There is no point in having a rare-find, reasonably priced listing if the right buyers never get to see it.
Beyond knowing your listings inside out, as a property agent, you must learn how to effectively market them. Since over half of home buyers found the home they purchased through the Internet, online marketing is unavoidable. Don’t worry if marketing is not your profession. The following process walkthrough will be your handy guide.
Having a standard protocol to market your listings online not only ensures that you won’t miss any opportunity but also supports negotiating with property owners to reduce price, particularly in cases where certain listings are not being sold despite all marketing efforts. Let’s get started.
1. Identify target buyers/tenants
Each type of property and neighborhood attracts different buyers and tenants. Knowing your target profiles will help you narrow down your marketing strategy and execution. For instance, your choice of social media, description language, property features to highlight, and more.
Despite that, keep yourself open to prospects outside your defined target groups. There may be potential cases of investors who are not looking to use the property themselves or affluent couples who seek a second property for convenience.
2. Hire a professional photographer
Due to technology and competition, today’s smartphone cameras are very much advanced, and their image qualities are getting closer to professional cameras when displayed online. However, when it comes to selling properties, professional photography makes a stark difference.
All you need to do is decide what to be in the pictures and let the photographer do their magic with lighting, varying angles, composition, and post-production editing to make sure the pictures come out flawless.
As listing pictures are the first thing viewers will see, nice-looking images will help with your brand building and website experience. Keep in mind that listing pictures must not lie about property conditions or create unrealistic expectations. The goal is to present the best impression of your listings and let viewers decide whether to engage further.
3. Harness the power of videos and 360° property tour
Beyond attractive pictures, video content is dominating today’s online platforms. In fact, a recent study reported that 73% of consumers prefer to learn about a product or service through a short video, and 86% of marketers say videos help with lead generation. Â
Although a good video requires more effort to produce, showcasing your listings in motion is more engaging, easier to comprehend, and more realistic. It can also be used as the listing’s promotional content on social media.
In addition, the 360° property tour is gaining more popularity due to its interactive experience. Viewers can navigate the property at their own pace, view the overall floor plan, and even measure the dimensions.
Again, unless you are well trained with proper equipment, hiring a professional service for this is a better idea.
4. Craft your listing description
If you have beautiful visuals to showcase your listings, let them have the spotlight. Avoid stating too many obvious features in the description; otherwise, your listing posts will become redundant and disengaging.
To keep the description concise and magnetic, you should highlight the more subtle features that are meaningful to your target clients, e.g., newly renovated elements, unique interior design, neighborhood’s positive reviews on a third-party website, etc. It is also vital to pay attention to your word choices. It is unconvincing to use fancy language to describe an affordable house.
It is worthwhile spending time to craft a full version of the description for your own website as it can be shortened and edited for other platforms.
5. Publish your listings across platforms
Attractive visuals –check. Engaging descriptions –check. Now it is time to showcase your new listing to property seekers. Start publishing listings on your own website, social media, third-party listing portals, and multiple listing services (MLS) if you use any.
Apart from the basics, you should also consider more targeted platforms that are relevant to your target buyers or tenants, for instance, Facebook groups and listing websites for a specific segment of property seekers.
Sending marketing emails is a good way to stay connected with your previous clients and leads. You should regularly filter through your database and share relevant listings with personalized messages to their inbox.
Note that when publishing your listings on multiple platforms, it is difficult to maintain data accuracy across the board unless your backend system has a centralized data management function. As we all know, inaccurate listing information leads to inefficiency and poor client experience.
6. Create content to promote your listings
Go beyond functional description and bring your listings some colors with content marketing. With your (hidden) storytelling talent, a house can be a lifestyle, and a retail unit can be a business dream. It is up to you to find angles and add an emotional touch to your listings. Content can be in any format depending on the platforms to reach your target clients: website blogs, Facebook posts, Instagram stories, YouTube #shorts, you name it.
Remember, you can always leverage the visuals you have made in steps 2 and 3.
The tip is to keep yourself updated about the latest ranking algorithms of each social media and search engine to optimize the organic reach of your content. For example, Instagram is currently endorsing its recently launched feature – Reels. Hence, this type of content will gain more impressions on the platform.
7. Draw more leads with Paid Search and Social Media Ads
With the massive number of posts on newsfeeds every day, organic social content may drown in the sea of new content being posted every second. Depending on the allowance, timeline competition, quantity, and quality of the leads generated from organic reach, you may consider allocating your budget to social media and search ads.
If you are not sure where to start, Facebook and Instagram are recommended platforms. Facebook has a huge user base with detailed ad targeting that allows you to direct your content to a specific group of audience. On the other hand, Instagram is a visual platform that works wonders in promoting beautiful homes.
8. Bring your prospects from online to offline
Without a doubt, the objective of all marketing efforts is to have prospects fill in a lead generation form, leave you a message, or give you a call to discuss further. Once you receive their contact information, the next steps are to discover who they are and what kind of property they are seeking, so you can work your magic to close the deals.
However, simultaneously handling multiple leads and multiple listings can overwhelm you or worse – you may even lose clients.
Since you have made so much effort in generating quality leads, how you nurture them through stages is equally as important. Property Raptor is the AI-powered CRM system built together with industry experts to help real estate agents manage data and documents more efficiently and accurately in a centralized system, allowing them to focus on nurturing the right relationships and close more deals. See it yourself –book a free demo with us today!
