You’re a REALTOR. Or, maybe you manage or work for a real estate company. In any case, you’ve got properties to market, and we can help. 

Because we’re pretty sure that you’re leaning on traditional real estate marketing ideas that don’t produce a healthy enough return on investment and missing out on new-age real estate marketing ideas that can make a real difference to your business. Chances are you can spend your real estate marketing money better than you are right now.

So, let’s talk about this.

Real estate marketing ideas should be fueled by personal connections.

So often, people choose you as their real estate agent because of a recommendation they received from a trusted source, and/or because of some quality face-to-face time they spent with you.

We’re living in a digital world. And we’ve got to reconcile with it. Because some of the connections you make won’t be face-to-face, at least not at first.

Where do you think someone goes once they’ve heard your name through the grapevine?

You guessed it. Online. They go online. And they expect to find you. They’re checking to see if you’ve got a professional presence before they take the time to call you up and ask for a meeting. They’re also there to check out your listings, or maybe because a listing they liked brought them to your profile.

So…

You’ve got to know how to reach the right people.

And you’ve got to know how to engage them once you do – in person and online, too. You’ve got to build a loyal community, and then you’ve got to leverage that loyal community, and all by living up to (or even better by exceeding) expectations.

Take off your REALTOR® hat for a moment, and just think of yourself as a person of the modern world. You’re bombarded by marketing messages all day every day – digitally and in print – right?

Your audience is, too.

Put your marketing hat back on.

How do you break through all that noise?

If you’re doing a whole lot of what you think you should be doing, just because it’s what everyone else is doing and what you’ve always been doing, think again.

Sometimes you’ve got to dare to be different. Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to let go of tradition. Sometimes you’ve got to be brave and face the new and changing world for what it is.

This is one of those times.

Do you know what your real estate marketing ideas are doing for you? Have you ever stopped to deeply consider them? To take measure? To reflect on their measurements, and assess if they’re good enough? Do you know where your real estate marketing money is going? Are you falling for faux new techniques, and paying too much for them?

It’s time to start thinking in terms of return on investment.

5 Real Estate Marketing Ideas To Drop

My website does the work for me.

You need a website, yes. You need a smart-looking website, yes. But even a smart-looking website alone is not enough to generate or secure leads.

You need to be updating your site with new content, regularly. And the content needs to be genuinely useful. What knowledge can you offer? What expertise can you share? Get a blog going.

Want a first page Google listing? Want to come up when someone searches for a real estate agent in your city or town? You should. And that means you need an SEO strategy, and you need to spend the money to promote it.

So, your website doesn’t do the work for you. You do the work for your website. When your website generates or secures a lead (and hopefully many of them in a steady, steady stream) it’s because of the work you did and the work you’re always doing.

Your website is a tool at the center of your digital marketing. It’s the place you greet people when they come to you online.

If you get someone to your site through an email campaign or an ad on social media, don’t lose them because you’ve got a terrible site.

You wouldn’t invite people over and expect your house to clean itself or dinner to cook itself, would you? And just because you cleaned and cooked for the event you hosted last month doesn’t mean you don’t need to do the work again for the event this month.

I’m paying a company to market my listings for me.

Sure, maybe they do get your listings in front of lots of eyeballs, and maybe they do give you the leads they generate for you. But, are they directing those eyeballs to their own site ultimately, instead of yours.

What we’re implying is that you might be paying a third party to make their own SEO better. You don’t really want to do that, do you?

All of your digital marketing efforts should be driving traffic to your website for conversion. Your website. Not anyone else’s. Stop paying for anything less.

Email blasts help me reach so many people.

That depends on what you mean by reach.

Sure, an email of yours winds up in the inboxes of many. But how many open it? How many get in touch with you? How many become clients?

To be clear, email marketing is different from email blasting. Email marketing, when it’s done right, is effective, and a good real estate marketing idea.

Email marketing is sending a newsletter to your community. The idea is to stay top of mind in your community. If you’re top of mind, and if you’ve done well by your community, your community will recommend you around. And that’s how your community grows.

Email blasting, by contrast, is sending an email far and wide to people who don’t know you with the hopes that the spray everywhere approach will return some new leads. Fingers crossed, right?

Are you paying for your email list? Or, are you paying someone else to blast their list on your behalf? Either way, we’d say you should probably stop doing that. The people on that list don’t know you, and since real estate is all about personal connection, you’re going to have a very hard time getting the attention of these people who don’t know you, let alone convincing them to work with you.

So stick to email marketing to your community, and make sure you’re sending engaging and useful content. If you’re singing your own praises or offering a dry report weekly, you can be sure you’re not going to get many readers. You’ll probably even lose members of your community this way.

Respect your community’s time. Update when and as it makes sense, and tell a good story.

Direct mail is the old standby it’s always been.

Just Sold postcards, calendars, magnets and the like are expensive, and they typically don’t work well enough to justify their cost.

Most direct mail pieces end up in the trash can or recycling bin without so much as a glance. Isn’t that what you do with your direct mail most of the time, especially when it’s a marketing pitch from a person or company you don’t know?

If you’re sending mail to your community and making it personal, maybe it’s worth it to you. You should be able to measure that.

But if you’re able to reach those people in your community with a post or an ad on social media, for a fraction of the cost, would that not be better for your budget?

Print ads, too. Print ads, too.

Newspaper and yellow pages ads are no better.

What year are you living in, anyway? When’s the last time you checked the newspaper or yellow pages when you were looking to find a new service? Didn’t you ask around in your network, or go online to search? Maybe you combined both ideas by asking your community to make suggestions to you via a social media post.

Unless you’re marketing to an audience that you can prove is regularly checking their newspaper and yellow pages for the ads, and acting because of what they learn in those ads, don’t bother.

Typically, the return on investment is small enough that you should spend your dollars elsewhere. Pay for better website content and SEO, and better email marketing, and see a better return on your investment.

Let’s go back to that idea about living in a digital world, for a moment.

Your property listing isn’t complete without quality photos. You don’t need dozens of photos. Choose the best handful, and tell a story.

Your property listing benefits from a quality video, too. Take a couple minutes of someone’s time, and tell a story.

What’s key to the quality here?

Good staging.

Sure, a quality camera and someone who knows what they’re doing behind it goes a long way, too – and a sharp, user-friendly layout in print and online.

Good staging, though, is not to be overlooked. Help prospective renters and buyers picture themselves in the space.