scene in the Emerald City.
13. Capitalize on the popularity of the latest internet memes.
Although you may see memes as a way to procrastinate, they can actually be used as a tool for marketing in the real estate industry. This is a new trend that is just starting to take off, and if used correctly, can be humorous for your audience.
If you see a meme that would be appropriate to post on a social media site or blog at work, try to come up with a way to use it. For example, you could create a post titled “10 Feelings All Home Buyers Have During the Process” and fill it with memes. This could help you connect with your targeted demographic.
