Stand out.
Estate agents who stand out will inevitably attract more vendors and win more clients.
Whether it’s SEO, social media or real estate video marketing, estate agents need to use creative real estate marketing ideas to separate themselves from their competition and feel vendors with confidence that they are the best agent for the job.
So here’s 12 great real estate marketing tips for estate agents who want to stand out and defeat the competition.
For a mammoth list of 50 Amazing Property Marketing ideas for Estate Agents here, click here and download our checklist for free.
Download our Free Property Marketing Jargon Buster for Estate Agents just in case!!
1. Content Is Key
Estate agents should consider having a full content marketing strategy creating content that answers their target customers’ questions and/or entertains or inspires them.
Content not only helps build trust with potential clients, it’s also a major driver for optimising SEO – that is ensuring that your website appear high up when people conduct searches in places like Google.
Content can include things like a blog post, a video series or posting to social media.
Have a read of our Content Marketing For Real Estate Agents blog here for more tips & tricks.
2. Incorporate Virtual Tours
Virtual tours are good for everyone. Vendors love them, buyers prefer them and estate agents benefit from them.
A virtual tour allows a potential buyer to view the property without actually visiting it. Some research indicates that 75% of buyers prefer virtual tours to regular photography.
By incorporating them into your marketing you’ll not only increase your chances of generating more interest and leads but, if used on your website, they could help increase the amount of time someone spends on there which is very good for SEO.
Read more about VR property marketing and all its benefits here.
3. Location Based SEO
You may have noticed we like creative real estate marketing that has a positive impact on SEO; and that’s because 86% of people – like vendors – go to a search engine like Google to find a local business when they need one.
Location based SEO (or geo-targeting) is the process of optimising your estate agent website and content for a target location.
A great way to begin to optimise for a target location is to use location specific keywords. An example might be blog content focused on “How To Sell Your Home Quickly In Canterbury” rather than simply “How To Sell Your Home Quickly”.
If getting found more in search is on your list of things to do this year, check out our 10 ways to boost SEO for estate agents here.
4. Create A Facebook Group
A Facebook group is not a place to sell, sell, sell but it is a great place to create a community. Estate agents can create Facebook groups that bring people together who may be ready to sell their homes today or in the near future.
You will need to think of a good reason why someone would want to join your group – what will they get out of it? It may be a group promoting local events or news but should ultimately be something that your target customer would benefit from being part of.
Estate agents should engage regularly in the group, providing information and answering questions so that you are building a relationship with the members. When those members are ready to sell, hopefully you will be first in mind.
Facebook groups are also a great way to share or promote things for free; as you don’t have to pay for boosted posts or ads to get your message in front of its members.
5. Generate Leads With A Freebie
You’ve probably come across a business who’s offered you an ebook or other piece of valuable content in exchange for an email address.
This is a smart digital marketing technique that estate agents should use.
The key is to make sure the “freebie” is valuable. If it’s not something that helps the target customer, they won’t exchange their contact details for it. It’s a good idea to think about questions your target customer – vendors or buyers – want answers to and create an in-depth or handy piece of content that helps them answer or overcome them.
Once you have a great piece of content, create a specific landing page or lead form ads so you can collect contact details.
6. Make It Easy To Share
Free marketing is good marketing. Every time someone shares one of your listings, blogs, videos or anything else, you’re effectively benefiting from free marketing. So you want to make it easy to do it!
Make sure you have clear and easy to find social sharing buttons on the content on your website and blog so people can share it effortlessly.
7. Start Retargeting
Retargeting ads are ads where you “re-market” people who have already engaged with you. This might be people who’ve visited your website or a specific page or taken some other action.
Retargeting is an extremely powerful marketing tactic as most people don’t necessarily convert (buy, call, contact) the first time they see something. Retargeting therefore allows you to get back in front of people who have already shown a glimmer of interest.
You can use retargeting ads in Facebook, Google and Linkedin.
To learn more about how to use Facebook Ads for Estate Agents, click here.
8. Optimise Your Contact Us Page
Marketing falls flat very quickly if you make it difficult for people to reach out to you. Your contact us page therefore needs to be easy to use and easy to find.
Make sure that your contact page can be easily navigated to via the main menu on your website. The page itself should clearly display the best contact details including an email address and phone number.
With 60% of Google searches being done via mobile, it’s worth optimising any contact links so, when clicked, they open up the relevant app instantly. For example, clicking on a telephone number opens the calling app so a call can be made in one click.
Optimising your contact us page in this way is also good for SEO!
9. Incentivise Referrals
83% of people trust a recommendation from a friend or family over any other form of marketing. No real shock there.
Word of mouth is the strongest (and often cheapest) marketing you can get.
Estate agents should ask (happy) clients for a referral every time. After all, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Adding an incentive to that ask is an even wiser move. People tend to take action when there’s something in it for them.
Our complete guide to property marketing goes into more detail about referrals – just head to section 1.
10. High Quality Photography That “Pops”
Professionally taken and professionally edited photography is a must. Prospective buyers spend the majority of their search time looking through photos so photography is no longer something to shortcut.
But how to make it more effective?
Creative staging. Consider adding unique items or at least splashes of colour so that your photography really stands out and catches eyes. Download our free Property Prep Checklist for more staging tips that will boost your photography and marketing.
11. Turn Your Website Into Your Shop Front
Vendors are more likely to find you online than whilst walking down the local high street. Today, your website is your shop front so it has to perform like one.
You should consider the fact that people prefer to watch video and look at images over reading your text. Your website therefore needs to be visually attractive. Visitors should not have to read mounds of text to find out more about you or why they should instruct you.
As a major tool in your marketing arsenal, your real estate website is worth spending time and money on to make sure it performs effectively.
12. Host A Community Event
In person marketing still works! As the majority of your future vendors and buyers are probably situated in your local area, consider hosting a local event that benefits them and allows you to build on your “relationship” with them.
We came across a great marketing event from one estate agent where they held community shredding days where local residents could come and have up to 5 boxes of shredding done for free.
This is smart. The person attending receives a great benefit and will remember you afforded it to them. An event like this is also an easy way to request an exchange of contact details.
There you have it – 12 easy to implement creative real estate marketing ideas that any estate agent can use in their business today. Remember you can get a complete list of 50 property marketing ideas in our free checklist here.
