Utilising Your Existing Customers
SEO For Estate Agents
Facebook Ads For Estate Agents (And other paid ad options)
Effective Email Marketing For Estate Agents
Social Media
Traditional Marketing That Will Work Today
The Compelling Offer
Whatever marketing tactics you use, it’s important to think customer first. People want instant gratification - a reason to act now. Where possible, provide people with no brainer, can’t say no offers and reasons to take you up on whatever you’re offering. Giving someone an instant win significantly increases the chance of them taking action.
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Get past vendors referring you to their peers.
Ensure that past buyers come back to you when they’re ready to sell
Be likeable. Use their names and show an interest in their needs.
Use superior property photography and listings that attract buyers and sell properties faster.
Do what you say you will and keep a good flow of communication at all times.
Handle any issues that do arise with a customer first approach.
Create a list of past vendors you can reach out to. Remove any unhappy clients from this list.
Clearly communicate the incentive to the referrer by email, text, phone etc.
The benefit & terms should be made clear to the referrer.
Make it easy for them to make the referral - connect them to a page where they can provide someone’s details or include a template / link that they can easily forward.
Make sure you are able to track any referrals so that you can issue any incentives.
Pro Tip: Always ASK (happy customers) for a referral. If you don’t ask you don’t get. |
Add buyers to a specific email or other correspondence list.
Reach out to that list at specific intervals with something that adds value to them. Examples of this could be local news or events or tips for homeowners.
Be an open channel and make buyers aware that they can contact you if they need anything.
At intervals, include a call to action (a request that they take some action). A call to action in this case might be offering a free valuation, asking for a call if they are considering selling or it could even be offering an incentive for a referral!
Pro Tip: Where possible we would advise communication is by email as this is easy for you to automate. You can purchase email software that will send specific emails to specific people at specific times without you having to physically go in and do it one by one. |
Word(s) Searched in Google | No. Of Searches Per Month |
Estate Agents Near Me | 10-100 |
Best Estate Agent | 10-100 |
Visit Google My Business where you will either be able to create or gain access to an existing business listing.
Once you’ve created a new (or gained access to an existing) listing, complete all the profile information and go through the verification process.
Once completed, you’ll need to optimise your Listing to maximise its position in search and the chances of someone clicking it once they find it.
To optimise, make sure all the information is filled out, add high quality photos and start requesting more Google reviews.
Exterior and Interior property photos of your business premises
You and your team
Some of the properties you sell
Related items such as marketing materials
Today’s market is more competitive than ever. Simply being present on the high street is no longer enough to win vendor instructions.
It’s estimated that 75% of vendors carry out online research before instructing. They investigate your website, your portal listings, reviews and even your social media. Vendors do this research looking for the agent that stands out - looking for the agent who appears best placed to sell their property at the right price and in a short time.
Video is a powerful tool that not only stands out to buyers but is something that most of your competitors are probably not using. It’s reported that only 30% of agents use video in their marketing. Video could therefore give you the edge.
It’s no surprise than that 73% of vendors are more likely to list with an agent who uses video!
To have a look at our Ultimate Guide To Video Marketing For Estate Agents, click here.
Outside of their appeal to vendors, video
Increase your position in Google (and other search) meaning more vendors (and buyers) are more likely to come across your website in the first place.
Video tends to increase the amount of time spent on a website. This is not only good for helping your position in search but also your conversion rates.
Video tends to generate more leads!
Vendors want to instruct an estate agent who they believe will be able to sell their property. It therefore makes sense to use video in a way that showcases important factors for potential buyers.
Point of Interest videos highlight important, attractive elements of the area a property is situated in. A Point of Interest video would show a property’s proximity to a train station or green space (features 28% and 17% (respectively) of buyers would pay more for).
Point of Interest videos can separate you from your competition and give vendors the strong impression they need to choose your agency over another.
To learn more about how to incorporate video into your estate agent marketing, visit here.
Example of a custom audience:
You could upload your email list of all vendors in the past 12 months. Facebook would then try to match a Facebook profile to that email and, where successful, you would then be able to target those specific people’s profiles with your Facebook ads.
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You can also narrow your custom and lookalike audiences with criteria like “house hunting”. This means that you could (for example) target your custom audience of vendors and ask Facebook to only show ads to the ones you are are possibly house hunting. Powerful stuff!
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You can also use Facebook’s advertising platform to target people on Instagram. On top of this, Linkedin & Twitter allow you to create paid ads that work in a very similar way. |
Make potential vendors aware and build trust with them before they need you; or
Target homeowners and other people who may be ready to sell and offering them something in exchange for their contact details.
One of the most effective ways to use Facebook ads to attract more vendors is to make them aware of you before they even want to sell their property. If you can get to potential vendors before they are ready to sell, you are able to build a “relationship” with them so that when they are ready to sell, you are first in their mind.
This strategy is the long game. It isn’t necessarily designed to turn the people you advertise into a client today but it increases the chance that they’ll become one later on.
Examples Of How To Use Ads In This Way:
To encourage target people to like your Facebook page. Once they like your page, they will see your posts and other updates. If these add value, you will be building trust with them and increase the chances of being first in mind when they need you.
To share valuable information that your target customer may enjoy - blog posts, videos, downloads etc. Again, this increases people’s awareness of your business and, by adding value to them, helps you to increase trust.
To run competitions and giveaways. This is a great way to make target people aware of you and give them a good reason to exchange their contact details (so you can use in the future).
The difference between these types of ads and the ones above is going to be intent.
With these ads you would target people who are most likely to be ready and then offer them something they want in exchange with their details. Once you have these details you will be able to contact them directly and hopefully engage them as a client.
In order to do this two things need to happen:
The ads should be targeted at people who are more likely to be ready to sell.
Whatever you offer them should be something that (generally) only someone who would want to sell a property would be interested in.
Example Of How To Use Ads In This Way:
(a) To offer people a free valuation of their home.
These ads could direct target people to a valuation tool such as Valpal, where in exchange for their details, they could receive a valuation of their property. Typically (although not always) someone seeking a valuation may be someone ready to sell. These ads would therefore generate warm leads.
(b) To offer valuable information that someone ready to sell would want
These ads could offer people a valuable download (such as an ebook or video) in exchange for their details. In order to be worthy of contact details, the download would have to be valuable (not something they can easily Google). The download should also cover a topic that only someone motivated to sell would need eg: “How To Sell Your Home In 90 Days”.
Pro Tip: Use Facebook Blueprint to learn how to create Lead Ads. These ads generate a higher number of leads because they enable the target person to exchange their details with you without having to leave Facebook and go to an external website. |
Retargeting is the process of remarketing to people who have engaged with your business previously. These people may be people who visited your website or watched a video you posted.
The chances of someone taking action the first time they engage with you (visit your website, open an email etc) is very low. In fact, it is believed it takes around 8 engagements before someone takes action.
This is why retargeting is so powerful. If you use Facebook ads to retarget people they are 10x more likely to click that ad and 70% more likely to take the action you want.
In order to retarget people using Facebook ads, you need to set up your Pixel. This is something that gets added to your website so Facebook can track visitors and allow you to target them with future ads.
Honestly, it sounds more technical than it is! But you can hire someone to add this or you can learn how to do it with the Facebook Blueprint tutorials we mentioned earlier.
Use software that automates the process. You can use email marketing software that will automatically email specific people at specific times. This means you could set up something like a weekly newsletter to automatically go to specific people at the same time every week.
Add value! Don’t just ask for something. Give the person you’re sending the email to a compelling reason to open and take action on the email. Great emails will typically educate, entertain or inspire.
Send frequent emails. Don’t just send emails when you want something! Add value on a regular basis. This builds trust with the people you’re emailing and increases the chances of them taking action when you do ask for something.
As with our Facebook ads, occasionally email something that only someone interested in selling their property would want. This could be a download such as “10 Things To Do To Prepare Your Home For A Quick Sale”. By tracking the people who download something like this, you are filtering out the people who are most likely to engage your services as a vendor.
Stay On Brand Whilst 80% of your social media posts should be of your value to your customers - they still have to be ON BRAND. Posts about food may be interesting to your followers but it’s unlikely they follow your business - an estate agency - for generic food tips. It will make much more sense to your followers to see you posting about property or homeowner related topics. |
Think about who your followers are / who you want them to be. Focus your efforts on the platforms that they use most.
Add value! Really think about what is of interest to the people who follow you and make 80% of your posts all about them and what they care about.
ATTENTION GRAB! Most people’s social media feeds are crowded. You have to remarkable photos or other visual content that really interrupts them and makes them want to stop scrolling.
Be consistent and don’t stress if you don’t get instant results. Remember social media is a long game!
Grab attention with professional photography that makes people want to stop and look.
Post consistently - usually everyday (sometimes multiple times a day)
Educate by sharing blog posts about topics of interest to their target customer (eg. sustainability/property investment research)
Download our free guide to Property Photography Mastery to get easy tips on taking great photography for your social media and other property marketing.
Is the customer paying attention to the place where you’re marketing?
Do they make the person want to stop and pay attention or are they ignorable?
Do they include something compelling?
A newspaper ad (for example) can still work if the person you want to target still reads newspapers and your ad both grabs their attention and gives them a reason to take action. |
Be positioned in a place where your target customer pays attention
Interrupt their usual activity and make them want to stop and look
Offer some compelling reason for them to take action and do what you’re asking
Remember it's a necessity that all your property marketing is professional and uses appealing photography that attracts vendors. Find out about our latest offers on professional photography here.
To talk to Focal about professional photography that impresses your vendors, attracts more buyers and increase referrals, click here.Mention this blog to receive a FREE month’s photography service when you take up one of our subscriptions. |
FocalAgent is the UK largest property marketing group. We specialise in visual content for Estate Agents that helps them wins more instructions and sell more homes faster.
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Property Photography Shoot Checklist
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