When you stop into a convenience store to pick up a cold beverage, you probably spend less than a minute figuring out what you want to drink. When you buy real estate, you might spend weeks looking for the right property for your needs. You don't invest much in your decision to buy a drink because you only have to live with a bad drink decision for a short amount of time. However, buying a property requires a large financial investment and commitment, which means that real estate agents have to have a different marketing strategy than regular businesses that sell a product.
14 Ways Your Real Estate Business Can Increase Sales
1. Be the Authority
You are not just a real estate agent—you’re an expert in your field, so present yourself as such to your clients. Start a blog with useful household or office how-to articles, home staging tips and other related subjects that your clients would find valuable. Send postcards out to clients, both new and old, at the start of every winter season with tips on how to prepare their property for the coming season. The end goal is to create new sales, but in order to do so you must first be genuine, helpful and personable.
2. Give Your Audience Something to Do
If your marketing materials tell a story about who you are and what your company is all about, then the call to action should be the center of the story—it tells the audience what to do with the information they just received. Include phrases like “Call me for a free consultation” or “Visit our website to see our current listings.” Without a call to action, the only thing you’re saying is “I exist.”
3. Brand Your Presentation Materials
When you meet with new clients, do you ever stop to consider how your presentation materials look? Hire a freelance designer to create professional presentation folders with text, color, photos and graphics that tie into your brand identity and grab your audience’s attention. Create catalogues of property listings and place them in a custom binder. Present the title to a new property in a branded legal binder. These materials can be serious marketing tools with the right level of creativity.
4. Target the Right Audience
Instead of trying to cast a wide net and see what clients you can scoop up, try using bait to target specific niches of clients. Are you really great at finding homes for new families? Do you thrive in the condo market? Find out where your talents are best put to good use and market yourself accordingly by figuring out what your target audience values.
5. Brand for Your Clients, Not Yourself
As a realtor, you are your own brand, which is why so many agents use pictures of themselves as part of their marketing strategy. But you want to focus on what you can do for your potential clients, not how great you look in a portrait. All of your potential clients have a problem that they need you to solve—either they need to find a new property or they need to sell an existing one. Craft your marketing so that you come across as a solution, not just another pretty face in a sea of realtors.
6. Show Off Your Clients
Better yet—instead of pictures of yourself, why not use pictures of your former clients and their beautiful new properties? Testimonials help to strengthen your brand by providing evidence of your quality service record. Even better, if your potential clients see a familiar face, they’re going to be much more willing to get in touch with you. Extend this to your social media sites and blog by creating a “client of the week” program, giving everyone you’ve worked with a chance to shine in the spotlight. This loving treatment of your clients will do wonders for your business.
7. Give Them Something for Their Smartphone
Clients go crazy for technology like QR codes, those internet barcodes that allow smartphone users to access a website, call a number or download an application. Consider this scenario—a couple is taking a walk and they see one of your listings. Nobody is home, but the sign out front has a QR code that takes them to a mobile site where they can see pictures of the inside and set up a meeting with you directly from their phone. If you’re a little more tech savvy, you can even create an entire app for your business that gives clients updates on new listings.
8. Keep in Touch with Old Clients
New clients are the key to building your business, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore your old clients—especially since referrals and word-of-mouth comprise up to 75% of a real estate agent's business. Whether you successfully sold a former client’s property or not, it’s always a good idea to touch base every now and then to see how things are going. Send out an anniversary card every year on the day that they closed on their property as a friendly way to say hello. Sometimes even your best clients will find themselves having to move, whether for a new job, an expanding family, a growing business, or any number of other reasons. The next time they need a realtor—or one of their friends or family needs a realtor—you’ll be the first one they call.
9. Send Personal Invites to Open Houses
Go for a personal touch when sending invites to an open house. Invest in some branded stationery and send a personalized note explaining exactly to the client why you think they’d like to see the property that you’re showing off. For example: “John, the last time we talked you were looking for a home for your growing family. I think this listing on Sycamore Ave would be perfect for you and your wife.” Make your clients feel taken care of, and they’ll be yours for life.
10. Beef Up Your Business Cards
When you throw your business card in a fishbowl in a restaurant raffle for a free lunch, does it look like every other business card in the bowl? Consider for a second how many different businesses have represented themselves on boring old white stock. Inject color and texture into your card and don’t be afraid to dress up your design with pictures and graphics. A business card is a portable advertisement for your brand, so make it the best it can be.
11.Make Sure Your Freebies Make Sense
Free gifts are a great way to get your brand out there, but they aren’t as effective if they don’t make sense with your line of business. You help clients buy and sell properties, so focus on gifts that would be helpful for your clients. For example, hand out hand-crank LED flashlights to your clients for use in case of a power outage, which is something all property owners have experienced. When the power does go out, they remember that you helped them through the crisis.
12. Craft Creative Marketing Collateral
Pictures of houses, pictures of realtors—we’ve seen them all before. Strive to make your marketing collateral stand out above the crowd by being creative and presenting your company in a unique way. If you’re unable to come up with your own ideas, there’s no shame in paying someone else to do it for you. You want a marketing campaign that interests and engages your audience, not something that is passably professional because it looks like a clone of every other realtor’s marketing materials.
13. Provide Property Packets
Everyone who comes to see one of your properties should go home with a wealth of information on that particular listing. Create a presentation package using a branded folder and some custom brochures. Include a fact sheet about the listing and informational pamphlets from places of interest in the surrounding area, such as restaurants, libraries and local school districts. An informed client is a confident consumer, so give them as much information as you can to help them make the right choice.
14. Network with Neighbors
When you prepare to sell a property, it’s a good idea to introduce yourself to the surrounding neighbors. You can frame the introduction as a polite courtesy to let them know that you’re selling a property and that you might be hosting open houses which could bring increased traffic to the area. However, your true goal is to learn more about the surrounding neighborhood or commercial area—whether it’s busy or quiet, what the neighbors are like and what places of interest are nearby. Not only will you have a better wealth of information to offer your clients, you’ll now know the names and addresses of a few more potential clients that you got to spend valuable face time with.
Comments(4)