How do you get your listings in front of potential buyers? As you may have discovered, traditional methods rarely work in a digital age. If you feel you could do with a little bit more exposure, here are 5 effective ways to market real estate listings and find potential clients faster.
5 ways to market real estate listings better
1. A dedicated property landing page
If you market real estate listings online, you need a platform to redirect people to. This is what a property landing page is for. You can:
- create a dedicated landing page which lists all the details about the property;
- publish it onto your website;
- promote the page in your marketing campaigns.
It’s essential to publish property landing pages on your own website, even if you have them listed on third-party sites such as property portals or Facebook. You want to redirect traffic to your site and get people to contact you, not other agents. Portals and social media offer too many distractions to be sure that your listing will get seen. And, frankly, your post reach on Facebook is very limited, unless it’s not a promoted post.
By the way, there are certain things that make a property landing page an effective lead generating tool:
- great listing copy;
- high-quality images;
- a video walk-through;
- a map;
- a contact form;
- a call to action (“Contact agent”, “Download PDF”, “Ask a question”, etc.).
2. Video walk-through
Video is a powerful marketing channel that gives agents a broad online exposure. On Facebook, videos perform better organically compared to the posts. Creating high-quality videos might be challenging for smaller agencies but if you can allocate some of your marketing budget, definitely go ahead (here’s a great selection of guides that will be helpful).
A video can be promoted through a variety of places including your own website, email campaigns and social media. But probably the two most important channels are YouTube and Facebook (not to mention that you can live stream on Facebook).
Publish your video to your Facebook and YouTube profiles. Make sure to include a description, call to action and link to a dedicated landing page.
3. Facebook ads
Unparalleled marketing reach and hyperlocal targeting: this is what Facebook advertising means to agents today. In fact, Facebook ads are one of the most affordable and effective advertising channels online.
Some of the best Facebook ads features to try are:
- Facebook pixel;
- conversion campaigns;
- carousel campaigns;
- behavior targeting;
- demographic targeting;
- interest targeting;
- creating custom audiences;
- video ads.
4. Retargeting
Only 2 percent of your website visitors convert on the first visit.
With retargeting ads, you can intelligently target buyer or seller leads.
- Seller leads. Create a segment of visitors who viewed your ‘Sell your home’ pages but bounced off.
Then build ads with headlines like ‘What’s my Home Worth?’, ‘Get a Free Home Evaluation’, ‘Monthly Market Updates – Free’ with a link pointing to the right pages or listings. - Buyer leads. Create some nice banner ads to market your real estate listings. Narrow down to a specific property and include a link to a dedicated landing page.
5. Email + direct mail
For many agents, both of these tools seem to be mutually exclusive. Why does one still need direct mail when you have email?
The answer is not that straightforward though. People value email because it’s quick and interactive, but they also like direct mail because it’s more credible and gives them time to think things over at their own pace. In fact, a survey from Royal Mail showed that marketing campaigns are more successful when both tools are integrated:
Source: It’s All About Mail and Email: Working Together to Create Greater 1 to 1 Relationships with Your Customers by Royal Mail
Running email campaigns is not a choice – it’s a necessity. But in addition to launching email campaigns, consider resorting to print flyers as well. This could help you reach a wider local audience, most of which are not on your email mailing lists.
What’s next?
5 tools to market real estate listings better this month – now over to you!
