There’s no shortage of marketing tips for real estate agents, or any professional for that matter. But there are the fundamental ones that contribute to your success and shouldn’t be overlooked. Here are 5 marketing tips real estate agents should live by.
1) Update Your Headshot
You are the face of your real estate business…literally. From your email signature to your open house signs, your face is your company brand. So shouldn’t you have a superb headshot to enhance all of your marketing materials?
Hire a professional photographer for a high-quality image that makes a statement. Photos taken on your smartphone just don’t cut it these days — they’re blurry and look unprofessional. Headshots from ten years ago can be misleading so keep your photos current and up to date! The goal is for former and future clients to recognize you, especially when they meet you for the first time.
How to take the perfect real estate agent head-and-shoulders photo
2) Content Marketing
Content marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable and relevant content — and it’s not just for bloggers anymore. As an agent, creating relatable content for your clients allows you to build trust with them and gain new prospects in the process. Newsletters are great content marketing tools that entertain and educate your clients. Check out our free monthly newsletter SmartMoves. Over 40,000 agents use it to build brand awareness and stay top-of-mind with clients. Perks include:
- A Properties Showcase Section — Coming Soon, Pocket Listings, New, Pending or Just Sold
- Helpful Home Tips
- Delicious Recipes for the Epicurean
- Calendar/Holidays
Blog posts, videos, and infographics are other types of content you can create to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge of your industry. Offering your audience free advice and tips makes you the beacon of knowledge for everything real estate. An important component of successful content marketing is consistency. Make a schedule for publishing blog posts and videos and stick with it. Consistent posting will generate more traffic to your website, increasing the chances of your posts being shared across a variety of social media platforms.
Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing for Agents
3) Social Media Marketing
Potential homebuyers look at new homes online all the time, which means you, as an agent, should be online too. With social media marketing, you can grow your business and increase visibility for your listings.
Facebook lets you post 360-degree photos and videos which is great for showing off a master suite or a beautiful view from a balcony. Create a business page to build your brand and participate in local groups on Facebook to grow your network. This is the perfect platform to share who you are as an agent as well as who you are in your community. Are you the coach of your daughter’s soccer team? Do you go to the movies with your family every Saturday night? Do you donate to a toy drive every year? Relate. Relate. Relate.
Tweet to promote your listings and generate new leads. Twitter allows you to share 140-character tweets and if you know which keywords your target audience is searching for, you can include them in #hashtags. The more you tweet, the more leads you’ll generate. This is the perfect platform to share short tips for staging and home maintenance. #Staginglikeaboss
Where’s the perfect place to share beautiful listing photos? The most popular visual social network: Instagram. With more than 700 million users, Instagram is user-friendly with extremely high levels of engagement. The app lets you post photos of beautifully staged homes and video clips that showcase properties on the market. Use the story feature to give your audience behind-the-scenes looks at open houses they crave. You can also post stories of you doing a Q&A, and tag your clients to let them know you’ve answered their questions.
Establish your professional reputation online with LinkedIn, the top professional networking site. This is the perfect platform for posting industry news, reports, and articles as well as sharing your own expertise. Post photos of new listings and exciting projects on the way. Join real estate groups and dive into the various discussion boards available on the platform. LinkedIn is great for growing your professional network and keeping an eye on the competition.
How to Get More Traction on Social Media
4) Follow Up with Clients
Referrals. The only way to get them is to reach out to your former clients and ask. Asking them to write referrals gives you the opportunity to make contact with them again, opening the gate to further engagement. Learn what you can improve upon to help become a better agent. Delivering the best service possible is key to being an all-star agent and starts with understanding your clients. Keeping in touch with past clients will also keep you top-of-mind when they need an agent again.
How to win back a client that’s done a deal without you
5) Boost Your Ads
An important marketing strategy that’ll help you succeed as an agent is: Facebook ads. If you’re not already doing it, it’s time to start. Facebook ads are a gold mine for generating leads — it’s America’s most popular social network with 76% of its users visiting the site every single day. Post ads for open houses, property listings, and home valuations for as little as $5 a day. They’re easy to set up and let you choose your target audience by age, gender, location, behaviors, and interests. Choose your audience, set your budget, forge your narrative, and voila, you’ve got an audience!