Technology has changed everything. From how we purchase groceries, to how we book travel, and, more importantly in our industry, how we buy and sell a home. That’s where real estate marketing tools come in.
Not too long ago, buyers and sellers had to visit your brokerage to flip through a listings binder or start the sales process. Today, potential clients can explore properties effortlessly from their couch, with the help of their preferred listings app. This shift in accessibility has transformed the real estate landscape, and with it, the role of an agent must evolve to meet these new expectations.
We’ve entered the “meet your clients where they are” era of real estate. Being an omnipresent, everywhere at once real estate agent is the key to thriving in the new paradigm we find ourselves in.
The Real Estate Marketing Shift
What do you think of when you think of real estate marketing?
Email marketing, social media marketing, and listings marketing probably come to mind. Today, it means being a savvy marketer, running cross-channel campaigns. Being on everything from Meta (Facebook and Instagram), LinkedIn, and TikTok, to Google ads, local newspapers, community boards, and more.
This can sound overwhelming, but it’s critical to meet clients where they are. The more places you are, the more places your listings are, the higher likelihood of closing more transactions. The good news is there are real estate marketing tools out there to help make this scalable (i.e. easier to maintain, even with a large client base). Manual marketing is on its way out, automation is in.
How To Be Omnipresent with Real Estate Marketing Tools
Agents wouldn’t still be in business if they weren’t familiar with the basics of marketing. Everyone is a marketer in today’s world, so how can your agents stand out? Below is an example of a multi-channel marketing strategy and how it could keep your agents in front of their sphere and new leads, especially by leveraging automation.
Agent X’s Education Series
Agent X has been helping clients buy and sell homes for years. The last few years have been tough with tighter inventory and a more competitive market, but they are passionate and know they can make a difference for their clients. Ready to expand their presence, Agent X decides to launch a new Education Series to help teach their community about the benefits of investing in real estate. The course is designed for first-time buyers, all the way to multi-property owners who want to better understand the current market.
The ultimate goal is to provide value and hopefully inspire people to buy or sell soon. Or, at the very least, help Agent X beef up their email marketing list.
This series is something they want their whole sphere to have access to, so they draft a 3-part email invite that they queue up in their ActivePipe real estate email marketing and lead nurturing tool to promote and invite their contacts. Agent X has already been using ActivePipe campaigns to stay in flow with their sphere throughout the course of their relationship, so it’s easy to add this campaign alongside their current flows.
Meanwhile, their MoxiPromote listing ads are running on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google to promote their current listings. They have received several inquiries and are meeting with a few potential buyers next week.
Tomorrow night, Agent X is attending their local Chamber of Commerce meeting to network and build community relationships. While there, they will hang a flyer they designed to promote their upcoming education series, hoping to catch the eyes of some potential new clients.
Agent X has been more active on Instagram and TikTok this year and their following is starting to pick up steam. To squeeze more juice out of the work they already put into developing the content for their education series, they batch film five videos that share what people will learn in the series, and use those videos to promote the upcoming series. By sharing these on social media with relevant hashtags, they are continuing to show their value and grow their network.
Agent X decides to invite a local real estate reporter to their education series with the hopes that the reporter will write an article about this series and the work they’re doing to help educate the community. Getting that kind of earned publicity would be a great way to demonstrate their expertise and the value they bring as a real estate agent.
Finally, Agent X writes a draft script for their Ninja calls this week to help spread the word about their new education series to drum up more interest. This feels like a great way to stay in flow with their contacts without being overly sales-y.
What Being Omnipresent Looks Like In Action
Buyer Y is scrolling through Instagram and sees a video from Agent X about investing in real estate. They’ve been thinking about buying for a while, but have been hesitant due to the buzz about the unpredictable real estate market. They watch the video and then move on with their day.
Later that night they happen to see Agent X at the Chamber of Commerce meeting and are interested in talking with them, but end up not having the time. They think they’ll just chat with them at the next meeting. The next day they see an ad on Facebook about a house down the street that’s for sale. It’s out of their price range but definitely still piques their interest. Maybe going to that education series would be a good idea. They open their inbox and just so happen to have an e-mail from Agent X inviting them to the education series. Perfect timing, they are ready to sign up. They click the link and RSVP since the event is happening next week.
The event ends up being really educational. Buyer Y still doesn’t feel ready to buy quite yet, but now knows what they need to do when the time comes. Later that week they are hanging out with their sister and tell her all about this agent and the education series. Their sister has been thinking about selling her home. Buyer Y gives their sister Agent X’s contact info and she reaches out and contacts Agent X to potentially be her listing agent.
The Power of Multi-channel Marketing
If Agent X wasn’t utilizing all of those channels, there is a good chance Buyer Y would have forgotten about the event until it was too late and Agent X wouldn’t have been top of mind to be referred to a potential seller. Meeting the client where they were multiple times was the key to success.
Agent X’s Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign Recap
- Launch a free education series (example: ‘Real Estate Investing 101’)
- Benefit: Helps build credibility and provides value to potential clients
- Run email campaigns using a lead nurturing system like ActivePipe
- Benefit: By simply tagging contacts, you can easily add them to on-going campaigns or one-off series for things like a new education program
- Attend community meetings
- Benefit: By being an active member of the community you can build trust and meet new faces
- Run listings ads using automated tools like MoxiPromote
- Benefit: With one click, new listings are promoted, with your brand, across digital channels so you can focus your time on building relationships, not building ads
- Use content from education programs on social media
- Benefit: squeeze all the juice from the lemon with the educational content you are creating and engage with followers
- Leverage local media
- Benefit: Building relationships with local real estate reporters in your community can help you reach a wider audience if you invite them to relevant events and they cover your event, or quote you in an article about the current state of the real estate market in your local area
Real Estate Marketing Tools Make It Easier
Being everywhere at once takes strategy and planning, but technology makes it easier. The MoxiWorks Marketing Essentials toolkit includes the automation workhorse, and real estate email marketing tool, ActivePipe, an automated listing advertising tool MoxiPromote, and, the more than just a CMA presentation builder, MoxiPresent that builds CMA reports and stays up-to-date by using real time MLS data. Offer the tech toolkit that enables your agents to be everywhere their clients are. Learn more.
