Modern Effective Realtor Advertising Ideas

Realtor Advertising Ideas List

Advertising as a real estate agent can be tough, here’s some ideas

Facebook Paid Advertising

There are a ton of ways to do Facebook advertising as a Realtor.

The key is identifying who your target market is and creating an advertisement that they would be interested in.

We also have a in-depth guide for Facebook advertising for real estate agents here

Some key advertising concepts for real estate agents thinking about advertising on Facebook:

betty-hancey-fan-page

Build your fan page

Pay to gain local fans. The great thing about having a fan page is that once these people are apart of your fan page, they are your fans for a very long time!

This means every time you push out content, you will always have a place to go where people are interested in hearing what you have to say. These fans should be local as well.

Make an effort to build a relationship with every single fan you get.

When all you’re looking for is a quick listing, you miss out on the the relationships that build before any listings happen at all. If you have 1000 Facebook fans, you should try to speak to every single one.

Do it as they join, not all at once.

real estate lead capture page

Lead capture page

Have Facebook advertisements go straight to real estate landing page

A great lead capture page has a single goal and everything on that page is supporting that goal.

Most of the time that goal is to get the potential leads e-mail.

A solid lead capture page will convert at anywhere between 20-30%, and anything better is beyond excellent but, rarely happens. 10% is still a good enough conversion rate to continue with.

Try out unbounce if you’re new at making websites. It’s really easy to use and has some great tutorials on their site.

Don’t be so ROI hungry

I get it. You’re spending real money and want to see a return immediately. If you have a second watch this video, it’s 9 minutes but, goes over some great concepts:

It’s basically saying that when you get to PPC targeted keywords(which we cover next), that’s where all your competitors are. That’s also where it gets most expensive to advertise because everyone knows about it.

What about if you took it to the step before the user even knew they were going to sell?

For Realtors, that’s Facebook advertising.

You can start gaining fans and building relationships with them before they are even in the market. So when they do come into market, you’re the first person they think about.

realtor advertising ideas

Content marketing on Facebook for real estate agents

This is a more advanced method but, very effective.

The idea behind this is taking an article you have wrote on your blog / website which is very popular and people have responded really well to and advertising that on Facebook.

The goal here is to get people to click through to the article which you know is popular, then go to your blog and consume the information. While this is happening, you should have a popup (like we do) and try to get their e-mail.

*Only use this method if you know your real estate website and blog are converting your visitors well. Realtors who can do this, earn my respect as an internet marketer 😉

retargeting

You can also take this a step further even and install retargeting

With a service like adroll or perfect audience.

This allows you to advertise to those same users who were already on your blog on Facebook and other websites.

The reason this works so well is that, the person who you are advertising to has already been to your blog and you have already built a little trust with them, so when they see the second ad they are far more likely to sign up for whatever your offer might be.

Retargeting when done right has a lot lower advertising rates and high conversion rates as well.

This has really high potential in being one of the best Realtor advertising ideas if done right.

Here is a quick (1min) retargeting video to give you more of an idea of what it is:

E-mail Marketing For Realtors

E-mail marketing, newsletters, drip campaigns, it’s pretty much all the same.

It’s one of the most effective marketing tools you have as a real estate agent.

You’re essential getting a potential clients e-mail and then following up with some type of content that they will find valuable, while at the same time building a relationship.

I see so many agents doing this wrong!

  • Don’t go straight to an automatic e-mail campaign that you didn’t personally setup yourself
  • Don’t just send listings of homes (unless they are already a client and just want this)
  • Don’t let your list go ‘stale’ by not e-mailing them months at a time
  • Don’t send canned material. Make sure every e-mail has value to the lead.

The key to a great e-mail campaign that will turn your leads into clients is the personal touch only you can add. Marketers are going to advertise to you that their pre-made automation system is the best and it’s not.

realtor drip e-mail marketing campaign

You know your audience better than anyone else.

Build campaigns that you have set up yourself and put the time in. Then monitor them and see how you can improve them over time.

If you haven’t build a guide check out this one we wrote on e-mail marketing

It’s essential to any modern business, regardless if you’re a Realtor or not.

If you want to become a master of e-mail marketing, subscribe to this blog right now: https://blog.getvero.com/

Google Adwords Advertising

*Side note – MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE CONVERTS WELL!!!!

If your paying for traffic and someone ends up on your website, you need to grab their contact information! The more you ask for the less signups (aka conversions) you will get.

More Friction = Less Signups <– Remember this!

Paying for 100 visitors and converting 1 is horrible (1% conversion)

Paying for 100 visitors and converting 10 is kinda good. (10% conversion)

You want to get up to around 20% and keep testing new ways to potential get it even higher.

Read our guide here on conversion optimization for real estate agents.

It’s easy to want more contact information but,with just an e-mail you have a lot more access than you think and can use a service like rapportive to find all their social networks and other stuff.

Use rapportive to find out more information about your real estate lead with just their e-mail.

Target specific keywords & ideas

You probably know this one already.

But, for those who don’t.. You can literally bid for high value keywords such as:

  • Orange county realtor
  • Orange county real estate for sale
  • Find a real estate agent in Orange Countygoogle keyword advertising for realtors

People searching this obviously are interested in a Realtor.

Make sure you can convert them or you’re wasting your money.

Display Ads

This is where it starts to get a little more advanced.

display-ads

Display ads let’s you target certain websites to advertise on, as well as by interests and other things.

Before even thinking about doing display ads on Google adwords you’re going to want to make sure you have a couple things done.

Who is the EXACT type of lead you’re looking for?

  • Male or female?
  • Buyer or seller?
  • Age range?
  • What’s  his/her interest
  • How do they spend their time online?
  • Where do they spend their time online

To figure this out, take out the list of every single client you ever have worked for and then start grouping them.

After you see who the majority of your clients is, get in contact with them.

Conduct an interview and find out all of this information yourself.

Once you have all this information figured out, you’re ready to setup a Google display ads campaign.

The less you know about your clients, the less effective your advertising will be.

The more you know about your clients the more effective your advertising will be.

This is a rule for EVERY type of advertising you ever do.

Never start an advertisement campaign without having a specific target audience in mind. Design ads that speak to them directly for higher conversion rates. The broader you go, the less successful your campaign will be.

Google display ads interactive demo by Google

In depth display ads guide

A beginners guide to adwords display advertising

Twitter Cards

Twitter is starting to become innovative with the ways they are letting you advertise to buyers and sellers.

With Twitter lead gen cards, the lead can sign up for your offer with a single click which means almost no friction.

Less friction = higher conversions.

twitter real estate lead generation cards

My only complaint is that, I have yet to see a successful Twitter campaign from many of the great marketers I follow.

Invest money wisely in this.

Because it’s so new that means there is a lot of untapped potential that no one has figured out yet.

As with all advertising campaigns, build a budget for yourself and be creative with it. Even if you start with $20/mo on Twitter campaigns, you’ll be learning something new every month and eventually you will get good at it.

Try crazy things

Immediately of course you’re going to want to advertise in hashtags such as #YourCity and similar hashtags.

Great, do that!

Also try things that don’t make sense. Often times in advertising, the campaign that advertisers don’t think are going to be successful end up being the most successful.

Online Giveaways

When throwing an online give away make sure it’s targeted to your city. One big mistake is wanting to make sure you get lot’s of e-mails and signups from the giveaway so you end up posting it on a whole bunch of sites to drive traffic to the giveaway and end up with really low quality leads from different states that don’t care about you and never will.

facebook real estate give away

Throw a Facebook giveaway

From a survey we did, we discovered most Realtors have at least 300 Facebook fans.

Don’t be scared to throw a give away specifically for them. Even if you don’t end up with a lot of signups, you’re cementing yourself in the leads mind that you’re an authority and awesome person to work with.

Often times we all gratification in forms of lot’s of traffic and signups. This isn’t a good way to be  as an real estate agent. The real gem is in the quality of signups.

Facebook give away apps:

https://woobox.com/sweepstakes

https://www.shortstack.com/

Sponsor a meetup / Become a part of a meetup

meetup for real estate agents

Meetup is a great way for real estate agents to start networking and getting new business.

https://meetup.com

Join a referral network meetup

They literally have meetups made for networking and giving business to each other. Often times they will only allow a certain amount of service industry professionals per meetup which allows you to get the most out of each meetup.

This is a great way to spend 2 hours a month meeting people that have one thing on their mind: Networking.

Get involved, be awesome, get business.

Join a hobby meetup

The ROI here comes from the relationships you build just like on your Facebook fan page.

It’s also a free excuse to get out of the house and do something you love! You’re literally prospecting and doing what you love at the same time. Meetups sometimes have 100+ people at them. When you’re apart of that community and people start to get to know you, they’re going to start giving you their business and referrals.

Sponsor a meetup

Don’t sponsor a random meetup that you never go to. That’s useless.

Do the hobby meetup that was just mentioned. Then help them out by sponsoring them and making cool events happen.

The best part about this is that it’s actually really cheap to sponsor some meetups. You can do it as little as $100. These are not ‘businesses’ so, talk to whoever is the owner at the meetup and workout a deal that is mutually beneficial. I bet you could get a sponsorship just by bringing food for everyone every month.

Easy and great way to start meeting new prospects while doing something you love. What’s better then that?

Video

You’ve probably been told this by your office 100x. Get on Youtube!

It drives traffic!

It has SEO benefits!

It has blah.

It’s great, you know it’s great, you know you should be doing it, so i’m going to talk about a different type of video.

wistia for realtors

Wistia

https://wistia.com/

What is Wistia? It’s a place to host the video so you can put it on your blog.

But then I won’t get as much traffic, SEO benefits, and everything else!

Correct! You’ll get something even more valuable.

Leads! You can require an e-mail address to start the video.

This is another great way to convert people who are coming to your blog / website and not signing up. Get a great title for your video and make it something people want to watch, in return you get a brand new fresh lead.

Good deal right?

Well forget what I said about no SEO benefits, because you can take the same video and post it on YouTube so it’s on both platforms. Chances are the people on YouTube won’t be the same viewers as the viewers on your blog so definitely put the video on Wistia and YouTube.

I haven’t seen one real estate agent take advantage of video marketing like this yet, be the first!

Hire A Content Writer

Creating great content is hard.

I know the life of a Realtor because I was one for years.

Putting out 500 word blog posts targeted at some keyword that you don’t even have a chance at, is a complete waste of time.

Great effort, I applaud you for learning and putting forth the effort.

I want to be realistic with you so you have the correct expectations.

1 blog post a week is fine, just make sure you have put the time into it.

By time I mean:

  • 3 hours minimum writing
  • 1 hour+ doing keyword research
  • Formatting
  • 1500 words minimum

At the very minimum all of that is required if you want your blog post to rank well.

If you don’t have the time for this, which could be a good thing! It could mean you have a lot of business and you’re way too business. Great! In that case, hire a content writer!

DO NOT OUTSOURCE A CONTENT WRITER

Half the time they are using article spinners which is where they take an article that was already written and then move everything around to make it look new. The other half of the time they know english well enough to talk to you but, not well enough to write anything.

Either way you end up with some really low quality articles that Google and mainly your audience is not going to like.

Luckily you have me, FlyerCo and i’m going to hook you up with some great resources to hire content writers:

https://scripted.com/

Host A Webinar

Webinars are a great way to get local leads that are interested.

real estate webinar

You can host these once a month and require e-mail signup. It’s a great way to get new leads interested in specific topics such as:

  • First time buyers
  • Should I sell my home myself?
  • Short sales
  • And many more

You can gather traffic to sign up for your webinar with a couple methods:

  • Facebook Advertisements
  • Craigslist Posts
  • Flyers
  • Local Facebook Groups
  • Local Google Plus Communities

Another great thing about webinars is that you can record them.

That means for every webinar you do, you get leads directly from hosting the webinar. Then you can upload the webinar to YouTube and Wistia and gain SEO benefits as well as leads over time.

It’s a great way to get noticed and only takes up an hour or two per month.

So many benefits, it’s a no brainer.

Go to meeting is the most popular webinar platform right now and it’s free to try

https://www.gotomeeting.com/online/webinar

Conversion-Rate-Optimization

Optimize Your Website For Conversions

We covered conversion optimization in depth here and also a little in the beginning of this post.

The basic concept that you can take with you is this:

When people come to my website, what’s their main goal?

  • Are they looking for houses?
  • Are they looking for information?
  • What exactly are they looking for?

After I know their goal, I can use that information to accomplish my own goal.

If they’re looking for houses – > sign up for exclusive listings not on the market

First time buyers – > Download my free eBook on things you need to know as a first time buyer

The point is, figure out the best way to convert your visitors into signups.

SEO

We also covered SEO tactics for real estate agents in depth here.

SEO is a long term strategy.

Much like success it’s something you have to work for over time without seeing any results. Then slowly you start seeing more and more results the harder you work.

If I could have you remember 3 things for SEO it would be this

  • There is no substitute for great content

As mentioned earlier in the post. Content is beyond important, especially as Google evolves there is one thing that has never changed. Google has always had a focus on content and figuring out how to rank great content better.

  • Backlinks are the #1 ranking factor for SEO

In a recent Matt Cutts video (He is one of the main guys behind the Google search algorithm) he explains that backlinks are important and may lose their value in the future but, not anytime soon.

If you’re confused about building backlinks, here is a great post to get you started in understanding how to build backlinks 

  • Use WordPress for your real estate blog

There are a lot of solutions to build your real estate website and blog with their IDX software/platform.

If you’re experienced in internet marketing and SEO, great. Take that route but, it’s still going to make things a lot harder for you.

I know SEO really, really well. WordPress still makes it really, really easy for me. Things like on page optimization, keyword optimization for content, page analysis and other SEO requirements are basically done for you with great WordPress plugins. Highlighted in the post linked at the beginning of this section.

As a Realtor you don’t want to be thinking about that stuff. Your job is to sell homes, not be a SEO specialist.

Make NO mistake. These people trying to sell you websites and blogs that aren’t on WordPress will advertise themselves as “SEO” friendly with “SEO” benefits. They are not! It’s an easy claim to make and not back up.

Realtors are their market and they are going to do everything they can to convince you that their product will help you reach #1.

In reality the only thing that will help you reach #1 is hard work.

This post covered a lot and I know it can be overwhelming.

The key is focusing on one marketing technique at a time.

Work on it until you master it, then move on to another. If you start trying to do everything you’ll probably fail and lose a lot of money while you’re at it.

Have any questions?

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

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