7 Top Strategies For Helping Your Agents Stand Out And Win Clients

There are 86,095 real estate brokerage firms operating in the United States and over one million licensed Realtors®, reports the National Association of Realtors (NAR). So how does your brokerage and how do your agents be distinctive and stand out?

Help them succeed by providing strategic branded marketing for Realtors at your brokerage as a lead generation source. If your company is unknown, your agents won’t be known either.

Potential clients want to get to know a real estate brokerage and its agents before deciding who to work with. They want to feel comfortable with all aspects of the home buying or selling process and feel a sense of trust. To build report with potential leads, don’t just sell – your marketing should tell a story of your brokerage and agents with photos and text.

What are the tactics you can use to provide marketing support for your agents? Let’s look at seven top industry marketing ideas for real estate agents to generate buzz for your agents and your firm:

1. Have a Visible Online Presence

A National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2019 report on “Real Estate In A Digital Age” shows that “over 90 percent of real estate firms have websites.” To stay in the running, your brokerage must have a website that reflects your specific real estate brand and shows your presence in the market.

Perhaps your agents work in a certain region or neighborhood or mainly sell architectural homes. Use keywords and phrases in your website copy that will draw buyers or sellers that fit those categories. Search engines, like Google, will decide where to display your website in search results based on your website copy. So, make sure you’re complete without boring your readers – Google knows how much and for how long people are using your website.

Build your brand by having a fully visible online presence through your website and social media. At a minimum, your firm’s website should have:

listings/MLS
high-quality photos
informational content
agent/staff profiles
client reviews/testimonials
financial calculators
contact form

Broker/Owner James McGrath of Yoreevo in New York City firmly believes that investing in website search engine optimization (SEO) and acquiring client reviews is crucial to your brokerage’s growth. He uses Google Business for reviews.

No one will remember a lackluster website or social media post. To keep it interesting, Jake Lizaragga of REITS suggests “maintaining a blog and maybe even a public chat questions and answers section on real estate.” Tactics like these would boost search performance and drive traffic to your firm’s website.

2. Leverage Sphere Of Influence

Phil Georgiades of FedHome Loan Centers in San Diego notes that their agents have a 7:1 return on closed transaction per year just by working their sphere of influence (aka everyone they know). “Our marketing department will send 25 emails and 12 mailers to each agent’s sphere, and the agents make quarterly phone calls to their sphere,” Georgiades explains. Value is added with personalization. “We send birthday, holiday and thank you cards; gift certificates for a favorite hobby; pumpkins for Halloween; and referrals to home vendors.” This is wonderful marketing support for real estate agents, and it also produced their highest conversion rate in the past five years.

Getting actively engaged with the local schools is one of the best ways for real estate agents and brokerages to gain recognition while aiding their communities

3. Partner with the Local School District

Your brokerage and agents should be viewed as real estate experts within the local community. Being connected with the local schools also helps agents become versed in describing the schools to prospective buyers.

As Benjamin Ross of Mission Real Estate Group tells us: “Real estate agents and community are two terms that should be synonymous with each other. It is important to be plugged into the heart of the community – the school district. I donate 10 percent of my commission to scholarship funds and mentor students interested in entrepreneurship.”

Getting actively engaged with the local schools is one of the best ideas for real estate agents and brokerages to gain recognition while aiding their communities. It’s a win-win.

4. Facebook Messenger Ads

“Studies of this powerful new marketing methodhave shown that ads within Facebook Messenger have a whopping 242% higher open rate than emails,” reports Emile L’Eplattenier, Chief Real Estate Analyst at New York City-based The Close.

5. Send Direct Mail

While most are going toward digital marketing, direct mail is alive and, well, practically novel. As with any marketing for Realtors tactic, the trick is to know your audience.

If you are targeting a younger audience, direct mail is probably not worthwhile. And Boomers and those who are not tech-savvy might do better with simple direct mail. Grab their attention with a monthly newsletter of area facts, features and real estate news or an interesting recipe or sports schedule postcard. Something they’ll want to hang on to that also prominently highlights your brokerage contact information.

The future is in filmed reviews and customer testimonials

6. Create Video Content

“Build out credibility and authority within your market by creating YouTube content that you can embed into your website,” notes Shawn Breyer owner of Atlanta House Buyers. Video content is especially popular with younger generations. “Include [yourself] attending and talking about local events, the local market and [offer] client testimonials, including how working with you helped clients achieve their personal goals.”

Hauseit, a For Sale by Owner and Buyer Closing Credit company based in New York City, also believes in customer video content, such as animated videos explaining real estate topics and interview testimonials to promote their brand. “Because of the ease of creating new accounts, it’s tough to trust written reviews, regardless of whether they are positive or negative,” according to Sonja Gosine, Spokesperson at Hauseit. “The future is in filmed reviews and customer testimonials,” she says.

7. Wear a T-Rex Costume

Real estate isn’t all serious business. A little fun can go a long way. Andrew Helling, Editor at REthority tells of a hometown Omaha, Nebraska, real estate agent who dressed up in an inflatable dinosaur costume for his listing photos and wound up on the news. Helling reports, “This resulted in free publicity for the agent, meaning many free leads.”

Other costume ideas for real estate agents can be equally creative. Maybe Sasquatch for the Pacific Northwest agents or an outerspace alien for those in Nevada or New Mexico.

Help Your Agents Succeed

As a broker, there are many ways you can help your agents stand out as the authority from a sea of other local agents. Build your brand to market your brokerage and your agents in a variety of creative ways. Expand on these best ideas for real estate agents by tracking what works for others. Change strategies to reflect current market demands. Above all, realize that marketing doesn’t have to be serious to get noticed. Just ask the guy in the dinosaur outfit.

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