Today’s top real estate brokers are getting creative with their marketing efforts. Newspaper ads, car decals, and branded calendars have become relics of the past as savvy agents turn to tech solutions to market their services.
Balancing the efficiency of technology with the warmth of personal relationships is key for brokers in today’s marketplace.
With that in mind, here are 10 ways today’s top real estate brokers are marketing their services.
1. Invest in Your Website
A high-quality website is critical in today’s market, even for small businesses. Your website gives you a place to directly communicate with your prospective clients on a platform that you own and control (as opposed to the social media platforms with their ever-changing algorithms and rules).
And in an age where everyone Google searches everything, you need a professional website if you want buyers and sellers to find you online. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) estimates that 93% of buyers use the internet to search for a home. If you’re not showing up in those online searches, you’re missing a staggering piece of the pie! Moreover, a polished website gives your real estate brokerage instant credibility.
Make sure your website is:
Easy to navigate
Mobile-ready (for easy viewing on phones and tablets)
Designed with a clean, modern layout
Covered in your contact info (your phone number and email should be at the top of every page)
A professional website is your business hub, so make sure it represents you well.
2. Start a Blog
Real estate professionals consistently underestimate the power of blogging. Only around 9% of real estate agents have a blog according to the NAR, so real estate brokers who invest in a blog have the opportunity to earn a serious competitive advantage.
Here are the main reasons top real estate brokers take advantage of blogging:
A blog gives Google up-to-date, relevant content to index for your website, which makes Google more likely to recommend your site in its search results. That means more organic traffic to your website!
Through informative blog posts, you’re able to demonstrate your real estate knowledge and expertise to prospective clients before they ever make contact.
A blog increases engagement with your prospective clients by giving them an opening to ask questions through the comments section of each blog post.
The result is more warm leads. That’s why you need a blog.
3. Get Social
Social media presents a strong opportunity for top real estate brokers to market their services to a wide audience. You can promote your listings and your brokerage on popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Just know your audience. The younger crowd is on Instagram, LinkedIn is generally best-suited to investor leads, and Pinterest skews heavily female.
Social media is a fun way to stay top-of-mind with your clients (past, present, and future). And it fosters engagement with shares, likes, and comments. Plus, a strong following will give you leverage in your listing presentations.
4. Stay Local
Here’s an insider tip for generating quality leads from your website, blog, and social media: keep it local. You don’t need to attract nationwide attention; you want to focus on the people who will be buying or selling in your specific market. So focus your message on your neighborhood, city, county, or region.
Create content specific to your location. Here are a few ideas:
Top 5 Neighborhoods in Hartford County
How to Find a Good Investment Property in North Hills
17 Reasons Everyone Is Moving to Denver
This will help narrow your audience to leads you can actually convert into clients.
5. Take Advantage of Automated Digital Marketing
Today’s top real estate brokers know that automation is worth the investment. The more you can automate, the more you can focus on running a successful business.
Automated digital marketing has been a game-changer for the real estate industry. Email drip campaigns and automated social media posts allow you to reach your target market while you’re busy with other tasks.
To take this idea to the next level, savvy brokers are subscribing their prospects and clients to digital catalogs. Each month your mailing list will get a professional digital catalog, full of new listings and articles of local interest, delivered to their inboxes. The best part? The catalogs are customized to include the branding for your brokerage! Your photo appears on the cover, your contact information appears throughout the catalog, and your listings are featured. Not only is this a monthly reminder of your professionalism and service, but it also provides an additional incentive for sellers to list with your firm. Who wouldn’t want their home featured in a top-quality catalog?
Automating your digital marketing is more affordable than many brokers realize. Especially if you share the cost with mortgage brokers and title companies. In the case of digital catalogs, you could sell advertising space in these catalogs to local businesses to completely cover the cost of your catalogs!
6. Show Your Listings in the Best Light
With online home searches skyrocketing, listing photos are typically the first impression of your inventory for prospective buyers. Did you know that homes with professional listing photos sell 32% faster than homes with amateur listing photos?
But this is about more than just selling the listing. Your listing photos represent your brokerage’s brand. Are they professional-grade? Or are they low-quality cell phone shots, taken in a hurry?
If you want to present a professional image on the home-search sites, your social media, and your digital catalogs, insist on professional photos for every listing. And for those top-tier listings, consider adding drone photos, 3D scans, or virtual video tours.
Offering to pay the expense from your commission is a surefire way to gain a competitive edge in your listing presentations!
7. Be Active in the Community
Top real estate brokers truly care about their communities. You may have even gotten into real estate because you love your neighborhood and want to help other people find their place there. So community service is a natural fit for most real estate brokers. And community projects can be an effective way to market your real estate brokerage.
Here are a few ways you could help improve your community while simultaneously marketing your brokerage:
Volunteer as a team for a community improvement project like building a park
Sponsor a youth sports team
Donate supplies or equipment to local schools
It’s a win-win!
8. Educate Your Future Buyers and Sellers
Has your real estate brokerage ever hosted a buyer or seller seminar? Or even a webinar? This provides a unique opportunity to meet prospective clients, provide valuable information to them, and start building trust.
Seminars work particularly well with renters at high-end apartment communities. This group is highly likely to be interested in investing in a home rather than continuing to pay rent, and they’re statistically likely to qualify for a home loan.
You can promote your seminar through strategic mailers, social media posts, and even community event notices.
9. Show Off Your Testimonials
Online reviews heavily influence client behavior. An estimated 82% of customers check online reviews for local businesses. Ask each of your clients to leave an online review after their deal closes on popular review forums like your Google business page, Facebook business page, or your brokerage profile on home-search sites.
And ask for their permission to use their review as a testimonial on your website. Scrolling testimonials on your homepage are highly effective in building prospect confidence in your brokerage.
10. Become a Local Celebrity
Local news reporters regularly cover local real estate market conditions on TV, on the radio, and in print (either in newspapers or on news websites). You could become a local celebrity by regularly appearing in these news features as the local real estate expert.
Reach out to each news source in their medium: send a video of yourself pitching ideas to TV stations, a voice recording of yourself to radio stations, and a written letter or email to newspapers and news sites. A single feature could give your brokerage an instant marketing boost.
