Top 4 Areas to Spend Your Marketing Dollars as a Real Estate Agent
One of the first questions real estate agents ask our team is, “How do I allocate my real estate marketing budget?”
It’s an age-old question for every industry because there is no one, single answer to this puzzle. Most agents suggest you spend about 10% of your commission income on marketing. Since the market today is fiercely competitive, there’s no shortage of potential online ways to market real estate. But quite possibly, that’s the problem — the abundance of real estate marketing solutions.
Let’s have a quick look at the number of ways you can spend marketing dollars –
- Social Media
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- Google Ad Words
- Email Marketing
- Website Marketing
- Referral Marketing
- Branding
- PR
- Property Marketing
We’ve scratched just the tip of the iceberg here.
This is where most real estate agents and marketers go wrong. They invest in multiple tools and resources at once in the hopes of getting quick lead generation.
The result? Their marketing department loses money since these tools are expensive. Additionally, there are no tangible results as the marketing efforts need to be more coherent.
The solution? Invest in tools that will help your business grow.
Over time, we have noticed some online marketing strategies stand head and shoulders above the rest. Whether you’re a giant global real estate company or a local realtor, these tools work.
In this blog, let’s learn in-depth about those four most practical real estate marketing areas –
4 Marketing Areas to Invest in 2022 as a Real Estate Agent
1. Email Marketing
You have a personal voice assistant on your phone to make your lives easier. Your Siri or Alexa helps you create a personalized world for yourself. In the world of real estate, email marketing can be your personal Siri or Alexa.
You see, real estate is all people and relationships. You can create relationships with prospects whether you’re at a viewing, a dinner party, a meet-up, or any other social event. But the big question is how do you nurture relationships with everyone you meet along the way?
The answer is email marketing. It lets you nurture your client base so that they come back to you for their next purchase and refer their network to you as well. And since people have been more open to a virtual experience after the pandemic, realtors who use email to promote their business note a marked increase in engagement. One of the 2021 reports found that real estate email open rates increased by 32% and click-through rates by 54% since 2018.
Here’s how you can set up your real estate email marketing –
i. Capture Leads
The first step is to get the prospects’ email IDs. You can go the old-fashioned way and ask visitors at the next open house to provide their email addresses. Or you can reach out to people via targeted ads or landing pages. Once they visit the site, get them to enter details for the signup form.
ii. Set up Branding
Work on building your credibility before you ask any favor from the subscriber.
First, send an automated welcome email where you introduce yourself. Add a CTA at the end where you ask the reader to take an action. Now. break the ice with some entertaining emails about local events, holiday greetings, mortgage news, or house decoration inspiration and trends.
iii. Invest in Personalization
No two subscribers are the same. So set up different landing pages for different target groups. You see, people selling their house don’t need the same information as those looking to buy one. So, personalize your email content as per the reader’s interest, location, motivation, pain point, and goal.
iv. Use Targeted Emails
Send consistent emails by planning a mix of regular email marketing campaigns and automated workflows.
Include content like recently sold properties, new or expired listings, seasonal information, and updates in regular campaigns. As for the automated workflows, plan a drip sequence or triggered email set.
Enhance the effectiveness of your email marketing by optimizing the day, date, and time of sending email campaigns.
2. Referral Marketing
A reader survey revealed that 83% of agents find new clients through real estate referrals.
What does this statistic mean?
Simply that people are social creatures, and they are much more likely to work with a realtor if they have social proof. Whether you’re a new agent, or you’ve been doing this for over a decade, word-of-mouth remains one of the most reliable ways of social and online marketing today.
If you know how to generate client referrals, you can build your business and win organic referrals and repeat clients from your connections. It’s simple, these folks know you, like you, and trust you. If they say something positive about your real estate business to their friends, family, or even strangers, they are likely to reach out to you.
Let’s see how you can generate client referrals in real estate –
i. Build a Community Online
You need to be on top of the mind of your current clients so that they can talk about you with their social connections. To do so, build an online community over social media and different web platforms. Host interviews with local businesses or talk about the neighborhood areas in your podcasts or videos.
ii. Share Key Market Insights
The client’s interest in real estate doesn’t end at the deal closing table. You’d be surprised to know how many people want to know the real updates and hidden insights into the market. If you share key real estate market insights with potential buyers and homeowners, it’ll help position you as a knowledgeable market expert.
iii. Target the Happiest Moments
There are a few moments in a real estate transaction when clients appreciate you from the bottom of their hearts. It could be a win of a negotiation deal, approval of a document, or closing of a complicated transaction. In such moments, emotions are running high. Hence, it’s the perfect time to remind your clients how much you appreciate them sharing their positive experiences via reviews and referrals.
3. Social Media
According to an agent survey in 2021, 82% of real estate agents seek to improve their social media presence.
Why?
It’s because real estate social media marketing is more critical than ever. Real estate agents who thrive on social media get more leads, close more deals, and make more money.
Here are a few ways that will help you know how to leverage social media for your real estate business –
i. Talk About the Town, and Not Just the Listing
Buying a home is not just about the home. It’s about the location, nearby areas, neighborhood, and the entire town. But open any real estate agent’s social media account, and all you would find is a flowery description of the house and at most, the area.
Stand out from the crowd by being honest with your clients. Show your human side and provide potential clients with a far richer understanding of the markets you serve. Talk about the pros and cons of the area and the town.
ii. Don’t Hide, Be Present
Most real estate agents hire a copywriter or a marketing agency to write content for their social media. It makes sense since real estate already has an agent’s hands full.
However, the shortcoming here is the copies may start sounding too professional and foreign. Your followers want to know the real you and want to make a personal connection. If you aren’t being authentic there, you’re losing points.
So if you can, try to write your content. If that’s too much, ensure you work with a ghostwriter who understands your personality and vision through and through. The copies should let your personality shine through.
iii. Engage With Your Followers
When eCommerce was just marking its beginning, users complained it rips them off talking to the seller or buyer. But social media took care of this shortcoming.
You have an opportunity to talk to your target audience at any time and hour of the day. You no more need their offline presence to solve their queries. So why not leverage most of this possibility?
Home buyers and sellers are present more online now. So they expect you to answer their questions there. They can directly message you on Instagram, drop in the comments section of your Facebook post, or tweet you publicly asking anything about the industry. Be ready for this outreach and start a dialogue with the followers. They might be in the early stages of the buying process.
4. IDX Website
No matter the industry you belong to, the web demands a high-quality, responsive website. It’s no different for a real estate website, except you need more than a functional website. Real estate agents with businesses of any scale must have an IDX website.
What is an IDX website?
Let’s see what The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) says. It defines IDX as a set of policies, software, and standards of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) that allows real estate agents participating in their local MLS to share information online.
Let’s sneak peek into how you can use an IDX website to your favor –
i. Boost Brand Awareness
When you attract a visitor to your real estate website, IDX gives clients a reason to stay on your website for a more extended period. This time provides you the opportunity to collect crucial information about the visitor.
Moreover, when the market is hot, agents can use IDX to share active listings with potential buyers via the agent website. Since prospects now start property searches online, failing to incorporate IDX listings into the website puts you at a disadvantage.
ii. Capture Leads
First things first – browsers can visit your website to view the listings. No redirection to a third-party website.
Additionally, an IDX website offers features that can help you capture the leads. You can gain valuable insights about the visitor’s interest and use them to start a conversation with the lead. Moreover, its feature lets customers receive email alerts on brand-new listings that meet their search criteria.
iii. Social Media Ease
99% of millennials and 90% of baby boomers start their home search journey online. It explains why 77% of real estate agents are using social media for real estate marketing. An IDX can help you in those social media efforts.
IDX website allows social media integration of property listings. It enhances accessibility. Moreover, the social share buttons on the website listings allow visitors to share your data on different social media accounts.
The Final Thoughts
Unquestionably, marketing is a necessary investment for any successful real estate career. However, not every marketing channel produces the same results. If you wish to get the highest possible return on your marketing dollars, invest in the most valuable real estate marketing strategies.
If you pair your marketing efforts with the most advanced tools, your results might just shoot up. ZipperAgent provides end-to-end CRM software for real estate agents and brokers. Book a demo with our experts today.
