If you're just getting started in real estate, marketing yourself is probably top on your list of things to do. Luckily, you don't need to reinvent the wheel to make a name for yourself. Take a look at these classic ideas you can personalize to start getting business right away!
We’re halfway through the year and we have a question for you: Will this be the year you “make it” in real estate or the year you leave the business?
Is this the year you’ll fine-tune your SEO and social strategy, maybe experiment with new marketing methods or buckle down and focus on conventional lead gen tactics?
Many agents spend most of the year spinning their wheels, waiting for that magic bullet piece of technology, or the latest innovative marketing idea. If you are among them, stop it.
Stop waiting for the newest, flashiest, shiniest gadget or idea. Chasing after squirrels will get you nothing but nuts.
The real estate industry is full of marketing methods and tips, some old, some more recent and most of them work, if you work them.
With that in mind, here are some summer marketing ideas for real estate you cant afford to miss.
The divide is sharp in the battle between high tech and conventional marketing methods. Adherents to tech typically consider the “old ways” of marketing archaic, while those that use those methods, and succeed, sputter and spit in defense of them.
Why can’t we marry the two and come up with hybrid summer marketing ideas for real estate?
“A lot of my ideas are just old ideas that I made better,” marketing wiz and broker Kris Lindahl with Kris Lindahl Real Estate in Minnesota.
During a chat we had some time ago he told me that “I never stop looking for new ideas. I’m always on the internet and anything that I see, whether it’s real estate-related or not, if it’s catchy, I’ll try to figure out how to make it my own and make it better,” Lindahl continues.
One of these oldies is the agent charity event. In 2015, Lindahl took this idea and started The Great Pumpkin Giveaway. For each pumpkin given away, the team donated $1.00 to the local homeless charity. Sounds pretty conventional, right?
Through his marketing efforts, however, the event drew 3,000 attendees (in a not-so-big city) and they ended up giving $2,000 to the homeless shelter. He persuaded local businesses to donate the music, food and beverages so the cost of the event for the team was negligible.
He used Facebook as his primary marketing vehicle, pushing the flyer out via both his business and personal page. Repeatedly. He also used his blogs to get the word out.
Then, he relied on some old-school marketing – he hired Anoka County Achieve, a group that works with adults with developmental disabilities — to deliver flyers door to door.
“Real estate agents have been doing charity events forever, but now we can use technology, combined with old school methods, to spread the word,” he suggests.
It’s a phrase that’s ready for the dust heap, but it fits when thinking about summer marketing ideas for real estate: “think outside the box.” Whether you’re planning a charity event or a client appreciation party, don’t be afraid to give that old idea a makeover.
The makeover happens when those old-school summer marketing ideas for real estate is combined with new-school marketing methods.
It works. For almost no money out of his pocket, Lindahl got his name, his brand and his team in front of thousands of prospective clients.
Referrals and repeat business are the life blood of every successful real estate practice. With them, you can ease off on the dialing for dollars or whatever method you use to chase after new business.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing estimates that “it costs between four and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one.”
Hear that my tight-fisted-hate-to-part-with-a-buck REALTOR® friends? Nurturing past clients is cheapo lead generation – every agent’s dream-come-true.
If you’ve been in the business for some time and have built up a healthy book of past clients, maybe now is the time you reach out and make them fall in love with you.
Again, marketing techniques to woo this group of people can include the high-tech, low-tech, or a hybrid of both.
Even in the Covid age and beyond, a client appreciation event that includes both past clients and your SOI can be amazing an lead generator.
They don’t have to be in-person events, either. We found a brilliant list of virtual client appreciation events you can hold from your laptop. Download your free copy of 30 Virtual Event Ideas at flodesk.com.
We’re also rather fond of the email newsletter. Cheap, easy (once it’s set up) and effective – they’re the epitome of the ideal marketing vehicle – if they’re done right.
You’ll need a content strategy so that you aren’t sending out new listings all the time or blabbing that because of low rates “it’s the perfect time to buy!” Find out what information folks are craving and give it to them.
How the heck do you know what that is? Ah, an old writer’s secret: research. I went to Pinterest and found out that the most popular topic, among both men and women is “Food and Drink.”
Hey, remember the stupid recipes agents used to send out? Maybe they were more forward-thinking than we gave them credit for.
Seriously, though, here’s an opportunity to take old summer marketing ideas for real estate and make them new. Put your own spin on it, review a restaurant or happy hour, rave about a meal, suggest date night and tell them where to go and what to order.
How about a menu for a housewarming or holiday get together sourced from locally-produced items?
While we’re at Pinterest you may be interested in knowing that women prefer crafts and home décor topics too. Men like photography, art, design and, believe it or not, home décor.
Decorating articles, then, seem like the ideal thing to entice your recipients to open and read those newsletters.
Don’t neglect the power of social media to stay connected with past clients – many of the topics you write about in the newsletter will make great shares on Facebook.
Solve problems – agents are admonished to use this mantra when considering what topics to include in their website content, what to write about on their blogs and in their marketing materials.
Why solve problems from a distance? Bloomington, Ind. agent Deb Tomaro sure doesn’t. Again, here’s an agent that has taken an old idea – the seminar – and put her own twist on it.
Years ago, she was holding 90-minute “educational” seminars for potential homebuyers. Still pretty traditional stuff, right? The seminars, however, became so successful that she made this aspect of real estate her niche.
It had expanded to the point where she partnered with several large Bloomington employers who just love offering her seminars as an employee benefit. Ca-Ching!
So, maybe you don’t want to put the effort into holding seminars. It’s not the only way to address real estate consumer’s fears, concerns and problems.
Maybe you can spend the rest of the year becoming the expert on every last nuance of your business and the community in which it is located, from the mortgage process to the title process to closing, to local issues and everything in between. Being the problem solver is a great step to getting creative with summer marketing ideas for real estate.
In other words, be the “fixer” of real estate problems.
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