As a Real Estate Professional, what’s the most exciting thing in the world? And I’ll give you a hint, it’s not making a sale. What about a steady stream of high quality leads rushing in like a fast-flowing river current?
The major issue with finding high quality leads is that there are too many real estate professionals and not enough leads to go around. This means the only way you’re going to be able to consistently get your hands on those delicious, high quality leads is by demonstrably setting yourself apart from the competition.
Every real estate professional in the industry is running the same old marketing track of cold calling, knocking on doors, and sending out flyers in the community, just like you! You need to think outside-the-box and find new, innovative, and slightly offbeat ways to market yourself and set yourself apart from the rest of the pack.
Here’s a list of 6 innovative marketing strategies to help you increase lead generation in your local neighborhood:
1. Market Your Open Houses Online For The Whole Neighbourhood
You have an upcoming open house and want people in the area to show up without having to grudgingly hit the pavement and post banners like you’re trying to promote a garage sale. How do you get people to show up?
Using Google Adwords
Google Adwords allows you to run display advertising campaigns that are narrowed down to each postal code area. This means when you create an open house banner for your upcoming property and run them on the Google Display Network, you’re ensured that all residents in that postal code see your advertisement.
Some key metrics to keep in mind when launching your open house campaign:
- Display ad should clearly mention the date, time, and property address
- Display ad should target the postal code area where the open house is taking place
- Higher your daily budget, the more your ads will show up
- Link ads to the MLS listing page on your website
2. Write Blog Posts About Your Local Community
Do you want to achieve long-term success in the real estate business? Posting blogs about your community will help you build that community pillar persona you’re looking for.
People are constantly using Google to search for things to do in their community. So if you write articles about restaurants, parks, and things to do in and around your community, your content will show up in their search results and bring traffic to your website.
You might be wondering how articles about parks and restaurants will benefit your real estate business. Well, these community blog posts will expand your SEO and reach of your website, which will allow your business and brand to get in front of more eyeballs of relevant people in your community.
Getting backlinks from trusted sources is one of the best ways to expand your brand, organically. Keyword: organic! So you don’t spend a dime on online advertising and people actually visit your website because of your enhanced SEO efforts.
3. Verify Yourself On Google My Business
Google My Business is a free tool from Google that indexes different businesses, globally. As a Real Estate Professional you should get yourself verified on Google My Business.
This will allow your name and business to show up on the right side when someone searches for real estate in your area. This is a great way of getting direct phone calls from people searching for a realtor from their mobile device.
Steps To Verify:
- Go to www.google.com/business
- Login with your existing gmail account
- Submit your business information
- You will be greeted with the My Business dashboard where you will see a notification saying your business needs to be verified
- Google will send you a postcard containing a PIN code for verification
- Depending on your locality Google might support verification by phone
4. Do A Facebook Giveaway Or Contest
Who doesn’t love a giveaway or contest? Creating a Facebook giveaway or contest will increase traffic and buzz around your Facebook page.
Stick to your core farming area when doing your giveaways and be sure to offer something of quality, such as a $100 Amazon gift card. You can also run a contest where you pay $500 to anyone who refers you a listing appointment.
Be creative with the contest details. Put yourself in the user’s perspective to try and come up with an idea that will actually be beneficial to the user. To get more traction on the campaign, you can create a paid Facebook campaign.
5. Host A Free Webinar For Home Buyers & Sellers
Here is a quick overview of what you need:
- Content for the webinar (presentation)
- A CTA at the end of the webinar where you can promote your business
- A hosting platform (Google Hangouts is free). You can also use Webinar Jam, which uses the power of Google Hangouts to give advanced opt-in features and is quite affordable compared to other similar paid platforms
- You need to promote the webinar online using Adwords & Facebook Ads to generate as many attendees as possible
- An email marketing software to send an email before and after the webinar
If you combine all these pieces into your webinar strategy, you will generate a ton of high quality leads.
6. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles For Local SEO
Your goal as the local real estate agent is to optimize all your social media profiles for your local neighbourhood. Start by including keywords for your neighbourhood name in the about section of each profile. Make sure you’ve completed the profile and bio sections of your social media profiles with as much detail as possible.
Having a well-optimized LinkedIn profile will also help to improve visibility in your local neighbourhood. Start using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to leverage the power of LinkedIn to connect with potential leads.
Although the popularity of Google+ has decreased, as compared to Facebook and Twitter, you should still create and update a Google+ page for your real estate business in order to improve SEO rankings for local keywords.