101 Top Real Estate Marketing Ideas – Page 2

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Slideshare Real Estate Marketing Ideas

For some unknown reason, slideshare.net is totally off the radar for Real Estate agents. It means that You have an advantage over your competition!
Slideshare.net has a Domain Authority score of 96 and close to 70 million views a month!
Most of Internet professional marketers are successfully using it for informational slide shows about their services or products.
Slideshare.net allows direct links to your website(s) and social pages inserted into your slide show presentations with one restriction only – your presentation must be at least 5 pages long. They have this rule to filter out junk coming from spammers.
As you already know, direct backlinks from such high authority websites like Slideshare should benefit your main website a lot more than a 1000 backlinks from blog comments of forums.
70 million views a month is also a number that should not be ignored by any online advertising professionals including agents trying to generate real estate leads on a regular basis.

All of the above should be telling all agents to get on boards and start producing real estate related presentations to promote their services.

If you are one of them, you will need to come up with marketing ideas for slide shows:

“How-to” guides for home buying and home selling process;
Local guides that would highlight the main benefits and features of the area where you are doing most of your real estate farming;
Common Home Problems Fix-Up guides;
Smart remodeling projects;
Staging guidelines.

Once your ideas are chosen it is time to create a multi-page PDF file with links that will be converted into a slide show by Slideshare upon upload.
10-15 slide presentations can be easily created by freelance graphic artists (look at Fiverr section for them) in case you are not good with PowerPoint and Photoshop.
Generating PDF from PowerPoint should be an easy task even for the most computer-challenged Realtors. Uploading it should be also a breeze.

Pinterest for Realtors?

Of course! … though just pinning thousands of pictures of homes will not do you any good. Think of Pinterest as the place where you can collect the most unusual, useful, funny, and interesting visual or video information related to home design, remodeling, decoration, or green living that you can also use for your website and email newsletter articles. This way you can pin these interesting images or videos from your web pages and all the traffic from Pinterest will be directed back to the corresponding pages on your website.
In addition to a few tips below read this special article about Pinterest.

Pin only the best, the most unique and interesting images, ideas, or videos;
Pace your pins throughout the day to get noticed instead of doing all of them at once;
Pin not only your stuff but add re-pins from others;
Add description to your pins with searchable long-tail keywords;
Make sure your pins point back to the correct pages on your website for more referral traffic;
Besides adding ‘Pin It’ button to all the images on your website you’d like visitors to share, try adding it to the images on your email newsletter, as well as the invitation to ‘Follow’ you on Pinterest;

Facebook real estate marketing ideas and tips

The largest and most popular social networking site has started to show signs that its time of domination might be over soon. Facebook is losing to Google+ in the business arena and especially as the top real estate social media marketing platform. While Facebook is great for connecting with friends and family, that also has its limitation. In Real Estate marketing it is necessary to expand outside the spheres of family and friends and promote your business to strangers; this is where Google+ excels. If you are very invested in your Facebook page there is no reason to abandon it. Just remember one thing – your Facebook page doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to Facebook. Don’t put too much sweat into something that you don’t own. Spend more time working on your website instead and try to use Facebook more for promoting it. Facebook is still one of the best advertising places considering that you have already invested in it a lot of time and sweat equity.

Create a Facebook page for your business and announce it to your friends.

Create a Facebook page for your business and announce it to your friends.
Register for a very popular FB Real Estate Agent Directory
Sign up for Branch Out (a Facebook app geared towards job searches and professional networking).
Search for the most active Real Estate related FB pages on www.pagedatapro.com and comment there.
Create a profile and send friend requests to your social sphere.
Update your status with fun and valuable information a few times a week or as necessary (ex: announcing a hot listing that just came on the market).
Comment on local business pages or groups.
Like at least 4-5 posts from your newsfeed daily.
Create a past client photo album with testimonials (tag clients that are on Facebook & post on your business page).
Create slideshows or a photo album for JUST SOLD & JUST LISTED listings on your Facebook business page.

Offline Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents

Offline marketing is still one of the most effective real estate advertising strategies for many agents even when in comparison to online marketing. Printing real estate farming postcards became very inexpensive and if you find a way to distribute them cheaply within your geographical farm (EDDM or hand-delivery by local teens) then you may benefit in several different ways as explained in details below. Quite often new agents don’t realize that in order to come up with new and creative marketing plan you have to learn a few “classical” offline marketing techniques.

Always remember that information on all of your printed real estate marketing materials should be short and must have links, QR codes, and instant SMS codes to more detailed versions of the same information on your website. This includes real estate video tours, detailed listing information, articles, and pictures. Your goal is to have your website right in the center of all of your real estate farming ideas and constantly at the fingertips of your potential buyers and sellers.

Print “instant SMS info” riders and QR codes for your open house signs (check out homecellers.com).
Print and distribute Just Listed and Just Sold postcards or fliers with “instant SMS info” and QR codes regularly.
Give away cool promotional products with your contact information using every chance you get.
Distribute your custom neighborhood real estate newsletter.
Sponsor local community events like garage sales, a Halloween party, or a Haunted House at least 1-2 times a year.
Print links to your social profiles (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) on your new business cards.
Sponsor a local sports team and attend local community sporting events (families with little kids are growing and will need a bigger house one day).
Offer a free notary service on your printed marketing materials to make sure that your contact information will be saved.
Send introductory real estate farming letters, Just Listed and Just Sold postcards, and real estate newsletters with local market updates to apartment dwellers (potential home buyers), expired listings, and absentee property owners – you never know where your next lead may come from.
Every year in January send out or personally deliver to your farm a CMA recap of the previous year with a magnet calendar for a year – it is worth the cost to keep your face and contact information in front of your potential clients for the whole year.
Utilize EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) offered by USPS to send farming postcards and real estate newsletters and flyers to a bigger geographical area for a fraction of the cost of regular postage to boost your presence and gain more business. As real estate farming is a numbers game, targeting a bigger area on the same budget as mailing will yield more responses and more listings.
Twice a year send your geographical farm or social farm daylight savings reminder postcards; since other agents most likely will ignore these events it will be your chance to stand out from the crowd.
Ask your local coffee shop for permission to put your newsletters (25-50) on the counter for clients to read while they are having their morning latte or mid-day coffee break. Check your inventory regularly and include some interesting facts inside your newsletter along with traditional real estate information. You want to make it fun and put your name out in the community. Expand to local beauty salons, doctors’ offices, car repair places, etc. – anywhere people have to wait 10-15 minutes gives you a chance to capture their attention with your promotional products.
Get FSBO listings from Craigslist and call the owners using proven FSBO scripts.
Though “For Sale By Owner” signs are a rare sight as transactions have become more complicated and present a bigger liability to an individual seller not backed by E&O insurance of a big brokerage, it is still worth the effort to research FSBOs in your area and contact them for the possibility of converting FSBOs into listings. A quick search of Craigslist in your area can yield 30-50 FSBO and you can initially check over the phone if any of them are planning on interviewing any agents. There are numerous proven scripts for FSBO conversions so if you are committed to daily prospecting and mastering your techniques. Including FSBO into your marketing plan can bring steady results. Keep in mind that you have to be honest and open with sellers: no BS (stands for Bait and Switch) approach. Don’t call FSBO to tell them that you may have a buyer for their home so you’d like to see it – this only feeds the illusion for FSBO that it is possible to sell their home without listing it with the agent. Your task is not to give them tools and pointers on how to sell their home, much like how a doctor wouldn’t give tips to a patient on how to perform his own surgery. Your goal is to logically prove to FSBOs that you can sell their house while netting them more money and doing all the work.
Host local seminars teaching people the process of buying a home, preparing homes for sale, investing in real estate, home repair that will increase the resale value, etc.
Build relationships through personal contacts. Once in a while take your farming postcards, flyers, newsletters, and all your promotional goodies and just go distributing those door-to-door. It is better to do this on weekends when some of your farm’s residents are outside. This way you can start talking to people more naturally. The ringing doorbell is not a good idea and can have a negative effect on your marketing efforts. Most of us are busy and don’t like to be distracted by salespeople but when we are outside on a weekend day we are more relaxed and inclined to chat with passers-by, especially when they are not trying to sell us something.
Give out some useful items during your door-to-door real estate farming sessions and don’t talk about real estate! For example, ask homeowners if they need fresh smoke detector batteries. Odds are that they do need them and then give them 1-2 9-volt batteries (you can get them at a Dollar store for $1 per couple). These are kind of useful small things that people will remember your name and may keep your business card.
Get a couple of large car magnets with your name, logo, website, and phone number.
Go to local events where you would go to meet people. These events are perfect for building relationships. Don’t try to market yourself there. Listen to these peoples’ concerns, problems find out their interests, and offer some help or solutions if you can at this time. Later, at home, search for better solutions and put them out to your website, newsletters, and other marketing pieces.
Take pictures of local events. People always love looking at their own and their kids’ photos – this is a great way to connect to them via social media websites.
Hire a caricature artist for these local events. Photograph and post all of them later on your Facebook. This will attract even more interest and traffic than just photos. Your chances of being remembered will be higher.
Distribute surveys among the residents of your farm. Find out what are the main concerns of this community and see if you can help with problems. People will appreciate your efforts and will remember your name.
Start a community organization after you identified major concerns and problems. If there is a social need then organize a group of people and set up a special group page for it on MeetUp.com
Think of some volunteering places where you can help people and get to know better the area. These can be a very good place to meet new people, educate them about real estate. Do it only if you are passionate about something and really want to help.
If you are doing an open house – put balloons outside to get some additional attention.
Bring donuts to apartment managers and ask if they know of any renters who are going to purchase a home. Ask if you can leave your flyers and cards at their office for tenants who would be interested. Try to establish good relationships with these managers and visit them once a month, so they will not forget you.
If you are good at sports try coaching a youth sports team. It will give you a nice opportunity to meet many families within this community and establish good relationships with some of them.
Sidewalk chalk ads. These are very popular in some cities in the EU. Order cut-out templates for open houses and gets either a spray bottle of water washable paint or chalk bars. Once the open house is over just wash off your ad with a bucket of water.
Order pens with your information and leaves them anywhere you can.
Referral program for past clients. Make sure to leave this information with all your past clients and have it displayed on your marketing materials if there is enough space. Gift cards and gift certificates are the most common rewards. This is a very powerful strategy used by thousands and thousands of businesses from Amazon.com to many successful real estate agents and brokers.

LinkedIn Marketing Ideas and Tips

When creating your profile use your real name. LinkedIn frowns on anything other than your official name.
Your headline is very important as it shows on searches and other areas through LinkedIn. Wisely use keywords that you have already researched for your website, though make sure people will be able to distinguish you from other real estate professionals on LinkedIn.
Use the summary section to highlight your professional experience and expertise while taking advantage of a new option to add media such as YouTube videos and Slideshare presentations of your listings and sales.
Your past job experience is another area where you can strategically use keywords to boost your LinkedIn search ratings. Utilize them in the job position titles and descriptions without repetition.
Skills and Expertise is another great area to add keywords to your profile. Start typing “real estate” at the Skills and Expertise page for suggestions. It will bring up all kinds of related skills that you can choose from. You can list 50 skills so choose them carefully and be honest.
Don’t forget to list all your relevant publications including articles on real estate topics in local newspapers and free e-books available on your website, etc.
It is also important to add languages you fluently speak, membership in professional and local organizations, awards, certifications, and volunteering. They all help define your uniqueness and skills.
Make regular status updates on your professional profile the same way you would on Google+ and Facebook. You can share links and tag people and companies.
Once you’ve established your profile, work on growing your network using LinkedIn tools to search your contacts.
It is common to ask for endorsements of your skills and return the favor by endorsing relevant skills for the people in your network.
To manage your LinkedIn presence use numerous tools to help you do it efficiently: Jumplead (identify visitors coming to your website from LinkedIn); SproutSocial (manage engagement and analyze activity for your social media sites).

Real Estate Email Marketing

Invite clients to a free online Webinar for homeowners (select a topic based on your niche expertise).
Send a weekly or monthly email newsletter full of short topics on the latest real estate developments, tips for homeowners, featured homes, and local events.
Send out interest rate updates and mortgage updates (you can work with a local lender to get this information).
Work with local businesses to co-brand an email offer (send to both your contact lists) allowing you to expand your sphere of contact;
Send out special editions of email newsletters with seasonal homeowner reminders & safety tips (emergency preparedness, garden tips, Halloween safety tips, Christmas lights fire safety tips, etc.)

RealBird – “All-In-One” Online Real Estate Marketing

Utilize RealBird Listing Publisher, an easy-to-use one-step online, social media, and mobile listing real estate marketing tools. Enter your listing on a simple form, upload all the photos at once and you immediately have a stunning single property website, MLS-friendly virtual tour, property widgets, Craigslist ads, and other embed codes. All of your listings are automatically syndicated to leading real estate portals.
Embed RealBird property search into your real estate website, Facebook page, blog, or single listing websites. Homebuyers can set up an account and save their searches and favorite properties. You can customize your “Required” registration option: determine how many property details can be revealed before client registration is required. This built-in lead capture tool allows clients to request more information. Your Tweets and blog feeds are automatically posted on your clients’ dashboards so that every time they sign into their account they will see your most recent content.
RealBird SMS Marketing Platform puts your real estate advertising on a new level by allowing you to set an SMS phone number (for only a $1 a month from Twilio) and assign customized text codes to your mobile property websites. You can assign custom codes and reuse them later after the listing is sold to save on property sign riders. Homebuyers can request to receive instant information about any of your listings by texting the code to your number. RealBird will send the listing’s mobile site to the client’s smartphone, save the prospect’s phone number for you, and notify you of your new lead.

Twitter

Create a Twitter profile, use Twitterlocal.net to connect with local businesses and people.
Use the “Find People” feature to find people you already know on Twitter.
Tweet homeowner tips (easy repairs, projects, upgrades).
Tweet funny, interesting, inspiring, engaging experiences and information.
Tweet local market news and updates.
List yourself on Twitter directories: NearbyTweets, WeFollow, etc.
Break news as it happens.
Tweet local event information, location, and live tweets with photo updates from events.
Tweet excerpts from your blog posts.
Tweet your professional expertise and activities such as niche advice, relevant tips, open houses, new listings, broker’s tours, thoughts & experiences.

Fiverr.com – Anything for $5

Hire designers for your marketing flyers, farming postcards, and business cards.
If you think that your real estate business cards can use some facelift to stand out from other agents – this is the place to search for some gigs with cool designs.
Don’t have time for building backlinks to your website – hire help there, but don’t plan on building 1000s of links in one day. The trick is to have several blogs on subdomains of WordPress.com or Yola.com that will point to your main website and then build 1000s of links to them. This way your main website will stay protected from Google’s “unnatural link building pattern” regulations.
Do you need real views with likes and comments for your videos on the Youtube channel? Yes! They will help increase your rank.
Anything else that you can think of can be found on fiverr.com from blog commenting to printing flyers and posting them in certain areas.

How to Generate Real Estate Leads from Activerain.com

activerain.com is one of the most popular places for these types of leads. It is not cheap and membership prices are going up pretty frequently. However, if you have no desire to develop your own website, then it is worth trying. Make sure to do research and ask other real estate agents who are using this service if they are currently happy with it – often what has been working great for many years may suddenly break due to rapid changes in the Internet protocols and algorithms. Just remember the same thing that was mentioned earlier – your business will be dependent on activerain.com. It is potentially dangerous to build your business on the foundation of another company.
Your own website will require a lot of time, knowledge, and effort but it will be yours! It is exactly the same as building your own house and renting one. Renting is temporary. Property that you will be able to sell is a property that you own, improve, and properly market.
All the content that you will be creating for activerain.com will mostly benefit only activerain.com. Also, you will be paying them a monthly fee.
It is worth thinking about this before signing up with any of these kinds of services!

Targeting Distressed Homeowners

Contact your title company. They should be able to put you in touch with a service that provides a list of homeowners who just received a notice of default or of trustee sale. Some of these people need an agent’s help ASAP. Contact them via phone, email, and even stop by.
Don’t sign up for foreclosureradar.com before checking with your title company. Foreclosureradar.com basically provides the same information but for a monthly fee. Also, there are some complaints from real estate agents that their data is sometimes incomplete.

Some of the top real estate marketing ideas mentioned above have a more detailed explanation provided on other pages.
The key is to design and follow your real estate marketing plan. First, learn how to get real estate leads by yourself, and if you are successful, outsource those tasks that require too much time to online virtual assistants (VAs).

More ideas:
Real Estate Drone Photography

Webinar with Q&As

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