Real Estate

If you’re wondering how much you should be spending on marketing this year, follow these 5 steps to get a feel for it.

Make Room for Social Media Spending

Social media is a great place to start with your real estate marketing budget because it’s both inexpensive and high impact. While you might not think you need to budget out how much you have to spend, you’ll have to budget for time.

You also need to determine what proportion of your business can be done on social media. Every other business will be competing for the free advertising space.

If you decide to go full throttle on social media, you should hire an ad company to help you out. With the aid of a marketing agency, you can craft your communications to hit harder than your competitors. If your advertising efforts have a high-impact, you’ll still be saving money because of the inexpensive nature of advertising on social media.

Make sure that all of your profiles have a unique voice. Your Instagram engagement should sound different than your LinkedIn profile. You can post a ton of photos on a long Facebook post, but that won’t translate well to Instagram or Twitter.

Decide on Where To Place Ads

When you start thinking about where you want to advertise, you first need to think about where your audience is located. Advertising on a young and hip social media platform that doesn’t garner a lot of engagement from potential homeowners might be a waste of effort.

Figure out which sites your potential clients are using the most. People who are thinking about buying a home or getting into real estate will be looking at lots of lifestyle or home design magazines and sites. Be sure you’re advertising in the range of market you’re planning on dealing with.

If you’re advertising on a DIY site while having mostly high-end properties to offer, you could be barking up the wrong tree. It’s the same if you start thinking about advertising on apps.

Apps allow embedded and native advertisers to get in touch with their audience. While you might think this is a great move on your part, you need to think very carefully. You don’t necessarily know which apps your audiences uses the most, so unless you can ferret this information out, hold onto your cash.

Video is Cheap and High Impact

In the coming years, video will comprise nearly 80% of all traffic online. While this is an exciting development for consumers and lovers of video online, it’s a big leap for lots of small- to medium-sized businesses. Creating videos isn’t everyone’s forte but you might not have a choice soon enough.

Now is the time to work out the kinks in creating videos for your real estate business. While you may have flirted with creating virtual tours and video walkthroughs in the past, now is the time to think differently.

You can show potential buyers what to look for using the homes you have available as a model. You can show the kinds of exchanges people in your local market may have to make. Let them know some basics like while some locations will offer a big backyard, you might have no front yard.

How Can You Take On Your Local Market?

The demographic of homeowners and business owners is changing. More of your customers will be spending more of their time online. Do you think you should focus on online marketing or should you still budget out for traditional print ads in local papers?

Depending on the market you’re in, the answer might surprise you.

Some regions still have a heavily read free print magazine. Small towns, college towns, and cities are still invested in creating free papers for all local residents. If your audience demographics fit with “potential homeowner” you might be in luck.

Coming up with print ads can be simple and cheap, depending on what the interest is. If you’re one of the only customers asking to advertise in your local paper, you could get a full-page ad for an extremely good price.

How Much Can Be Done In-House?

Much of your marketing content will cost money to produce. Whether it’s well-written blogs, high-quality photos, or tightly edited videos, professionals will probably do it all better than your staff. You might be in luck and have hired a receptionist with exceptional video chops.

However, this is rarely the case. You’ll have to have a mix of people working in-house and people hired through an agency. If you can bring someone on part-time to train your full-time staff, you could end up creating lots of good content that also feels sincere.

The voices of your staff and the people working for your company are important, even if they’re not professional marketers. Find a way to combine this with strong marketing deployment and you’ll make a splash in your local market. Sell my house Fort Lauderdale

Are you a realtor looking for new ways to market to potential customers? You may find our list of 5 real estate marketing ideas helpful for standing out among your competitors. Read on to learn more.

Invest in Your Website Before Focusing on Other Real Estate Marketing Ideas

Don’t overlook your website as you work on other aspects of your business. When people are looking for a service, including professional real estate help, they’re going to look online. You want your website to be ready to impress at first visit.

Your website should look neat and professional. It should be easy to navigate and contain the quality content that potential clients are looking for, including a brief explanation of who you are and your experience in the industry. Place great focus on how you present the photos of your current and past properties, as this area of your site is sure to receive the most traffic.

Want to give your site an extra boost? Include a blog with quality content that will appeal to your clients. Create posts about common industry questions and topics, like tips on buying your first home or how to apply for a pre-approved mortgage.

Make a Strong First Impression with Quality Photos

The first impression you make will often be presented by the photos you share of your properties. If a potential client sees blurry, grainy photos, they’re going to wonder about the quality of your work in general. You want your photos to represent you and your properties in the best way possible.

One option is to hire a professional real estate photographer. You can establish a relationship with this person and depend on them to take impressive, high-quality photos of your clients’ homes. Most realtors find that the hiring a professional photographer yields a valuable return on their investment.

Still, if you’d rather save some money, you can take your own photos and make them look professional. Invest in a good camera or learn to use your phone camera and the countless editing apps available. You can find tips and tutorials online and work on perfecting your photography practice.

Master the Art of Social Media

Social media has changed the marketing game for virtually all industries, including real estate. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to reach a vast audience through various social media platforms. Create an account for your real estate business on Facebook and Instagram, and don’t be afraid to experiment with Twitter and Snapchat as well.

Post often, and make sure you’re sharing content that will attract your audience and encourage them to engage. Share photos of your newest listings, updates about successful sales, and news and advice that your audience may find valuable.

If you have some extra marketing budget, you may want to explore paid advertising on social media. Create target audiences based on location, demographics, or interests, and offer quality content to help drive awareness of your business and attract new clients.

Encourage engagement on your social media accounts by asking your followers to share their own thoughts and experiences. Be sure to respond to comments, especially questions from potential clients.

Ask for Referrals and Testimonials

People place a high value on recommendations from people they trust. In fact, 84% of respondents in a Nielsen survey said word-of-mouth advertising was most influential to them. Use your reputation and experience to grow your business by asking clients to refer you to their friends, family, and colleagues.

You may even want to start a referral rewards program. For example, if a past client refers someone who ends up doing business with you, they may receive a gift card to a home furnishings store or local restaurant. If you choose to do something like this, advertise it on your social media and website.

Another creative real estate marketing tactic is to use testimonials. Ask current clients to share brief summaries of their experiences working with you, and then use these testimonials in your marketing. You may even want to dedicate a specific page on your site for sharing these.

Testimonials can also be created as reviews if you have a business account on Facebook, Yelp, or Google+. Remember, you have a huge audience of potential clients who are online, and you want to have a presence wherever they may be browsing.

Consider Options for Marketing Automation

Once you begin to experiment with all the different types of marketing tactics that are available, you may find that you need to better organize and streamline your work. If you reach this point, it may be time to consider automating some of your marketing.

Start simple with something like email automation. Find a platform that works best for your needs and budget, and then set up automated sends for your emails. Create e-newsletters and announcements about new properties available and have them sent to the appropriate audiences on a regular schedule.

You may also want to streamline your social media marketing. Tools like Hoot-suite allow you to create posts and schedule them for automatic posting. You can do this at the beginning of each week or even each month, so you don’t have to worry about posting every day.