5 Marketing Strategies for Realtors (That Aren’t Traditional Marketing)

Regardless of how long you’ve been in the real estate industry, you probably know a thing or two about the sales pipeline—and how important it is to closing deals.

The sales industry is a numbers game, and the odds are rarely in your favor. This makes lead generation an imperative part of an agent’s success, which is why marketing strategies for realtors must be innovative.

Realtors should not stick with ordinary, traditional methods of marketing. Rather, you should explore a combination of online and offline marketing techniques that are more attention-getting than a typical sign or mailer.

Think outside the box and try these five real estate marketing ideas.

1. Host Seminars for Future Homebuyers

Seminars are like a local version of inbound marketing. They are a great opportunity to position yourself as an industry expert and create valuable networking time with potential buyers.

Seminars can cover topics ranging from frequently asked questions about buying a home to market trends worth noting. Teaching your community about real estate helps build trust and strengthens your brand’s reputation, which can lead to a full sales pipeline.

Tip: Recording a seminar allows you to repurpose it as marketing collateral for a YouTube channel, your website, or on social media for further reach and exposure.

2. Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Products

One marketing strategy for realtors is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Most PPC platforms, like Google AdWords or Facebook, allow you to set up custom audiences for hyper-specific targeting.

For instance, when setting up your audiences, you can specify relevant demographics like age bracket, geographic location, income range, and family size. Additionally, Facebook allows you to place ads based on user behaviors and recent purchases. These categories can help you identify items such as what people may buy when looking to move and likeliness to move.

Using this type of data can help realtors look for buying signs and identify what stage of the buying cycle their prospects are in. Targeted marketing can bring down lead generation costs and improve closing rates.

3. Be a Publicist

Public relations is all about public relationships. PR helps build brand loyalty, reputation, and awareness which equals new sales leads. There are several ways to go about PR for your brand. Here are three examples:

• Become a source
  • Journalists often utilize sites like Help a Reporter Out to ask for sources who can improve the credibility of their stories
  • By signing up for a site like this, you can respond to inquiries about real estate as an industry expert
  • When the journalist’s story runs, the expert receives a backlink and quote in the piece
  • This visibility creates brand awareness which can build your credibility and overall internet presence
• Become a writer for an online publication or local magazine seeking industry experts
  • As a contributor or columnist, you have the chance to write compelling articles about your industry and offer useful advice to your audience
  • Over time your brand can become synonymous with the industry
  • This is especially powerful if you contribute to a local publication, you’ll be top of mind when readers want to list their home
• Write press releases
  • Press releases that cover newsworthy real estate updates can be submitted to media desks at local or national publications for syndication
  • If your release is well-received, it may be republished or reported on a larger network
  • The point of syndication is to earn more exposure by being published to a broader audience

These PR tactics can increase lead generation skillfully and strategically.

4. Pay Attention to Detail

Selling real estate is more than selling land with a building on it. You're also selling a happy lifestyle. The realtor must relay this feeling to the buyers.

One way to communicate a happy lifestyle is by paying attention to detail before an open house. Mow the lawn before a showing so the scent of fresh cut grass is noticeable. Have fresh baked goods that make the house smell like home cooking.

While this might not seem like marketing, small, inconspicuous tactics like this paint a picture of a cozy home, and can help your potential buyers visualize themselves in the house. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

5. Go Niche

Can you offer your clients something your competition can’t? By becoming an expert in an unusual area of real estate you can increase your value to potential buyers. One idea is to become an expert on getting your clients the best mortgage possible.

To do this, you can focus on credit repair services. Credit repair is a unique marketing strategy for realtors because it helps your client’s entire financial wellbeing. Many people looking to improve their credit are doing so because they plan to buy a house. Adding credit repair services to your repertoire can bring you a steady flow of real estate leads, for free.

By building relationships with your clients prior to a home purchase, you’re earning their trust. If they trust you with their credit repair, they will also trust your realtor services once they are ready to buy their dream home.

Additionally, about 79% of all credit reports contain errors. That's nearly 8 out of 10. And in many cases, just removing those errors can improve the clients score quickly and drastically. By helping future clients repair their credit, realtors are able to get more people qualified for loans, especially clients who may not qualify at all without credit repair.

Inevitably, this means more deals closed for the realtor.

Learn more about how Credit Repair Cloud is a solid marketing strategy for realtors.