Working as a real estate professional can be a great way to earn a good chunk of money and have spare time whenever you want. Right? Not really.
According to related data, the median wage of real estate agents is less than $55.000 per year. Moreover, the lowest 10% fo those realtors only earn approximately $22k/year.
Not to mention, the real estate industry is a highly competitive niche. Even though, there is a possibility to be financially independent working as a realtor, you will need to work hard, in the beginning, to become a rockstar down the road. And it is not completely related to selling as many properties as possible.
If you are in the lowest percentile, you might be having a hard time balancing your work-life schedule. The main question is how to get yourself to the upper percentile? Here when marketing comes to help!
There are two different points of view:
- Marketing is not a high priority
- Marketing is crucial for agents
Whoever saying that marketing is not important prefer buying leads for services that sell only leads. Not to mention, those leads are not always sent uniquely to you! These “lead selling” platforms send a single lead to multiple agents and if you do not act fast enough – the lead is gone.
The main benefit of these platforms – easy to get started. You register, pay a monthly fee (or on a per lead basis) and get those leads.
The drawback, on the other hand, is a lack of trust and rapport. For buyer or seller leads, generated via those platforms, you are 100% similar to other hundreds of realtors who are getting the same “lead generation” service.
Now, marketing for real estate agents is the number one priority if you are looking for long-term results. Marketing will help build your brand and became a local real estate expert.
Talking about marketing, it is not solely running generic ads, but has a complete system in place, including the following…
Brand website
This is your brand’s face and personality. Most clients will perform intensive research online before working with someone, a well-made website will allow prospective clients to discover convincing information on your business beforehand. You can implement MLS listings to your website to attract even more customers!
SEO Optimization
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In a nutshell, it is a set of tactics to rank a website higher on Google. Google has an algorithm that ranks web pages based on numerous (over 100!) factors. This algorithm is very dynamic, constantly crawling the internet and looking for the best content to rank it higher. We have a great article on how to make your website visible organically.
Social Media pages
Similar to the website, your potential clients will do their “homework” and research your brand all over the Internet to understand if you are a legit business. It is crucial to create a social page on major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin. Not to mention, if done right, your followers will become your advocates sharing and engaging with your social media content
Facebook Ads
This is the #1 platform for Real Estate agents to generate leads and revenue. How about 100 leads for $500? Sounds exciting, right? Unfortunately, 90% of agents are skeptical about the quality fo those leads. However, if done right, Facebook has endless potential for your business.
Text & Email Sequences
Developing strategic email & text campaigns allow real estate agents to keep in touch with existing and prospective clients as well as give opportunities to consistently broadcast marketing messages to their email list in bulk.
We cannot stress enough how important it is to build, not only regular newsletters to an existing client database but also to develop email and text drips.
By drips, we mean consistent and automatic follow-ups with the clients via emails and text messages that are still stuck at the consideration stage.
For instance, for all of our clients we develop custom campaigns for seller and buyer leads that are up to 180 days long.
The best part is that agents are not required to send it manually — every email and SMS is sent automatically depending on the schedule set up by the client.
Customer Relationship Platform (CRM)
it is crucial to have a place where you can store contacts/leads. Of course, you can begin with Google Sheets or Excel. But what if you are generating 100 leads per month and you’ve to do a manual follow up with each of them.
It’s no secret that some of the leads that you will acquire online may sign a contract after months of following up. And that’s exactly what makes tracking them so difficult.
A CRM platform will help you keep the leads database organized. Most CRMs offer a built-in email automation feature. You can segment your leads and depending on the marketing stage, you can send them automated emails/text messages and assign funnel stages. It will help you improve your results significantly.
The biggest obstacle is the price. CRM can be pricey ($500+), depending on the features you are looking for. That’s the reason we’ve created our own affordable CRM with tons of features that will ideally fit your real estate needs:
- Visual Overview Dashboard
- Landing Page Creation
- Lead Capturing Right from Facebook Ads
- Custom Forms & Surveys
- Calendar Integration
- Inbound Phone Systems
- Automatic Email, Text Messaging & Custom Newsletters
- And Much More!
Feel free to schedule a demo call with us and we will show you around!