In today’s competitive real estate market, successful realtors know how to set trends and stay ahead of their competition. These realtors attract more leads and stand out from their competition because they know how to leverage the power of marketing.
In this article, we’ll discuss the strategies you can use to start outsmarting your competition.
1. Make Your Website Stand Out
Any agent or real estate firm looking to compete in today’s market needs a strong presence online. This is done through the effective use of social media and local online business directories, but it’s done mostly through your official website.
It’s not enough anymore to just have a website. Your site must bring value to its users, or they won’t spend any time on it and will head directly to a competitor.
Are all of your current property listings up-to-date? Do you give interactive virtual tours of your listings? Do you make it easy to search your listings with filters such as price, location, and size?
Almost every potential client begins their property search online. Your official website gives you the perfect opportunity to make the best possible first impression. Do it right, and you’ve outsmarted your competition on the first pass.
Some additional ways to set your website apart from the competition are:
- Mortgage calculators
- Virtual tours
- Virtual staging
- Official appointment setting
- Concierge Services
Focus on SEO best-practices to help your site rank well on search engine results.
2. Use Zillow. A Lot.
It’s impossible to over-emphasize the importance of Zillow. The site boasts hundreds of millions of monthly views and puts you, your brand, and your properties in front of countless potential prospects.
Zillow is by far the United State’s largest real estate site. In fact, Zillow found that buyers use the site as the #1 most important source for finding a new home in 2018. Zillow, in and of itself, actually outperformed agents in the study.
This makes it imperative that you set up a Zillow profile, allowing you to post your listings, gather your online reviews, and build your agent credibility. Of course, the platform also makes it much easier for clients to find you.
Internet users, free of charge, can search available properties using their computers, smartphones, or the popular mobile app, where it’s estimated that almost 200 homes are viewed every single second. This makes a total of almost 400 million homes viewed every month on the app alone.
To outsmart your competition on Zillow, learn how to make the site work for you. Display customer testimonials from past clients on your Zillow profile. Include a link to your Zillow Reviews page in all of your email communication and newsletters. The positive reviews boost your credibility and encourage more prospects to hire you.
You can also use Zillow’s Facebook Tabs to integrate your listings and reviews seamlessly into your social media profiles. In particular, use the Reviews and Rating Tab to feature past client testimonials directly onto your Facebook business page.
3. Blog Like You Mean It
Use your website to launch a blog that’s full of carefully researched, relevant content that will build your authority and credibility in your area. Thoughtfully discuss what you know. Share personal experiences of working as a realtor. Highlight local people and local events.
Your blog can serve as a routine touchpoint for your prospects. The more you post and the more readers you have, the more opportunities you have to convert them into a client.
When you learn how to optimize your content for search results, you’ll also uncover more prospects with little additional effort. Use tools such as Google Analytics to find high-interest keywords and phrases that relate to the industry. Use these in your blogging to build a larger audience of readers.
4. Show Them the Way
When a realtor creates their professional website, it’s a common mistake to forget how the user’s online buying journey progresses. Without considering the journey, it’s impossible to develop an effective conversion funnel that produces consistent results.
To outsmart your competition, make sure your website has simple navigation menus, well-defined calls-to-action, and a conversion funnel that walks a user through step-by-step.
Remember that nearly every prospect that visits your site will make initial judgments about you based on what you have on display. They’ll engage with your content before they ever engage with you.
A user needs to be able to easily navigate and find exactly what they’re looking for at any given stage of the selling or buying process. Consider this heavily when you implement design cues such as icons, logos, search bars, and buttons. Focus on what is most user-friendly.
5. Don’t Overlook Newsletters
An effective email marketing strategy remains one of the top ways to build your brand and bring in new clients. Did you know that, according to a recent Benchmark survey, a full 63% of email users reported that they engaged with an email marketing campaign from a real estate agent? Another 22% said that they planned on doing so in the near future.
Email marketing works so well because it helps you build a direct line of communication with your clients and prospects. You can build trust, develop your brand and, move prospects along in your conversion funnel. A great way to expand your campaign is to include SMS, as well. Use a web to text platform to easily convert your emails to SMS.
The way to stand out in your email marketing campaign is by nurturing a personal bond with your readers. Provide them a lot of perceived value with newsletters and additional updates concerning:
- Local real estate events
- Service area updates
- Local real estate statistics
- Local real estate law and regulations
- Brand new, exclusive listings
Take your email marketing seriously, and it’ll pay you back.
It’s also incredibly smart to turn your newsletter into a physical mailing. Print marketing campaigns and direct mail are an even more personal way to communicate with your prospects.
Wisepelican is the expert in direct mail for realtors and can get you started right away.
6. Instagram is Hot
Over 71% of Instagram’s billion-plus active users are less than 35 years of age. This makes Instagram the premier social media platform to use for realtors looking to reach the coveted millennial market.
Instagram is also driven by images. This makes it perfect for realtors to showcase listings without writing huge blocks of text. It’s also the perfect platform to share all the detailed shots of that new listing.
Even better, the ads you place on Instagram appear as almost organic, without being overly-intrusive in the feed of a user.
To really outsmart your competition on Instagram, take full advantage of its special features like hashtags, Instagram Stories and Instagram TV Highlights. These allow you to engage with prospects while reaching them for little or no cost.
Keep Outsmarting Your Competition With These Marketing Strategies
Staying ahead of the competition in any industry isn’t easy. This couldn’t hold truer than it does in the world of real estate.
Because of this, it’s important that you stand out by perfecting the real estate marketing strategies that work for the most successful realtors. Start here and see where things lead.
