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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Marketing

    Someday, probably sooner than we imagine, sellers will be competing for buyers, while buyers will have vastly more choices in homes. 

    First impressions matter, but never more so than when there aren’t enough buyers in the market. 

    When it comes to showcasing your listings, high-quality photography can make all the difference. 

    If you’ve never used the services of a pro real estate photographer, you’ll want to read on to learn why you should.

    And, most importantly, discover the questions you should ask to ensure you get the right photographer for your real estate business.

    Why clear, compelling listing photos are important

    We asked our agent friends who use professional photography in their real estate business why they feel it’s important.

    It makes a great first impression 

    Your listings are essentially your products, and first impressions are crucial. Compelling photographs are the first point of contact for prospective buyers, drawing them in and sparking their interest.

    Showcases a property’s best features

    Skilled real estate photographers know how to capture a property’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses. They use their expertise in lighting, composition, and post-processing to make a home look its absolute best.

    The Calendar Series postcard is shown above. To learn more, Click Here.

    Increases online visibility

    We already know from the various ocular movement studies that buyers’ eyes go right for the photo as soon as they pull up a listing. If there is no photo, they leave the page.

    If the photo is dark, crooked, or otherwise amateur in nature, most will also leave.

    Results in faster sales and higher prices 

    Properties with professionally photographed online listings tend to sell faster and often at higher prices. 

    Helps you ace your listing presentations

    Who is more likely to ace the listing presentation, the agent with DIY photographs of past listings or the one with gorgeous, jaw-dropping photographs?

    Here are the questions to ask when interviewing a photographer

    Can I see your portfolio? Reviewing a photographer’s previous work will give you a sense of their style and the quality of their work.

    Are you insured? Ensure that the photographer carries liability insurance in case of any accidents or damages during the shoot.

    What equipment do you use? Ask about the type of camera, lenses, and lighting equipment they use to ensure they have the necessary tools for the job.

    Do you offer post-processing services? Inquire about their editing and retouching capabilities to enhance the final images.

    What is your availability? Confirm that the photographer can accommodate your scheduling needs, including weekends and evenings if necessary.

    Do you provide virtual tours or drone photography? These additional services can enhance your listings and attract potential buyers.

    Yes, hiring a professional photographer will eat into your commission check. But without one, you may not even get the listing.

    With the right photographer, you’ll have the tools to make a lasting impression and close deals more effectively.

    PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

    1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

    Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct, response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

    2. The Free 6-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

    The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 6-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

    3. The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review

    The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review allows you to enter your business goals for the remainder of the year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closings, and so on are needed to reach your goals.   – Click Here

    4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

    Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

      A few weeks ago, we promised to update you on the latest social media demographics. We started with TikTok, and today we dive into Instagram.

      The criteria we used when choosing the “best” social media options is simple: Those in your target demographic should use the platform heavily. If that includes buyers and sellers, you’ll want to hang out where baby boomers do. 

      If, on the other hand, you are targeting millennial real estate consumers, we can show you where to spend your time.

      Remember, when it comes to marketing your real estate business, targeting is critical. Otherwise, you are wasting both your time and money.

      Let’s talk Instagram

      Although India leads the world in Instagram users, with more than 225 million active users, the U.S. comes in second, with “… at least 143.4 million active users,” according to DataReportal.com.

      Instagram tends to attract a young crowd in the U.S., with ages 18 to 24 accounting for its largest audience share (27.7). The second-largest share of audience is those aged 25-to-34 … to which 25.7% of Instagrammers belong,” according to data from Oberlo.com.

      Pay close attention to this statistic: “As of 2022, around 87% of Instagram’s 1.31 billion users who might potentially be targeted with ads are outside the United States.”

      If you’re selling international real estate, this statistic may not bother you. But that nearly 90% of the platform’s targeted users are outside the U.S. should be a deal breaker for real estate agents.

      Add to that the young age of the average user. There are platforms with far better demographics if you’re looking for potential homebuyers and sellers.

      Who you should be targeting

      Although we went over this in our last post about TikTok, in a nutshell, baby boomers are the ones buying and selling right now, making up 39% of buyers. According to the NAR, they have overtaken millennials’ share of the buyer pool (28%).

      Sellers? Baby boomers again, but Gen X is part of the pool as well. NAR says the typical seller is 60 years old.

      So, we’ve struck out with both TikTok and Instagram. But check back because soon we’ll have the winners of which the-social-media-platforms-are-best-for-real-estate- agents contest.

      PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

      1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

      Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

      2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

      The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

      3. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

      The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

      4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

      This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

      Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

        Marketing is a crucial part of any business, specifically a real estate business because it helps in the following ways,
        • It promotes your services to target audiences,
        • Builds brand recognition,
        • And generate leads and sales. 

        However, for marketing to be effective, it must be seen by consumers repeatedly. 

        There is a term for this: “Brand Conditioning.” Over time, this type of marketing of a product or service results in a higher conversion rate due to increased consumer confidence.

        Repeat exposure to a brand or message is necessary for the brand to psychologically impact consumer behavior – it’s the true science of marketing.

        Here are Five Ways Repeat Exposure to Real Estate Marketing Works: 

        Reason # 1 – Repeat exposure helps to build brand recognition. 

        Consumers must be familiar with your brand to trust it enough to consider using your services. The term for this is “Brand awareness.”

        Brand awareness measures how memorable and recognizable your brand is to a target audience.

        With repeat exposure, consumers become more familiar and more likely to remember your brand, thus increasing brand confidence and awareness. 

        Once they understand your brand, they can differentiate it from other competing brands as well.

        The Looking For Listings Scheduled Campaign is shown above. To learn more, Click HERE.

        Reason #2 – Repeat exposure helps to reinforce the message you are delivering. 

        When consumers are exposed to your message multiple times, they are more likely to remember what’s special about you and your business; your value proposition.

        A value proposition is a service or feature about your real estate business that makes you attractive to customers. Hopefully, it is unique as well.

        An example might be, “my years of experience allow me to sell homes faster”.

        Understanding your message has a stronger impact on their long-term behavior toward your business. 

        Reason #3 – Repeat exposure to your message is important for the lead generation cycle.

        When a consumer is exposed to your brand multiple times, they’re more likely to take action and reach out to you for your services. 

        This is because your brand message is reinforced with each mailing that you send and the consumer is more likely to remember it when making a decision on a realtor. 

        In fact, scientific studies have proven a consumer needs to be exposed to the marketing of a business on average 20 times to be sold on using that service or buying that product.

        It takes seeing the marketing 5 times before a consumer will stop and read it.

        Reason # 4 – Repeat exposure to your brand illustrates your professionalism and ups your credibility.

        It demonstrates that you are committed to marketing, including delivering a consistent and strong message over time.

        This is perceived by the consumer as a form of marketing or a level of professionalism that you will likely carry through to your real estate clients and the marketing of their homes.

        As they say, “the proof is in the putting.” You can tell a potential client how much you will market for them, but showing them through your marketing is a much more powerful demonstration. 

        Reason #5 – Repeat exposure to your branding is essential for developing relationships. 

        By delivering a consistent brand message, you can build relationships with your target audience as they slowly get to know you better and rely on your content. 

        They begin to see you as the local area expert based on the “Just Sold” and Just Listed” success stories you send them, the educational content they receive from you, and the local area market stats you share.

        Now that you understand the importance of marketing repetition 

        Launching a scheduled postcard campaign is an easy way to get in front of your market and stay there long enough to develop the brand recognition we’ve discussed above.

        ProspectsPLUS! offers over 40 scheduled postcard campaigns in various niches, and it takes only seconds to set one up. 

        Once your campaign is launched, your postcards are automatically delivered month after month to your market while you attend to other high-level tasks.

        To learn more about scheduled campaigns, Click HERE.

        PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

        1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

        Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

        Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here


        2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

        The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

        3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

        The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks these boxes but is also a business-building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

        4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

        The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

        5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

        This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

        Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

          It’s safe to assume that most home sellers and buyers don’t know the meaning of “LTV,” they may have never used the word “contingency”, and the word “title” is just a name of a book.

          Studies show that the average adult reads at a 9th-grade level and that we actually prefer our reading material to be at a 7th-grade level.

          The words you choose to use on your website, in your listing descriptions, and direct mail pieces can make or break the visitor’s or recipient’s experience.

          The good news is that writing for an audience of everyday people isn’t at all like what you learned in high school or college. It’s easier, and it’s more fun.

          1. Ditch the insider lingo

          Unless your audience consists solely of other real estate professionals, using real estate lingo is like writing in a foreign language to an English-only reader. Check out this real-life example:

          “If you’re buying a home and apply for a mortgage, one critical factor in

          whether you secure financing is your loan-to-value ratio.”

          There’s no crime in using normal, everyday American English. So, let’s redo it:

          “Something you’ve probably never heard of may stand between you and the interest rate of your dreams: The loan-to-value ratio, or LTV for short.  Welcome to the world of real estate, my friend, this is just the beginning of a list of terms you’ll be hearing a lot in the months to come. So, what is the LTV?”

          Don’t’ assume that your reader understands commonly-used words and acronyms used in real estate, such as LTV, CMA, contingency, addendum, consideration, and one that we see frequently in the current market, absorption rate.

          Take the time to explain them, in plain, friendly English.

          2. Why so overly-formal?

          “Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is to use the first word that comes to your mind if it is appropriate and colorful,” author Stephen King cautions in his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.”

          Let’s take another look at our first example. Check out the formal-yet-clunky vocabulary. “Critical factor” can easily be replaced with “an important factor” and “secure financing” should be changed to “get a loan.”

          After all, when one of your clients gets the mortgage he wants, that’s exactly how he describes it: “I got a mortgage,” not “I obtained” “procured” or “secured financing.”

          Take off your real estate hat for a minute and imagine that you’re a consumer, wanting to buy a house. You run across this on an agent’s website or a direct mail piece:

          “Our agents will apply their extensive community knowledge and professional

          resources to find your dream home.”

          Is there anything in that sentence that would make you pick up your phone and ask to hire one of their agents? All we can imagine is sitting in a car, hour after hour, with someone who speaks like this.

          No thanks.

          Consider replacing some of the most common formalities you find in real estate blogs and other written content:

          • “Use our services” rather than “utilize” them.
          •  “Talk about the process” instead of “discussing” it.
          • Dare we suggest this one? “home loan” instead of “mortgage.”
          • Finally, can we all agree that “real estate” and “properties” are things investors buy and that everyday people buy homes, condos, houses?

          An engaging, friendly writing style will help potential clients get to know and like you, and offering them valuable information in an easy-to-understand form gets their trust.

          Use the same, short, easy-to-understand sentences you use when speaking with a friend and you’ll be on your way.

          DID YOU KNOW WE’RE HAVING A WE HEART YOU 10% OFF POSTCARD SALE?

          BUT ONLY FOR 3 MORE DAYS!

          Use Promo Code – HEART10 

          at check out to take advantage of this limited-time offer (excludes postage, data, EDDM, and scheduled campaigns).

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          GO NOW, CLICK HERE!

          Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you with your success.

          PLUS: When you have time…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available to support your success.

          1. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

          The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

          2. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

          The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals.  – Click Here

          3. Become a Neighborhood Brand

          Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a NEW 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically every month to an exclusive carrier route (membership includes your own online Homes & Life Agent Magazine). Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

          4. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

          This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Real-Estate-Mailing-List-Guide2-3-D-999x1024.jpg

          The Real Estate Mailing List Guide outlines the top tools for generating targeted prospecting lists including Baby Boomers, Empty Nesters, Investors, Lifestyle Interests, High-Income Renters, Move-Up Markets, and more. The Guide also defines done-for-you marketing campaigns to match these markets. –Click Here

          5. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook 

          This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

          Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

          6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

          This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is ROI-calculator-b-233x300.jpg

          Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

          7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT” 

          This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is CRUSH-IT-Guide-3-d-298x300.jpg

          The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted prospect list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

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