A Starter's Guide to Real Estate Marketing
In my journey to give clients "more meaningful marketing", I often find that my real estate clients seem to struggle with the same frustrations when it comes to marketing themselves.
Marketing matters whether you're focused on home buyers, home sellers, investors, or commercial property real estate. Finding your real estate niche, defining your own personal brand, and focusing on a target farm area are critical to helping you to build a successful, long-term career.
Here are 4 tips to get you started on your journey as a real estate professional:
1. Find your real estate niche
In the market, people understand at a very basic level that realtors can help them in their home-buying and selling endeavors. In fact, when you ask Google what the definition of a realtor is, you get: "a person who acts as an agent for the sale and purchase of buildings and land; a real estate agent."
So, rule number one is that you don't want to scream from the mountaintops that you buy and sell homes. If people know you are a realtor, they already know that much about you. Focus on what makes you different and focus on what your ideal client looks like. Start thinking in terms of what value you can add to your clients' lives over your competitors. How are you adding more meaning to their experience with you?
Finding your real estate niche means finding that extra "it" factor that makes you so special that clients will refer you to their friends and family. Maybe you find it especially soul-igniting to help first-time home buyers. Perhaps you specialize in helping the senior community. Are you passionate about helping military veterans find housing? Do you already have a couple of short sales under your belt? Think about the experiences you would like to have and which clients you like to help most and stick to it.
2. Perfect and market your niche
I know when you're just starting out, it's hard to turn down business. It's good to get a little bit of everything so you understand which area of real estate you enjoy the most. This practice will help you build your niche, but it takes pounding the pavement to find it. There is no doubt that real estate is hard work. Rest assured, there will be a transaction that shines above the rest. When you find it, don't lose it. Go all in and start building your real estate marketing efforts around it.
Let's say your niche is helping millennial prospects find the home they plan to raise their children. Start concentrating your marketing efforts on 23 to 38-year-olds who are newly married and considering children. Concentrating your real estate marketing efforts doesn't mean you have to turn down business, it means that you won't want to scream those transactions from the mountaintops like you will the wins that fall into the niche you are perfecting. Here are some helpful ideas and strategies to consider that have helped other realtors.
Perfecting your niche will be a career-long exercise and so will marketing it. Some of marketing is experimental, but as time goes on, no one is going to know those clients like you will. As a real estate agent, you'll always be learning how to communicate with your ideal clients. Using these practices, you'll be able to easily identify where your wins and losses are to be able to more easily quantify your successes and areas of improvement.
3. Create your personal real estate marketing brand
What do your clients like about working with you? Is it your charismatic nature, your 'can-do' attitude, or the fact that you will show someone 88 houses and not bat an eye? Sure, if you work for a broker, you have a brand, but that is your company's reputation. What is yours? What makes you, "you?" What is your personal brand? What legacy do you want to leave behind?
You'll want to think about what sets you apart from your brokerage and from other real estate agents. In other words, how do you differentiate yourself? Do you want to be known for offering care packages, sending hand-written cards, for adding a different kind of lasting impression? Are you the only realtor who offers your family's secret cookie recipe at open houses?
During your career, you may change brokers, but what will people remember about working with you as an individual? Strive to be that person consistently and success will follow.
4. Location, location, location
I know it sounds cliché and I know hard it is to turn down prospective clients in the early months, but once you've put work into defining your niche and you're working on your personal brand, don't be afraid to get picky. As a real estate agent, time is money and you can't possibly cover the whole state as one person.
First, pick an area that you would like to concentrate on. Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds. You'll want to take a look at market conditions and comparable properties to understand your investment, but then think about what you can bring to that location. What can you offer to that neighborhood? Did you grow up there? Do you know where all the great parks are?
Concentrating your efforts around a physical location will help you in your real estate marketing efforts in the form of mailers, door-knocking if you choose, and name/face recognition. You can't be everywhere all the time, but you can be meaningful and intentional with your efforts and that's what matters.
