Real Estate Marketing Strategy

It’s been another year in your real estate journey and we all hope it has brought you a great number of new clients and closed deals. However, it’s high time you thought about your business goals and plans for the upcoming 2024. If there is room for improvement when it comes to your achievements - a good marketing strategy will definitely help! Read on to learn how a marketing strategy will work for you and why you even need one.

What is a Real Estate Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy - be it for a real estate business or any other - is a long term plan that nurtures achieving a company’s goals through understanding its target customers needs and expectations, competition and market opportunities. 

Having a strategy might turn out to be a key to your company’s success, even if it’s a one person business. The sole process of creating one is fruitful - looking for inspiration, collecting information on your competitors, brainstorming your real estate marketing ideas as well as identifying threats gives you a bigger picture of your long term goals, things you need to improve and areas where you can offer your clients your Unique Value Proposition or Unique Selling Proposition. 

In real estate business specifically, a successful strategy will include ways of capturing new leads, converting them into clients as well as client retention. In order for these business goals to be achieved, realtors should base their activities on a long-term strategy that helps them establish their real estate brand and strengthen their position in the real estate market.

There are an infinite number of marketing strategies that are applicable to the real estate industry - choosing the right ones will definitely depend on your current position, experience and, obviously, demand for your services and a number of potential buyers in the area you operate in.  A more elaborate strategy might be useful for teams and brokerages, while most individual real estate agents will rely on building personal relationships.
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Creating a Marketing Strategy

We’ve all seen this in movies - a group of marketing experts sit by a large table and take turns voicing their ideas for a breakthrough marketing campaign. There are presentations, sheets with numbers and a flipboard with keywords that help them put together their slogan and create the brand’s voice. This way of brainstorming ideas sounds appealing and overwhelming at the same time. The truth is, you won’t need to hire (unless you want to!) a team of experts. You are the one who has worked with your clients and knows your area best. Now it’s time to see how you can capitalize more on your expertise. In fact, all you will need to have is a text document/excel sheet or a notebook - whichever you prefer to write in, and some time.
Putting together a marketing strategy in real estate is not a one-time activity, but more of a process that is shaped over time and of which components are added with every new important experience.

Real Estate Marketing Strategy vs. Real Estate Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy and a marketing plan might seem to be the same thing but they are not. Both of them are very useful when it comes to helping you achieve your business goals but they differ in their structure.

Marketing strategy is your general approach to how you are going to communicate with your audience and which marketing activities you will use in order to achieve your goals. It is your brand’s voice and image. Choosing the right strategy will depend on your target market, your clients’ demographics and your own capacity.

A real estate marketing plan, on the other hand, is a schedule of activities that you are going to undertake in a given period of time. It is more specific - for example, your marketing plan for 2024 might be to start a new social media profile, grow your email base by 20% by the end of the year or write 12 real estate articles. 

Real Estate Marketing Ideas: The Ansoff Matrix

Identifying your business or development goals is the first and most important step to creating your strategy. Your goals will depend on whether you’re a new real estate agent or an experienced one with an already existing presence in the industry, or whether you want to build a team or continue to work independently. You also might want to change the profile of your services, for example penetrate the luxury real estate market and find clients there. In order to identify and establish your goals, you can use the Ansoff Matrix that has been used by corporate executives for more than half a century in the process of creating a product development plan.

The Ansoff Matrix is a diagram with four possible alternatives for business growth: market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.

1. Market Penetration

Market penetration assumes selling your already existing services in the market you operate in - this way of development is based on strengthening your presence and focusing on the area you know best. Choosing market penetration as your development path means building personal relations, increasing loyalty and undertaking activities that will establish your expertise as a hyperlocal realtor. Market penetration is known to be the safest strategy and it might involve:

Price adjustments or extras

Building a loyal customer base and making your past customers remember about you when they decide to buy or sell another property can be achieved through attractive pricing for returning clients. Reach out to your past customers regularly and make them feel as valued clients, for example by offering a slightly discounted price for your services in the future.

Partner up with other professionals in the area

Trust is often built through references and partnering up with other professionals is a great way to start a referral network where everybody involved wins. It is obvious that real estate buyers and sellers need more services during the process than the ones you offer: carpentry, interior design, cleaning services, landscape designers, home inspectors, legal services or even construction workers or other will be needed along the way. Get to know local business owners and try to build a relationship with them through referrals - include a list of the local vendors on your real estate website and ask them if they could do the same for you.

Look closely at your target audience
As a realtor who chooses market penetration for a development strategy, it is crucial to know as much as possible about your target audience and adjust your communication and distribution channels accordingly. Look at your past deals as well as local demographics. Having accurate information on your potential clients might be a game changer for your marketing efforts - thanks to it you will be able to put together a website with answers to their questions before they even ask them, choose the most adequate social media channels or other, more traditional ways of communicating your services.

Let your past clients be heard

Helping people through this stressful process of buying or selling a property makes them grateful and more often than not, they are willing to write a few words of appreciation about you - especially if you've created an emotional connection with them. Why not make it be seen? Include a “client testimonials” section on your website’s homepage and highlight the most heartwarming ones on your social media as well.

Nurture your leads

Growing your lead base without taking any further steps can easily become counterproductive (and costly, too). Sometimes it is more important to take care of the leads you already have instead of focusing on your effort and budget on capturing the new ones. Communicate consistently with your potential clients through providing them with relevant content, news about events you organize and of course, newest property listings. Many agents forget to group or tag your leads according to their interests (for example: qualified leads, new clients, home buyers, sellers, past buyers, past sellers, new homeowners, commercial real estate buyers/sellers, prospects) which is a mistake. Sending mails that are coherent with the recipent's interests will help you avoid their annoyance with irrelevant information flooding their inboxes that sooner or later results in signing off from your mailing list.

2. Market Development

The second strategy individualized in the Ansoff Matrix is Market Development, which means introducing your already existing services in other markets - i.e. new areas and getting new customers there. Introducing a service to a new market is always a challenge but the rewards are definitely encouraging. 

Market Development is the best solution in case of the collapse in the demand in your area and negative tendencies in the market. It is also a typical move for teams and brokerages who want to operate nationwide in the future. Here are some activities that you can use within market development strategy.

Throughout competition analysis

Before entering a new area it is crucial to understand the market and see learn about who your competitor real estate professionals are going to be. Learn as much as you can about them and evaluate your own strengths in comparison to them in order to determine what kind of approach will be most effective.

Strengthening online presence

A word-of-mouth real estate marketing is never built overnight but it can be compensated by elaborate online marketing strategies. While entering a new area, do as much as you can to be visible online for its residents: you can target your Facebook and Instagram ads, position yourself on Google using SEO and PPC or host free and informative webinars promoted on local Facebook groups and targeted to the residents of your new area.

Joining in local ORGANIZATIONS OR LOCAL events

Joining organizations or regular parttaking in events is one of the most effective ways of meeting new people and finding potential clients. You don't have to join the events officially - rather than that, it is where your private life blends with your professional life. Most real estate agents have found a client through private connections and this method shouldn't be underestimated in case of starting over in a completely new area.

Have great printed materials

If you are new to an area, you are more prone to be easily forgotten in the crown of the already established real estate agents. One way of carving your way into your prospects consciousness is giving them something tangible that they might come across every now and then. You can give out amazing and durable business cards, beautiful flyers, door hangers etc., go for more useful promotional gadgets such as a notebook, a pendrive with your logo.

3. Product Development

The third proposition of Ansoff Matrix is called Product Development and assumes reinvention and perfecting already existing services. It involves a deep understanding of the valued features of your services and the ways of working with real estate clients that are the most effective. Having this information will allow you to develop in the most promising areas of your activities and enhance the features of your services that are determinative for your clients. Here are some activities that will help you in the process of developing your services and attract more real estate sales.

Branding / Rebranding

Strenghtening your position on the market often means creating or reinventing your brands' image.

When you already have your steady position established, it's perfect time to work on polishing your branding. You can start with reviewing all your already existing materials and see if they are in sync with your brand's voice. Another thing to do might be adjusting your website, implementing all the elements for home buyers and sellers sections, lead capture tools, IDX integrations, professional property photos, home search bar, contact page and so on. Use Google Analytics to see which sections of your websites are the most visited or which information is looked for by the visitors.

Upgrade your processes
If you are already in the stage of developing your services, you probably know the weak and strong points of your way of working with your clients. Perhaps there are stages in your processes that you can improve. For example, you can implement an autoresponder on your website to make sure the visitors know they will get a followup as soon as possible. Real estate clients appreciate being informed about every progress, but realtors don't have a lot of time to write a personalized text every time. You can prepare a set of message templates for your clients that you can use when you have completed another step of the process. This way you won't have to waste a lot of time on putting together a nice e-mail and your clients will enjoy the peace of mind. Another thing you can work on is the first and the last interaction with the client. Think about the way you greet the clients for the first time - is it with a warm welcoming email or phone calls where you introduce yourself? Try to standarize your first interaction with home buyers and sellers, and think about the way you say goodbye to them. You can prepare a thank you email template or a set of ready-to-use postcards where you can write a few words to express gratitude for the cooperation and write best wishes for the future.

What is the Best Marketing Strategy in Real Estate

Apart from The Ansoff Matrix development paths, there are plenty of other real estate marketing strategies that will compliment the growth of you business and help you achieve your professional goals. Here are some of the most effective marketing ideas and strategies for real estate agents, teams and brokers to try or improve in 2024!

Social Media

Social media proves to be one of the most effective marketing tools nowadays. It helps professionals and large companies build personal and lasting relationships with a wider target audience than traditional marketing channels. By consistently engaging with their customers on social media companies can turn potential buyers into loyal customers.

The choice of the social media platforms and strategy will depend on your target audience’s demographics, preferences and their digital behavior. While some social media users prefer reading lengthy posts and commenting on them without any incentive, others prefer to watch short Instagram reels and save them for later or share them with their own followers. Some users are not interested at all in the general feed and prefer interaction in Facebook thematic groups joined by both buyers/sellers and real estate professionals. Developing the way of communication is largely done by the trial and error method, but it definitely requires dedication in the process of building an invested community. If you want to give it a try or are lacking real estate marketing ideas for creating engaging social media presence and gaining followers, check out our article on building engagement throughout different community platforms.

Content Strategy

Employing content marketing is one of the best ways of attracting visitors to your website, as well as converting them into leads. Firstly, your site visitors usually find real estate websites through search engines while looking for an answer to their inquiry - for example, “how to sell a house in Dallas” or “House prices in Sacramento 2022”. If your site has an answer to their question, it will rank highest. That’s why having an SEO optimized website with an informative blog, news section or detailed area description is so important.

The next step is to convert a visitor into a lead: you can implement attractive gated content on your website - a downloadable PDF catalog with latest interior design trends, the best tips for buyers and sellers, area guides etc. Your site visitors are more likely to give you their contact information if they are offered something useful and of good quality.

Lead Capture

It is worth trying to convert as many website visitors into leads as possible and there are many ways to do so using lead capturing tools and strategies. Implement contact forms and pop ups in the most strategic places on your website (for example home page, “about me” section, listing subpages). Typically, people are not willing to leave their contact information for marketing purposes unless they are given or promised something attractive. You can introduce attractive gated content (an area guide, seller’s/buyer’s guide), offer free home valuation or a CMA in exchange for the prospect’s data.

Email marketing

Having a large lead base is only a part of the success - now you have to reach out to them on a regular basis and make them become your clients in the future. That’s when email marketing can be really successful.

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your existing and future clients. You can create personalized outreach messages, share advice, important announcements (e.g. open house dates), new listings, branded content and free e-books or other information that’s relevant to your lead base with the help of email real estate marketing campaigns. This type of communication allows you to target specific audiences, which makes it perfect for building relationships. Email marketing goes well with a good content strategy - you will be able to share useful information with your prospects via email, reminding them of your expertise in the field of real estate.

The most important things about email marketing strategy are consistency and relevance. Sending out emails on a regular basis will help you measure the effectiveness of the strategy and pinpoint the practices that work best for your target audience. Being consistent will also allow you to remain familiar to your prospect - if you decide to send out emails once in a blue moon, most of the recipients will probably wonder who you are and resign from your newsletter or delete the message without even opening it. 

Relevance, on the other hand, is built through segmentation, i.e.  grouping your leads according to their previous interaction with you. Avoid sending emails that are irrelevant to a given group, for example sending new listings to the clients who have just bought a new home. Instead, keep in touch with those who have viewed your listings and present them with the newest ones, and for those who are happy homeowners choose market analyses that will help them estimate their homes’ current market value.

Paid Advertising 

Paid advertising is an umbrella term for many marketing activities: from TVCs through print media to online marketing campaigns, the latter of which seem to be the most profitable and measurable. This strategy includes different types of Google ads, PPC campaigns as well as Facebook and Instagram ads. The greatest advantage of paid advertising online is that you can start with a modest budget when it comes to Facebook and Instagram paid posts - the key is the right timing and targeting. 

It's true that anyone can run their own paid campaigns online, however, it is advisable to work with a professional Google/social media company. 

Real Estate Marketing Strategy Examples

Marketing Strategy Examples for Real Estate Agents

Usually, individual real estate agents are the ones who are responsible for their own marketing activities. It’s not a secret that regular marketing efforts take a lot of time (and some money, too!), which realtors understandably prefer to spend with their clients and closing deals. If you are a real estate agent, it is crucial that you choose your marketing strategies reasonably and stay realistic about how much time you can actually devote to it. Instead of being present on every channel possible, go for less and bet on quality or consistency. Being active on one or two social media platforms is definitely enough: you can choose to communicate with your followers through informative posts, stories, share your newest listings, record engaging reels or host webinars.

Apart from social media, your website will probably be the place where your potential customers will want to find out more about you. Write a compelling bio (or have it written for you), share your story and don’t forget about contact forms.

A closed deal doesn’t have to and should not be the last time you interact with a client. Think about the ways you are going to thank your clients for the fruitful cooperation and succesful transaction, which also has a potential to be one of real estate agent strategies - it might be freebies, a voucher to something nice e.g. a restaurant gift card (home buying and selling process is stressful and everyone deserves a treat after completing it!). Reach out regularly to your past clients via direct mail - market updates, home evaluations and engaging content will make clients remember about you when they decide to buy or sell another property.

Marketing Strategy Examples for Real Estate Teams

One of the greatest thing about working as a real estate team is the fact that there are more resources to create content and take care of proper marketing. You can divide your social media marketing activities among the team members: one person will be responsible for virtual tours on social media, while other team members can share their listings or real life successful transaction stories. One of you can also organize live Q&A sessions for the followers. This way, your team is going to have plenty of great content to create engaging social media presence. Apart from that, you can set up separate LinkedIn accounts for each team member, where they will post their individual success stories and write a few words about themselves.

Marketing Strategy Examples for Real Estate Brokers

When workikng on their strategy, brokers should care more about not only attracting new business, but also creating a certain image. One of the ways of doing so is employing a cause marketing strategy. As a broker, you can choose a charity or a cause that you are passionate about and actively support it through joining events or sponsorship. This approach has a beneficial influence on credibility and provides plenty opportunities of finding potential home shoppers or sellers.

Brokers usually have a larger leadbase than most real estate agents and its crucial to have segmentation groups and run email marketing campaigns more efficiently by creating separate offers and mails depending on the previous interactions.

Brokers can attract new business through educational marketing. As experienced realtors, they can share their knowledge through a free webinar for potential clients on the tips and tricks of buying a new home or even through business webinars and workshops for aspiring realtors who, in the meantime, might be looking to sell their property or who will see a well-educated professional in you who is worth being recommended to others.

Real Estate Marketing Strategy Templates

There can be as many real estate marketing ideas as there are agents, however if you don't have time or motivation to conceptualize your activities, jump to our 107 real estate marketing ideas for some inspiration. Remember that the key to a successful campaign is an in-depth knowledge about your target audience as well as having your business goals clearly stated.

If you have your strategy thought out, now it's time to put together a marketing plan for the upcoming year. It is much easier if you use a template that will help you organize your thoughts and ideas. Click here and download Placester marketing plan templates which were created by our marketing specialists!