Simple Marketing and Content Plan for Real Estate Agents, Brokerages, and Agencies

Promoting properties and transactions is common amongst real estate professionals however it's often done poorly.

Ensure you have a page on your website for areas you'd like to focus on and grow i.e. residential sales, residential purchases, commercial transactions, etc, as well as the types of customers you're looking to attract. For example, the Sacramento, CA region is seeing an influx of "Bay Area refugees" who sold their modest homes for $1 Million+ and are looking to buy something much more comfortable and affordable.

Take your promotion of these services and key-clients further by highlighting specific transactions related to each.

Each property or transaction that represents your preferred type of opportunity should have its own post and it should include:

• the type of property, where is it located, and what's notable about it,
• any notable details related to the buy or seller circumstances i.e. relocating from another region or short selling,
• the goals your customer had going in,
  
• any challenges that came up and how were you able to resolve those challenges,
• what unique experience, expertise, or resources enabled this transaction to be accomplished successfully,
• and what the client said or feedback they gave you.

Ideally, you should include a picture of your client and the property.

Highlighting a Property literally reminds people of what you do, your client is likely to promote the post to their friends and contacts on social media who have similar real estate needs, and when you are talking with someone about a future property you can reference similar transaction on your website to support your in-person sales activities.

What better way to attract your ideal client than to celebrate how you helped deliver value?

This is similar conceptually to highlighting a property or transaction but much more focused on the people than the property. Maybe a client has been trying to sell a property for ages or had very particular buying criteria? Perhaps they've been through a few agents and you were able to transform the experience for them?

Can you think of a time someone was wowed by your service? They gushed about how you delivered a terrific experience? These are stories worth sharing.

People love to see that you provide a unique and personal experience while showing your appreciation to those who entrust you with such an important purchase or sale. 

Ask your customer if they'd mind if you tell their mini-story. If they agree, take a picture with them and ask them:

• Where are they from originally and why were they buying or selling - you want to get a little of their backstory,
• How did they find you and what made them connect in the first place,
• What were the mechanics of how they worked with you i.e. phone, email, in-person etc - are there any COVID-specific adjustments that you've made to accommodate people?
• What has your experience been like? What's a benefit that you've received?
  
• What's something they'd say to someone looking to buy or sell in a similar situation to prepare them for the experience,
• What would they say to someone looking for a real estate professional?
• Why is supporting local important to you? Or, what role do small businesses play in a healthy and thriving community?
  

This can be short, sweet, and to the point, as it reinforces what makes you unique and valuable.

There's pop-culture real estate all around us but can you provide a valuable perspective?

If so, summarizing the current situation and explaining for lay-people the implications can be valuable. More than that, if you have a sense of a change that's coming you can share that too. 

Perhaps interest rates are poised to change, new work-from-home dynamics are driving buyers in or out of your market, there could even be new legal developments worth sharing.

Curating information and content can be valuable and demonstrate you're a go-to-resource for local real estate knowhow. 

Mix in real-world transaction examples for eye-candy and to help people get a glimpse at what's going on around town.

This can be done in a video or with pictures and text however if you choose to use video, make sure you embed it on your website in a blog post so that all of the content of consequence lives on your website following Marketing 3-4-5™ Content Distribution best-practices.

As a real estate brokerage or agency, your employees can be a bigger part of your marketing.

Whether you have 2 employees or 20 recognizing them in a blog post is an easy way to reward them for a job well done while helping people get to know your business.

You have a few options to recognize employees. You can recognize employees regularly as an employee of the month, top producers, you can recognize them in an ad-hoc way when customers report a great experience to you or even celebrate new hires or work anniversaries.

This is also an opportunity to identify any unique skills or experience they bring to the team and, if relevant, ways you are using their know-how to train up other members of your team. Perhaps an agent is adept at dealing with permitting issues, liens, short-sales etc?

If you're hiring, including a note at the end of each Employee Recognition post alerting and linking readers to your job openings is a great way to use marketing to build your team - there are, after all, 3 reasons to do marketing.

This is more of an approach than a specific activity but it's a massive opportunity for both brokerages and individual agents.

Let's be honest, agents change agencies and they do so for a variety of reasons.

In practice, they have a brand but they don't often have a well-rounded web presence i.e. they often do social media and then have just a bio page on their agency's website.

Each agent should have their own website or microsite to include background information, customer reviews, their Local Connections™ including a directory of local contacts and a community calendar, their content etc. This is something that they control even if they move agencies, it empowers each agent to benefit from SEO and can be easily rebranded as agencies change by adding a new logo and colors and some light copy-editing.

This enables each agent to fully promote themselves, their activities and their expertise, and their relationships in a way that provides long-term value. It also provides value to their current brokerage since the better each agent does the better the brokerage does and the agent will link to their brokerage's website.

The agency or brokerage can feature agent content automatically on the company website & simplify curating content across channels

From there, each agency should include biographical information about each of their agents with links out to their respective sites. Thanks to our Local Connections™ technology, each brokerage can automatically feature their agent's content in a centralized feed on the agency's website.

Please note: Local Connections™ is a collection of tools included with the free Engage Plan which, along with our basic content tools, can be used by any business even if they do not have a website however having a website or microsite is extremely important.

Contact us to learn how we can help your agency and agents implement this marketing program and ask about the discounts available based on the number of agents on your team.

Let's face it, where you live matters to you - and it should.

Why not highlight local causes you support? Do you host fundraiser nights or do you regularly get solicited for donations?

Yep, you can create posts and recognize these activities on your website.

This makes you look good - it's ok to make yourself look good - and it shines a light on a local organization you care about in real life.

Go further by highlighting Local Connections™ and feature local events in a community calendar, we have an app for that ;)