OCTOBER 31, 2013 BY
Whether you’re just starting out in real estate or are a seasoned pro, there are always things you can do to improve your marketing initiatives. After all, your success as a real estate agent is dictated by your ability to market effectively.
The marketing ideas contained in this article are designed to help you jumpstart your real estate business. Even if things are going relatively well, you can always improve your marketing initiatives. The old adage “work smarter – not harder” is extremely relevant in this line of work and it is in your best interest to maximize every opportunity.
1. Designate a Marketing Day
If you really want your business to succeed, you need to make time for your business. As a real estate agent, you spend most of your time accommodating prospects; however, without a clear plan for growth, you are unlikely to expand your business at all.
Designating a marketing day simply means picking one day each week to spend at least a few hours applying new marketing strategies or looking for new opportunities that are easily missed due to your hectic schedule.
Monday is a great day to work on marketing your business. No one really likes Monday anyway, so why not take a few hours Monday morning to focus on business growth every week?
2. Identify and Focus on Your Target Market
Many real estate agents fall into the trap of working to expand their territory without regard for the actual customer base they are servicing. To improve your marketing efforts significantly, look at your most profitable customer niches and create a marketing plan tailored specifically to these people.
Spreading yourself too thin by looking to expand your territory is often counterproductive. Successful real estate agents know that the best way to attract new business is to focus on drawing in prospects in the area where you are already known. Otherwise, you’re stuck competing with real estate agents who are well-established in other territories and the results are usually lackluster at best.
3. Plan for Success
Every real estate agent wants to be successful. Unfortunately, many real estate agents enter a new market looking for just a small piece of market share. To be truly successful, you need to plan for success – think domination of your market.
Having a strong grasp on your market and your target customer base allows you to create business when other real estate agents are sitting at the office waiting for the phone to ring. Your success driven marketing strategy should be all encompassing. Literally, you need to take a “no holds barred” approach to marketing your real estate business to prospects and the community.
4. Stop Cold Calling
Cold sales calls are one of those things that most real estate agents are forced to do from time to time. The problem is that you never really get anywhere when following this faulty marketing approach. Think about it – when you are not busy you spend all of your time prospecting for new clients via cold sales leads. When you are busy, you do not have time to prospect so your business suffers after a short burst of activity.
This is a vicious cycle that is very frustrating and leads to many real estate agents burning out well before they have reached their potential in this business.
Focus on creating prospects that call you instead. That gives you more time to focus on growing your business while you wait for potential sales to walk through the door. There are quite a few ways to do this although one of the most popular seems to be creating recorded messages that compel clients to contact you for more information. These prospects are considered warm leads that have a genuine interest in your services. Once you get this ball rolling, it tends to stay in motion and your business can sail to new heights extremely quickly.
5. Remember that it’s not about being Famous
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your success depends on “getting your name out there.” You are a real estate agent because you want to earn a living. Hopefully, you want to earn more than just a living – you want to be wealthy.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this mindset and you should embrace it. Stop focusing on getting your name out there and focus on creating transactions that generate revenue for you and your business. The sooner you change your mindset and start thinking about the financial implications of your decisions, the more successful your real estate business becomes.
6. Use the Internet
Although most real estate agencies have some web presence, many of them rely on simple and forgettable designs that do not lend themselves well to the professional appearance you need to be truly successful in this competitive business.
In this technology driven age, one of the single best things you can do to improve your marketing strategies right now is to create a strong web presence. This means hiring a professional web designer to create a website that stands out from the competition, explains to customers the benefits of working with you specifically, and provides an easy way for prospects to contact you.
If you are not leveraging the power of the Internet for your real estate business, you are missing out on one of the single largest marketing opportunities available to you.
Of all these strategies, the most important is the first one. All of the other marketing ideas in this article require that you set aside time to implement these ideas and look for ways to improve your current marketing strategies and adopt new ones that provide a significant return on investment.
The only one accountable for your success is you – so why not take control and start implementing some new marketing strategies today?