Marketing is continuously evolving. Like all businesses, the real estate industry must keep up with technological advances and consumer behavior. Traditional listings and having a website are no longer enough to compete. Instead, your marketing should evolve with the changing needs of consumers to embrace all channels and technology that finds potential buyers. Here are some interesting realities of real estate marketing in 2021.
1. High Competition
With so many realtors, finding buyers and sellers can be difficult without leveraging the right digital channels. Depending on whether the environment is a seller’s market or a buyer’s market, you can expect competition, which can affect your marketing campaigns. Seasonal competition can make reaching the right audience more difficult as more people are buying and selling their homes in the warmer months.
2. Low Inventory
With fewer houses on the market in 2021, realtors will need to compete to help buyers find the right homes for them while selling homes on the market for more to make up their commissions.
New agents will find it challenging to find sellers, while their lack of experience makes them less attractive to homeowners who want to profit from selling their homes.
3. Time-consuming Processes
Buying a new home is a time-consuming process that requires proper planning. When marketing a real estate company, experts need to understand making a sale is time-consuming, so their marketing strategy should focus on the buyer’s journey.
4. Unrealistic Buyer Expectations
Like selling, buying a home is time-consuming, and the people who buy homes usually don’t plan to become repeat buyers. Instead of trying to find ways for clients to continue buying homes from you (since many won’t), marketing teams should focus on how they can obtain new clients. Marketing should become a resource or tool for clients and potential clients so realtors can stay in front of their audience and prove they are a valuable source of information.
When it comes to marketing a real estate business, you need to keep your clients’ expectations realistic through marketing efforts. You can do this by providing resources that outline how clients can figure out how much they can afford and their monthly costs on a particular home.
5. Market Research
The real estate market is highly flexible. With valuable analytics, market research allows companies to survive fluctuations. Market research can help you understand the types of individuals interested in buying homes at a particular time, letting you know whether or not your marketing campaigns should target first-time homebuyers or other types of investors.
A real estate marketing team should invest in real estate market research so they can prepare for dips and rises in the market. You can do market research in-house with a market researcher or work with a third-party advisor.
6. Targeting the Right Audience
A successful advertising campaign will tap and target the right audience. For example, realtors wouldn’t want to spend money on campaigns that don’t reach people interested in buying or selling their homes.
By targeting the right audience, real estate professionals can grow their potential reach.
7. Keeping Up With Trends
Real estate agencies deal with shifting trends and fluctuations. The best way to compete with others in the industry is to stay ahead of the current real estate trends. Trends such as the use of social media, apps, and more can help you beat your competition.
Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Professionals
Real estate marketing is challenging even for the most experienced marketers. Whether you have a marketing department in-house or are doing everything yourself, here are a few strategies real estate professionals can use to take their marketing to the next level:
Live Videos
Live video on social media is important for every industry. The most popular live streaming is Facebook Live, but it’s becoming increasingly more popular on Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn. Live videos allow realtors to engage with their audience in real-time, which can result in more qualified leads and followers on social media channels.
Real estate professionals can use live video on social media for:
- Video tours
- Q&As
- DIY tips
- News
- Webinars
Drones
Drones allow realtors to create better content to share and are ideal for covering luxury properties and estates. They can also show the house for sale and its property from above by creating aerial videos of the entire neighborhoods to attract homebuyers.
Virtual Staging
Staging a home encourages buyers to picture themselves living in the home. The right staging can give the home a personality that appeals to the masses. Not to mention, empty homes don’t look good in photos, videos, or real life.
Instead, realtors can present homes that are perfectly furnished. Luckily, modern software makes it easy to virtually stage a home without renting furniture or hiring a staging company.
Virtual Real Estate Agents
With more people from all industries working remotely, realtors are no exception. Virtual brokers are one of the newest disruptive real estate trends. Several services can save time and cut costs for both realtors and buyers.
When individuals work with a virtual broker, they must research them and their reputation to know you’re working with a legit company. According to Shareable for Hires, you can run a professional license background check to make sure they are licensed to operate in your state.
Microsites
One strategy many realtors can choose to market their listings is to build microsites for luxury homes. These websites can help generate leads and allow agents control over the types of content they want to share on their website and social media pages. This also helps them avoid sharing commissions.
Final Thoughts
Real estate fluctuates more than most industries, which means marketing campaigns need to be planned ahead of time so they can explore what will happen when things change. For example, in a seller’s market, marketing campaigns should be geared toward obtaining clients looking to sell their homes rather than buyers who might not be able to afford to purchase a home. By understanding your target audience and staying up to date on current consumer behavior, you can develop marketing campaigns that succeed.
Matt Casadona
Matt Casadona has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. He is passionate about marketing and business strategy and enjoys San Diego life, traveling, and music.
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