Marketing Your Real Estate Services

A lot of you might already be thinking about how to market real estate services next year. With the New Year coming quickly, it’s time to start planning your marketing campaigns, or, in a shameless plug, let someone do it for you. Following up with past clients has been the number one preference among real estate agents when it comes to marketing and for good reason. Referrals mean new leads and staying in touch with past customers means they will come back to you when they are ready to sell their home or buy a new one.

But let’s face it, a lot of agents are relying on older technology for marketing, whether it is “do-it-yourself” email and social media marketing tools or working with websites and landing pages that are not responsive to mobile applications. In 2014, it will be important to think outside of the box and take a fresh approach to marketing your real estate services.

Market Real Estate Services with Content

Content Marketing was pretty important in 2013 and it will be increasingly important in 2014. But it’s not just writing relevant content that is the important part, it’s also how to distribute and convert leads on that content. For example, if I publish this blog post and just wait for Google to index and someone to search for it, chances are it’s not going to be very successful. Now, if I publish, share it on social media, email it to several others and let some key people in Real Estate know about it, it will be a lot more successful. It is a lot of work to get one piece of content pushed out; can you imagine doing it yourself for a whole year in 2014? Most can’t and that’s why some real estate professionals are not utilizing content marketing or are successful with it.

Market Real Estate Services with Social Media

Everyone says you have to be doing Social Media Marketing in order to be successful in today’s real estate business. As a marketing director, I tend to agree. It helps keep people engaged with the business, it distributes content to those who need and read it, your customers are there and you should be too. We have all heard why, but what about time or even how? The old saying – “time is money” – still holds true today and it doesn’t change in 2014! I barely have enough time to spend on personal social media profiles let alone a business profile and I can imagine you are shaking your head up and down right now saying, yep, same for me. But yet, we have to find a way to get it done. Whether you hire someone to do it, buy a do-it-for-you service, or do it yourself, you need to have quality posts, otherwise who would want to get updates from you? The idea is to be social and visible so that when that person who follows, likes or is friends with you wants to buy, sell or knows someone who fits, you are the one who is in their minds. Staying “top-of-mind” cannot be overstated here.

BONUS CONTENT:
Get the free social media guide
Get Yours Now

Market Real Estate Services with Email

Email marketing is dead? Says who? This is something I’ve heard for a while now and will probably continue to hear in 2014. Don’t kid yourself, it’s far from dead. The problem isn’t with email marketing; it’s that the contacts interests have changed. The outdated tactic of selling through email and spamming people is what has died and if you change with the times and keep up with the tactics of email marketing, then you know that it is the content that matters, not how it gets there. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas with marketing your real estate services with email. Think outside of the box, don’t constrain yourself within tight guidelines. Make it a resolution in 2014 to get started or back into email marketing using real world content that your contacts will read, share and enjoy. All it takes is one email to be forwarded and a couple of repeat customers and you are experiencing ROI.

Solutions for Marketing Your Real Estate Services

Luckily, real estate agents have a lot of options when it comes to marketing their real estate services. While some have been around for a while, others are fairly new to the game and all have their advantages and disadvantages.

1) Do-It-Yourself Marketing Tools – If you have enough time in a day to write enough content this isn’t a bad option. Planning, writing and marketing your own content can be self-rewarding but will it pay off? Sure, this is the cheapest option price wise, but will you make any money off of it? Maybe, but most in real estate are probably not using this option because it is hard, time consuming and, well, it’s just hard to do. So unless you’re an established writer or have a knack for writing great content, this option probably doesn’t work that well for you.

2) Hire a Marketing Professional – If you have a big enough office and can afford it, this may be an option for you, albeit an expensive one. I know some real estate professionals who hire individuals from time to time for part time work, but it rarely has worked out for them. Sometime managing a resource like an addition person can be just as time consuming.

3) Hire a Marketing Agency – A lot of real estate professionals hire marketing agencies to handle their marketing for them. It generally is successful but probably the most expensive solution outside of hiring a full time employee. Also, it is rarely long term and more of an “as needed” basis. You also tend to hear a lot of horror stories about agencies not having a long term affect and their marketing campaigns were short lived.

4) Sign Up for a Hybrid Software/Service Marketing Solution – With technology always changing, new players come into the game and marketing your real estate services is no different. New technology like OutboundEngine helps ease the pain of marketing by doing it for you. It’s cheaper than hiring marketing professionals and agencies but more expensive than a do-it-yourself marketing tool. You get a dashboard to check your stats, it allows you to market your real estate services with email and social media, the service is that the content is written for you, not to mention, you get warm lead alerts. It’s a hybrid solution because it includes custom content (the service) with an analytical dashboard (the software) that you can log into.

Regardless of the avenue you take to market your real estate services in 2014, the idea is to start planning now. Start taking a look at your options, keeping in mind what is important to you and your ROI. Remember that “time is money” and long term health of your real estate services depend on being active in more than one marketing avenue.