Marketing Ideas For Real Estate Agents

Do you own a real estate agency, and are looking at marketing your business?

1. Introduction

From day one you need a healthy marketing budget. First you need listings, in order to commence your business, because until you start selling properties, you will have no income, in order to cover your overheads.

2. Once trading commences

Once you have listings & have sold a few properties, you’re going to need to keep the sales rolling, as you don’t see any cash flow, until the properties have settled.

3. Establishing you’re business

Regular repetitive marketing to your prospective market is essential. If you are part of a group or franchise, you will have set boundaries, and cannot deviate from these boundaries.

However, if you are not restricted by agency or franchise areas, you need to look at the areas you can practically, & efficiently service. As a guide main road access, and a radius from your agency, would normally guide your selection. Natural boundaries that restrict access such as creeks, rivers & freeways, should be considered, when establishing your area. It is better to saturate a small marketing area, on a regular basis, than to try to cover a large area, occasionally. Your prospect may not want to sell their home this week, next week, or next month, but eventually they will. You need to have your name in front of them constantly, so that they remember you, when it comes time to sell. The more frequently you target your market is better, but don’t allow your message to become stale, by consistently sending out the same old message. You need to test & measure every campaign, as some will be more effective than others, and their effect might also be seasonal, such as sending out winter campaigns in winter, and summer in summer etc.

4. Established business

An established business can rely to some extent on referalls, and repeat business, but this is limited, and happens at a snail pace. An established business, to become a market leader in the area, needs to be marketing aggressively, in order to stay on top, as there will always be another agency nipping at their heals, trying to take their place. As the business grows, the area coverage, will need to grow with the increasing number of staff, to a point, where another branch, needs to be considered, rather than losing staff, for longer and longer times in the day, due to the distance they need to travel, to service their prospects.

5. Promoting your business

Unlike many forms of traditional advertising, such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, letterbox distribution can target your areas to your specific requirements, as Letterbox Distributors break down every suburb, into small manageable sizes for their walkers, and any combination of these can be chosen, to closely match your chosen area.

6. Choosing from different methods of advertising

There are many different forms of advertising, which will work best for me? The larger your budget, the more you have to choose from, and the larger the business, the more likely they are, to use many different forms, to re-inforce each other. However, if your budget is limited, then my choice is to stick with the tried and tested, value for money, letterbox distribution, when it comes to looking for leads in specific areas. Many agents also prefer to use letterbox distribution, as a means of stirring up local interest in houses they have listed for sale, which doubles as awareness of their agency.  Some agents even drop a small number around an auction, in the same street, to create interest, and raise a crowd for an auction. Many residents like to stay in their local area, often moving house on average of every 5-10 years. They can also be on the lookout, for a house for a friend, or relative who wants to move close-by to them.

7. Promoting using the letterbox

Some useful tools are calendars, financial year calendars, footy fixtures, magnet with metric conversion, useful & emergency phone numbers, & other community information. Handwritten notes, business cards, useful hints for selling your property, and periodical generic, & locality specific newsletters, are other popular tools used in real estate marketing. Agents are coming up with new ideas all the time, it’s important to keep abreast, and even ahead of the other guy’s marketing.

8. Summary

At Letterbox Distributors we’re always on the look-out for new ideas, for clients, as well as our own business. Please feel free to contact us, to discuss our latest ideas, or alternatively some new ones. Thirty years in business has taught us many things, but we have come to realise “the only constant, is change”. We’re always on the lookout for new ideas. Please call us today to discuss your requirements.

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