We work with a lot of real estate professionals and get this question all the time. We decided that it would be beneficial for them to put together a guide that will get them on the right track. If you do only these things listed on this page, you’ll be outperforming 90% of the agents in your area within six months.
Build a Professional Website
Those that have mastered the mediums of online marketing know quite well how important it is to have a professional website. However, this idea for marketing real estate marketing isn’t a new one. Still, there is a big difference between a regular site and a professional one. For agents and agencies looking to move properties, this is more important now than ever.
When building your website, focus on both aesthetics and functionality. Ensure that you address things like the overall speed of the site, ease of navigation, quality of the content, sharpness of the photos, and so on. Don’t bombard visitors with too many ads all over the place, and ensure that it’s a site that people want to continue to check back on with fresh content and properties added regularly.
Conduct 3D Matterport Scans
The Matterport 3D camera is one of the most effective tools you can use to market real estate. The system will stitch together a three-dimensional dollhouse of an entire property that the buyer can fly through, even in virtual reality, giving an accurate depiction of the space no matter how far away the buyer might be.
This is by far the most forward-thinking idea for marketing your real estate. This applies whether you’re simply a private owner (you can hire Matterport professionals through the company’s network of photographers to assist you), a real estate agent, or even a large agency. Ultimately, all of our interactions with the digital realm will be in 3D and VR, so ensure that you stay ahead of the curve with technology like this.
Hire a Real Estate Photographer
Photos have always been integral when it comes to real estate. However, not as many owners and realtors understand the importance of this single concept when it comes to marketing a home or condo online. The truth is that people will judge a book by its cover, especially when browsing through hundreds or thousands of listings.
What you want is something that will be appealing and catch the eye of a person that’s sifting through countless listings in their area. It needs to aptly convey a quality space through professional standards with the usage of things like a wide-angle lens and careful (but not too doctored) Photoshop editing.
Create Video Walkthroughs
While not as immersive as a Matterport 3D scan, video walkthroughs offer more insight into how a home is realistically represented. This doesn’t have to be a professionally-shot video where you spend thousands of dollars. It could just be something you shoot on a high-quality smartphone or even with your drone.
This strategy for marketing real estate will give a better sense to the prospective buyer to allow them to understand what space looks like in person. You could also splurge on a drone video by hiring someone or merely purchasing one and doing it yourself. This is a great way to save some money if you plan on doing a high volume of these videos.
Engage in Content Marketing
Content marketing is a great way to draw visitors to your website and blog. To do this, you need to identify external sites where you can market your content. This involves building useful and relevant content on popular authority sites, which link back to similar, but unique, valuable, and relevant content on your site. You can learn more about content marketing here.
In short, you should leverage sites like Quora, LinkedIn’s publishing platform, Medium, and others to market your content. However, you’ll first need anchor text or content that’s built on your site to draw in visitors. That’s one of the main premises behind content marketing.
Install Google Analytics
Marketing real estate involves analytics. If you don’t have analytics installed on your website, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Set up Google Analytics so that you can track all sorts of metrics as they relate to your content and website’s visitors over time.
This is a terrific way to understand whether or not your efforts are working out for you or not. How well are your posts doing? How many people are visiting your site? Have you set goals? What is the average session rate? What about the bounce rate or exit rate? It might sound confusing now, but as you learn about analytics, it will all make sense and come together.
Create a Lead Generation Tool (“Squeeze Page”)
One great tool for marketing real estate is to create a lead generation page. To advanced marketers, this is called a squeeze page. Why a squeeze page? Because you’re trying to squeeze an email address out of visitors who might incline not to provide it to you. This will help you with your email marketing efforts down the road.
So, what’s a useful lead generation tool? You can build a home appraisal tool or some other tool to assist in the real estate process. When the form is completed, you can ask to email the results to the user. Any real estate tool that would be helpful to prospective buyers or sellers would work here, along with sendable results after the user completes the form.
Implement PPC Advertising
PPC, which stands for pay-per-click, is a way of drawing in traffic to your site to market any home or condo, or any other form of real estate you might be offering. However, it isn’t cheap. You’re essentially paying for your website’s visitors. How much will it cost you to draw in those people? How many of those will result in leads or sales?
What you’ll come to find is that PPC is incredibly expensive, and if you don’t track it correctly, it will feel like a waste of your money. This is also why it’s essential to have an analytics system installed. You want to know where the user came from and whether or not it resulted in a sale or a lead.
Get Social on Instagram
Instagram is an excellent resource for reaching droves of users that are on a wildly-popular social media platform. While it’s no longer as simple to reach those users on Instagram, due to the algorithm changes that have removed the chronological ordering of posts and geared them more toward popularity, you still need an Instagram profile when it comes to real estate marketing.
Use this as an opportunity to post photos and videos of real estate or to capture some other relevant lifestyle imagery that will help you to get the word out. Connect with others by searching for popular or relevant hashtags and check out what your competition might be doing on the platform as well.
Become an Expert In Your Niche
One great way to market real estate is to become an expert in your niche. When you’re an expert, you’ll command authority. You won’t need to sell; you’ll simply be attracting buyers to you. This doesn’t happen overnight nor does it happen quickly, but it does happen over time.
Ensure that you share lots of useful content and that you set yourself up as an expert. Don’t try to come off as someone who knows more than they do. Always be investigating and learning, then share those things with the world through the proper social media channels, and eventually, people will look to your advice, and you’ll attract more and more buyers and sellers this way.
Build a System for Referrals
One way to supercharge your real estate marketing efforts online is to build a system for referrals. You could integrate this into your email signature so that it becomes more passive than active, but at the outset, it doesn’t hurt to ask for a referral. Once you’ve completed a few successful transactions, network with your clients and ask them to refer you to their friends.
You could also offer something in exchange for referrals. Maybe it’s an Amazon gift card, or perhaps it’s a Home Depot gift card, or perhaps it’s something else. Whatever it is, come up with a unique way to pitch this to your clients and then ensure you treat all of those people the right way.
Ask for Reviews
ReviewLead is an excellent resource for building up your reviews as a real estate agent or an agency. Ask for reviews by integrating your review profile into your email signature and also onto your website. Once you’ve completed a successful transaction, ask those buyers or sellers to post their feedback about the exchange.
As you build up your reviews, you’ll increase your business. Ensure that you deliver much value and you always take care of your clients, and you’ll eventually create a great profile.
Setup a Local Business Page on Google
Setting up a local business page on Google for your real estate marketing efforts is prudent. If you can, target the right keywords on your business page as well. For example, you can use “Los Angeles Real Estate Agent John Doe” to target the right keywords or “New York Realtor Jane Doe” and so on.
To set up a local business page on Google, go to google.com/business where you can begin entering your business’s information, starting with its location. This is a critical step in the process, and you can also solicit reviews on Google once your profile is established as a local business.
Focus on Brand Awareness
Building your brand in the real estate field is essential. Do you have a professional logo? How well does your brand convey your message to your clients? Have you gone ahead and done other important business-related things such as setting up your mission or creating a business plan?
These are all important as they provide the basis of your brand. Go through higher top-quality designers on sites like 99Designs, Logo Bee, and others where you can create a professional brand that will help you better appeal to a larger group of individuals in your demographic.
Build a Facebook Page
Facebook is still the most significant resource with the most substantial subset of users that you can target online. Creating a Facebook Business Page, then advertising that business with Facebook is one such approach that you can take to marketing your real estate online. This is a terrific resource whether you’re new to the industry or you’re a veteran in the field.
Once you’ve built your Facebook Page, ensure that you’re active on there and that you continuously deliver a good deal of value in every post. Don’t spam your fans by trying to pitch them at every turn. Do things with tact, decorum, and composure if you want to succeed in business in the long term.
