Real estate marketing guide: Ideas, tips and tools

Digital marketers have a saying: “Content is king.” Content marketing has been around—and will stick around—because people love a good story. It’s in our nature as human beings to be storytellers, and real estate offers rich opportunities for engaging content.

First, there’s the visual appeal. From gorgeous properties to happy home buyers, there’s no end to the photo and video content an enterprising realtor can create.

Second, there’s the emotion. Buying or selling a home can be a stressful and challenging time for your clients, and they’ll be turning to your real estate agents for data, information and guidance.

When you put effort into video and content marketing, it pays dividends down the road as people discover and share your real estate agency’s content, cementing your brand’s status as a thought leader among your competition.

Are your real estate agents new to content marketing and unsure where to start? Here are a few ideas to get them started:

The data revolution has finally come to real estate, and today, nearly everyone has access to the same information. So, how do you create an impact and stand out in a crowded marketplace? Turns out, your real estate listing strategy can make or break your real estate agency.

Are your real estate agents following the best practices for creating their listing strategy? If you’re ready to win more listings, here’s a list of 7 listing techniques to share with them.

1. Hire a professional photographer.

   Far too many real estate agents still rely on low-quality images taken on their (or their clients’) cell phones. It doesn’t impress online shoppers, and it makes your brand look unprofessional. Hiring a professional photographer is the easiest way to get gorgeous images for your listing.

2. Harness the power of video.

   You don’t have to be a tech genius to get started with video. For example, real estate agents can create slideshows of photographs that act as a virtual tour of the home. The next step would be filming inside the home. Some enterprising realtors even use drones to capture aerial footage of the property and surrounding areas. Video ads perform especially well on Facebook and YouTube.

3. Be present and active online.

   It’s one thing to have a social media page; it’s another thing to update it frequently enough to be effective. The same goes for having a real estate blog. Online marketing can create a continuous income stream that works for your real estate agency 24/7... but first, you have to put in the effort to build a content library.

4. Go offline.

   When selling a home, market to the surrounding neighborhoods with flyers, block parties, and open houses. Not only will this generate more interest in the property, but local homeowners will remember your real estate agency when it comes time for them to sell.

5. Know your area.

   It’s not enough to simply know about the property you want to sell. Make sure your real estate agents do their homework on the surrounding area, its advantages and quirks, and how the housing market has performed there. The better informed they are, the easier it will be to answer clients’ questions and earn their trust.

6. Use direct mail marketing.

   Mailing lists are cheaper than ever, and direct mail response rates still exceed email by a long shot. Your agents can use online postcard templates to design custom postcards that include relevant information about your agency’s services and the local market.

7. Combine digital & print.

   Give your clients the best of both worlds. To show them your brand is tech-savvy, real estate agents can share presentations and videos on an iPad. Then, to show them your brand is well-established, agents can show them a printed lookbook that covers commonly asked questions and other information.

A large, local email marketing list is a powerful tool for any real estate marketing strategy. And while it may be tempting to purchase a list of leads online, you have no guarantee that any of those people want to hear from your real estate agency. Your list will be far more valuable if it’s built from scratch.

Help your real estate agents build their own email marketing lists with these lead generation ideas:

• Ask walk-ins for their email addresses
• Ask current and former real estate clients for referrals; these can become your most valuable connections and influencers
• Add a form to their real estate website so visitors can stay updated with the latest news & listings
• Promote their newsletter on social media sites like Facebook
• Include anyone who’s expressed interest in your real estate agency, like customers & prospects

Once they have a list, it’s time to start their email marketing campaign. There are proven practices here, too. Keep the content simple and straightforward, and attract more clicks with killer subject lines. Provide your real estate agents with branded newsletter templates and a well-stocked photo library, so they can come up with marketing ideas and create professional-looking emails on the fly. Finally, proofread and test your emails to make sure they look great on desktop & mobile devices. If your real estate agents follow this advice, they’ll save time and leave a better impression.

Real estate is an industry built on networking, so it’s no surprise that it’s a natural fit for social media. Social media marketing can elevate your brand, keep your name top-of-mind, and connect you with new clients. Here are a few tips and ideas you can share with real estate agents about how to build their presence on social media.

First things first—don’t allow real estate agents to use their personal Facebook profiles for their real estate marketing. A business profile looks more professional, and it gives the owner access to helpful features like contests and analytics.

Next, it’s a fact that visuals perform better than text on virtually every social media platform. For that reason, it’s critical to include images with your posts. You’ll get even better mileage by creating images that fit the unique size requirements of each site. If that sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry—use pre-made social media templates to ensure your content is pixel-perfect.

What should real estate agents be posting about? No one wants to scroll past a deluge of advertisements. Instead, talk about your clients and their successes. Talk about the local area you serve, including news and community events. Host live Q&A sessions with video tools like Facebook Live. Run contests and sweepstakes to boost engagement. If you follow the 80/20 rule, you can pepper in property listings without seeming spammy.

Finally, don’t forget to take advantage of paid social media marketing. You can set up geo-targeted ads to share real estate listings with people in a specific area. The same rules of engagement apply with ads—compelling content and gorgeous visuals.

Mobile is becoming increasingly important to the homebuying process. A study from the National Association of Realtors found 80% of millennials and 78% of Generation X found their home on a mobile device. Be sure your website is mobile friendly and your real estate agents are equipped for mobile-marketing strategies.

Tired of waiting for real estate prospects to check their mailbox or their inbox? Text message marketing can provide the quick response you’re looking for, but it takes some planning and thought to set it up correctly.

Here are a few things to remember when your real estate agents begin using mobile SMS marketing.

The best real estate marketing campaigns feature a combination of digital & traditional outreach strategies. When you combine your print & digital real estate marketing efforts into cohesively branded campaigns, it boosts the effectiveness of both.

What you don’t want is for real estate agents to spend twice as much time creating two types of collateral: the stuff they make for digital marketing and the stuff they make for print marketing. The more you can consolidate and streamline the content creation process, the better.

Set up a template library for your real estate agents that includes both print and digital templates. These templates should balance the needs of both the agency’s brand and the individual agent:

• Templates are professionally designed and pleasing to the eye
• They cover a variety of commonly used collateral: business cards, flyers, brochures, postcards, newsletters, social media posts, etc.
• It’s easy to update the images and text without disrupting the design
• Branding elements (logos, colors, slogans, etc.) are up-to-date and protected from unauthorized changes
• Agents can represent their own personal brand with photos, contact details, etc.
• Once updated, templates can be approved quickly (within hours instead of weeks)
• Templates can be distributed across multiple channels—published online, shared on social media, embedded in email, sent as direct mail, and downloaded for print

Not only will this save time and effort for your agents, but you’ll be confident that your agency’s brand is being represented consistently and professionally. Each piece of communication a client receives from one of your real estate agents will reinforce the integrity of your brand and reassure clients that their trust in you is well-placed.

Because of its local nature, real estate is an excellent candidate for direct mail marketing. Postcards can help agents introduce themselves as a local business and start building relationships with the people who live there. They also have several distinct advantages when compared to email marketing:

• Printed postcards are tangible and more memorable than emails
• They don’t have to be opened, so recipients will see your message right away
• Mail delivered to your door feels far more personal than an email message

There are lots of ways to use postcards for real estate marketing:

• Advertise your real estate agency’s services
• Announce new property listings
• Invite people to a block party or open house
• Stay in touch with past & current clients (e.g. holiday greetings)
• Follow up with appointments
• Offer promotions & discounts

With all of these opportunities, you might be worried about the time investment needed to produce all these postcards. Don’t be. If you provide your agents with real estate postcard templates ahead of time, they can serve themselves within minutes. Check out some of our real estate postcard templates for inspiration and ideas—or to adapt them for your own.

On average, U.S. advertisers spend $167 on direct mail to sell $2,095 worth of goods. That represents a massive 1300% return on their investment, and it illustrates an important point: direct mail is far from dead and buried. Despite the convenience and effectiveness of online marketing, direct marketing is still well worth the expense.

Although direct mail has a reputation of being annoying, recent surveys prove the opposite is true in certain cases:

• 40% of people will give new businesses a chance after receiving direct mail
• 54% want to receive mail from brands they’re interested in
• 56% believe print marketing is the most trustworthy form of marketing

There are other benefits, too. Direct mail often earns a higher response rate than email, and brand recall is 70% higher among people who receive direct mail ads versus digital ones. Add to this new digital capabilities like QR codes and augmented reality, and you can see how direct mail can be a powerful tool in your agency’s marketing arsenal. To learn more about direct mail best practices for real estate, check out this blog post.

1. Scenario 1

   Your business has doubled in size in the last three years, which is awesome! However, in the last six months, you’ve noticed a plateau in your growth—or maybe even a slight decline. You want to continue scaling your business in both size and revenue, but you’re not sure how to stimulate and support that growth.

   Solution: As head of your brand, you have a lot of responsibilities, and it might be best for you to hire a marketing expert to work full-time in-house or hire a talented consultant who could perform the marketing tasks you don’t have time for.

2. Scenario 2

   Your real estate business has been rapidly growing since you started up. You have been running all of the marketing yourself so far. You’ve learned a lot about creating flyers and campaigning on social media, but your marketing skills are still limited. If you had more time, you could learn more skills such as copywriting and videography, but time is becoming a more and more precious resource.

   Solution: Hiring a real estate marketing agency will provide you with a professional team. They can collaborate with you to create and execute a new marketing strategy that will give your brand the boost that it needs.

3. Scenario 3

   You’ve seen a good amount of growth in your real estate business. Currently, you and another real estate agent are running the marketing together. Lately, your marketing efforts have felt directionless, and neither of you know what the next step should be. You’re proud of your efforts and all that you’ve learned so far, but it’s time to strategize on a more sophisticated marketing plan.

   Solution: Hiring a real estate marketing agency will help your agency find the right direction. You can also choose which tasks you need the agency to complete for you, so you can better focus your time and efforts on serving your real estate clients.

For more guidance on how to hire a real estate company, visit our blog post on the subject.

When planning out your real estate marketing strategy, it can be tedious to create large numbers of emails, campaigns, social media posts, and all the other content that you need to keep in touch with your clients. This is where marketing automation tools come in.

Through these tools you can save time and keep in touch with your clients through email, social media, text and more. These tools will often integrate with the CRM software you’re already using to follow your clients’ journeys.

When finding the right automation tool for your real estate agency, there are several things to consider: price, user-friendliness, features and integrations. Here, we’ve put together an in-depth comparison here.

Organizing advertising campaigns with your team takes tremendous effort. This software is designed to make that process easier and help you create incredible advertising. Each software offers different features that make each one unique. Check out our comparison of these top four softwares. This is a good jumping-off point to investigate each product further and find out which one best suits your business.

It seems impossible to keep up with all the new technology developments, let alone predict how they will impact the future of real estate. Our world resembles science fiction more each day with AI, facial recognition and self-driving cars. So, which technologies are already driving change in the real estate industry?

Cryptocurrency has already infiltrated the real estate industry, as more and more properties are being purchased with cryptocurrencies and property records are being secured in blockchains. Some of the most forward-thinking real estate brokerages are already working with cryptocurrencies and have been impressed with the ease and safety of the transactions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot topic this year, and many people are panicking about how AI will change the workforce. Although AI is being used to advertise the right homes to the right people right now, most people would still rather have a personal relationship with their agent. Brokerages can take advantage of this by effectively combining the best real estate agents with AI—for example, by using chatbots. Chatbots can gather information from clients before they speak with an agent. The agent is more informed in less time, and the clients get faster, better service.

Facial recognition technology is not just for securing your phone or creating talking emojis. This new technology can also be used in property management. A property rental company in China has implemented facial recognition in their security systems. Tenants, employees, agents and security staff are all given access to the buildings with their faces instead of keys. Not only is this more secure for the property, but it’s also more convenient for tenants.

When you hear about technological developments in the real estate industry, don’t panic. Throughout history, we have seen industries evolve with technology that makes work easier and more efficient for both sellers and buyers. Stay up to date on the latest changes, and be ready to adapt the best innovations.

There are many tools you can use to grow your real estate business. Through research and demos, you can find out which products will benefit you and your agents the most. Here are some tools to consider during your search:

While you’re working hard to create and maintain your brokerage’s brand identity, it’s also important to remember that your individual agents also have their own brands. Potential clients need to see consistency between your brand and your agents’ brands to trust you with their business.

We’ve heard at conferences how difficult it can be for brokerages to keep real estate agents if they find that their brands don’t work together. Our advice is to stay consistent with your core identity, but be flexible so agents can add their own bit of flair to their marketing. This will keep your brand strong but give your agents some freedom to create their own.

Brands aren’t merely managed—they’re shaped, guided and cultivated over time. To break down this process, we will look at brand management in three different phases: establishing, positioning and maintaining.

During our brand management research, we discovered two common scenarios that just so happen to be polar opposites. Most organizations fall into one of these:

Creating a strong real estate brand will not only help you find the best potential clients, but it will also help you attract and keep the best real estate agents. By maintaining a powerful brand that permeates every communication within your company, you can share your vision with your real estate agents and easily get them onboard.

If your brand is weak and inconsistent, then real estate agents may be tempted to leave for greener pastures where they see their values and career potential reflected in the brokerage’s brand. As you’re working on your brand identity and image, don’t just focus on getting the message to your customers. Let your agents be part of the brand story you are telling.

So, who’s doing an exemplary job with real estate marketing & branding? There are some really impressive agencies & brokerages out there, but here are 2 of our favorites.

1. Toll Brothers — Social media

Toll Brothers is a luxury real estate brand that’s been around since 1967. For a brand that’s been around for decades, Toll Brothers has excelled at adapting their message to new online platforms—like social media.

For example, take a look at their YouTube channel, where they share videos that appeal to aspirational homeowners. Not only do they cover the expected (like testimonials and property tours), there’s also the delightfully unexpected (like cooking and outdoor entertaining).

Finally, with over 50k followers on LinkedIn, Toll Brothers is serious about building a corporate brand its agents can be proud of.

2. Cardinal Real Estate Partners — Email newsletters

If you think email newsletters are dead, Cardinal Real Estate Partners can offer proof to the contrary. Their weekly newsletter delivers insightful, high-quality content to their commercial real estate clients—and it netted them an award in the 2017 #REMAS. Here’s what they had to say about their newsletter:  

• “Newsletters have proven to be a fantastic way to stay relevant to one’s contacts, I’ve also found. After 25 years, I literally have a Rolodex of more than 10,000 names that I’ve built and kept fresh through my writing.”

• “Throughout the years I’ve come to firmly believe that for a small shop it is important to highlight one’s experience and share insights, processes, checklists and other strategies and tools.”

You can see some of the great resources Cardinal’s put together on this page. They offer eBooks, white papers, checklists, worksheets and more to guide clients through their commercial real estate transactions.