Do you remember when attracting new business was as simple as having a presence on your local high street??
If you do, you’ve probably also noticed that it’s not quite that easy anymore. With more home sellers and buyers going online as a first point of call, estate agents need to be more marketing savvy; utilising digital and traditional marketing techniques that stand out and appeal to the crowd.
So how can an estate agency use innovative property marketing’; especially without a marketing firm or entire department of marketing professionals? These 5 strategies are a good start for agents who want to boost their real estate marketing and business this year.
To get a copy of our FREE huge list of 50 great marketing ideas for estate agents in 2021, click here.
To learn more about the best tactics for attracting more vendors, have a look at our complete property marketing blog here.
1. Video Marketing
Video marketing is effective; attracting up to 66% more qualified leads and 20% more clicks than other forms of marketing.
To have a look at our Ultimate Guide To Video Marketing for Estate Agents, click here.
It’s surprising then that A LOT of estate agents aren’t effectively incorporating it into their marketing. This is even more shocking considering 73% of vendors are more likely to instruct an agent that uses video.
Ways To Use Video In Your Marketing:
- Point Of Interest Videos
- Property Walk-throughs / 360 Tours
- How To Tutorials
- Case Studies / Testimonials
- Agency Introduction
Point of Interest trailers are a great example of using video in your property marketing as they serve a dual purpose. Vendors love them because they’re an “extra mile” step that most other agents don’t take. Buyers love them because they clearly showcase important factors such as location, proximity to transport or access to leisure.
Something like a Point of Interest trailer or 360 property tour would be great for sharing on your own website, via email and even on social media.
How To tutorials are another great use of video for marketing purposes. Unlike trailers (which are good for converting clients into buyers or instructions) a “how to tutorial” is great for creating awareness. Real estate agents can create video around popular topics buyers or vendors search for such as “how to stage a property to sell it faster” or “ideas for getting a house deposit”.
Another great benefit of video like “how-to tutorials” is that it’s great for SEO and helping the search engines to rank your website better in search.
Download our FREE Marketing Jargon Buster for Estate Agents for easy definitions of any marketing terms that come up!!
Video marketing may be something you can do yourself provided you have the right equipment or it may indeed be more cost and time effective to work with an expert, especially when producing something like a property trailer.
2. Instagram Stories
Instagram isn’t to be ignored! More than 22 million people use Instagram in the UK and 49% of those are aged between 25-39.
In terms of creating awareness and building on their relationship with this age group, estate agents should be using Instagram. Instagram Stories is particularly interesting as it’s a highly used feature but not a space already crowded by estate agents!
Instagram Stories could be used to share video such as the things listed above. Once your follower numbers hit a certain point, viewers of your Stories can even “swipe up” to visit a web link of your choice – this can be great for driving traffic to things like listings or other places on our website.
Ultimately, Instagram Stories are an opportunity for estate agents to show some personality and really engage with target buyers and vendors. It’s a great idea to use polls and the questions features to encourage people to actually engage with you.
Great Instagram Stories will either educate, inspire or entertain. Don’t be tempted to use them to just sell or convey what you think is important. Content on Instagram should be highly customer led.
Savills – the high end agency – use Stories particularly effectively. They post content that their target customers will find interesting but that doesn’t necessarily relate directly to selling. For example: sustainable energy or interior design. They do also use Stories to share high quality photography of their property listings.
3. Open House Events
Open houses are much more widely used in the US but they do have benefits to both buyers and vendors here and could offer a great event marketing opportunity.
Whilst there is some debate about the effectiveness of open houses, there is evidence to suggest they do attract more buyers, higher sales prices and they definitely offer an opportunity for increased exposure of the particular listing and YOU as an agency.
A great idea for using an open house as a marketing opportunity is to create a Facebook “event” for the open house which you then promote on your page but can also boost (pay) to reach more people.
Facebook also shares even “happening near you” so there is an opportunity for your open house to end up featuring in someone’s feed without you having to spend money to get it there.
Ensure that your Facebook event has excellent photography so it appeals to people. Anyone who does click “interested” or “going” should also be invited to like your Facebook page so you can reach them more easily in the future.
You can click here to read more about how to create an event on Facebook.
4. Social Media Campaigns
It’s unlikely that we need to convince you that social media is a great place to get your agency in front of buyers and people who want to sell houses.
Like most great marketing tactics, social media isn’t necessarily a tool for converting people straight to buy or instructing but it’s a great place to raise awareness and make sure you’re first in mind when people are ready to buy or sell.
A major complication with social media is simply knowing what to post. Many businesses, including estate agents, can get trapped in a habit of posting things about themselves and what they think is interesting rather than what potential buyers and vendors might find valuable.
A simple way to conjure up some posting ideas is to create a 30 day campaign focused on a specific thing like:
- Coffee/Food in the local area
- Attractive doors in the area
- Local businesses you should visit
These campaigns help you to focus your attention on something and because the emphasis is on “local” it has a great chance of appealing to your target client. You can also encourage people to take part and make their own suggestions to boost engagement.
If you are sharing a local business or service provider, “tag” them so they can share it easily and also, they might reciprocate and promote you one day!
5. Handwritten Notes
Innovative property marketing does mostly revolve around your digital marketing efforts in this day and age but there is always space some stand out traditional marketing.
The biggest issue with estate agent canvassing efforts is how mundane and how unnoticeable they are. Your average leaflet or print out simply doesn’t stand out which makes it easy for someone to disregard it without even having a look!
The key with your traditional efforts is to stand out and capture a person’s attention.
A handwritten note in a handwritten envelope is much less likely to be instantly tossed in the bin than a glossy leaflet that someone presupposes is spam.
You could boost the chances of your handwritten notes standing out even more by posting them in bold coloured envelopes that seem intriguing and exciting to their recipients.
As with all your marketing, talk to people in ways that appeal to them. Don’t just sell! For example, if you’re sending a note to invite them to receive an appraisal, explain the benefits of that to them and given them a compelling reason to take you up on your offer now.
Innovative property marketing is about going above and beyond to do the things that your competitors aren’t doing whilst ensuring your grab the attention of your target clients. Click here to download our mammoth list of 50 property marketing ideas for 2020 to add even more zest to your marketing campaigns.