As a new year begins, so do the resolutions. As a real estate agent, this year’s marketing plan should be at the top of your list. You need to be determining now how you will be executing your marketing ideas for the greatest impact and at minimal cost. Remember, the early bird gets the worm.
To get your marketing juices flowing, below are 4 real estate marketing ideas you should be looking at for 2017.
1. Boost your budget for social media
Back in the good old days when you posted an update to Facebook or Twitter, you could assume the majority of your followers would be seeing your content. Fast forward to today and you are lucky if a small percentage sees the fruits of your labor. The current state is, in order to boost the visibility of your social media posts (i.e. Facebook updates, YouTube videos, Instagram posts) you are going to have to allocate some amount of ad budget.
With that being said, you don’t have to spend a whole lot to see results. A nominal ad budget will certainly yield effective results. A couple of things you want to keep in mind are that your content should not just be promotional, you want to provide value to your audience. You should also be tracking your results so that you are seeing what is working and what is not.
2. One size does not fit all
When it comes to your marketing strategy, it should be unique and dynamic. Today’s consumers want more personalization and customization when it comes to how they are marketed to. So, rather than creating just one landing page, a single direct mail piece or one follow-up email , you should be creating specialized marketing components based on the audience you are trying to reach.
For example, many experts are saying that both millennials and baby boomers will be dominating the home buyer market this year. So, rather than promoting your properties with a single message that really isn’t appealing to either segment, take a look at the psychographic and demographic needs of your circle of prospects and customize your marketing accordingly.
3. The New Follow-Up isn’t just by phone
We all know follow-ups are key in this business. But in 2017, your follow-up process just got a whole lot easier with the powerful marketing tool called retargeting.
With retargeting, visitors to your website have a browser cookie put on their computer. As they continue to browse the web, the tracking cookie allows them to be “retargeted” all over the web. So for example, if you were checking out that awesome new Dyson vacuum on Amazon, images of the same vacuum seem to follow you around to different sites you visit.
This type of powerful marketing tool is key to achieving further engagement with those prospects who visit your website. You can also use this on web properties like YouTube or Facebook pages.
4. Get those videos going
We should all know by now the importance of online videos are to our marketing strategy. As we are moving into 2017, this trend has really evolved into something much more sophisticated than your typical YouTube video. Enter the world of live-video platforms (i.e. Periscope, MeerKat, Facebook Live), augmented reality apps (think Pokemon Go) and 360-degree videos. These will be this year’s game changers for sure.
Now this does not mean you should go out and create your own virtual reality app or start putting on Facebook live-video chats every day. Perhaps a 360-degree video could help promote any pre-habs or wholesales you have to potential investors. Or put on a weekly Facebook Live video with exclusive real estate tips. By incorporating dynamic video you will not only gain more leads but build great rapport much more quickly.
As real estate professionals, we are always on the look out for the latest and greatest marketing strategies that will help us stand out and achieve our marketing goals. By incorporating some of these ideas, you should be well on your way to gaining more leads and closing more deals. With that being said, their success really does depend upon always keeping in mind who your audience is and what they are looking for. Doing so will keep your marketing focused and in turn help deliver value to a vast marketplace.