Social media is a great tool for realtors to build relationships and land clients. But, that’s only part of its appeal. It can also help maintain relationships you’ve already developed.
What happens when those closing papers are signed? Clients feel a rush of adrenaline, but after a few months, everyday life creeps back in. An incredible 70% of homeowners can’t even remember their real estate agent’s name one year after closing.
It’s a shame to have those relationships slip away after you’ve spent so much work building them. With a little social media love, it’s much easier to maintain them. That way, when clients are ready to move again or recommend a realtor to family or friends, you’ll be the first person who comes to mind.
How can you do this on social media?
Release a steady stream of that evergreen content we mentioned earlier. Brainstorm all the things you wish you knew when you moved into a home. Is it design inspiration? Checklists to get organized? Ways to prepare for the winter or save money on utility bills?
You can also broaden your content from real estate itself. Now that your client has moved, they’re living, working, and integrating into the community. They might be interested in that new restaurant down the road. Or the best summer camps to send their kids to. You can become their go-to source for all things local.
Work Smart
You’re sending emails to clients, working open houses, and putting out yard signs. (Not to mention trying to keep up with your own personal life.)
You don’t have endless hours to pour into social media that isn’t paying off. How are your tweets performing compared with your Pinterest posts? Should you be posting on Facebook or focusing on Instagram?
These are the questions that can frustrate you to no end. Instincts might give you some indication, but measuring will let you know for sure.
Fortunately, it’s never been easier to collect data on social media performance. It’s easy to see which posts get the most engagement in terms of likes, retweets, and comments. But, if you’re looking to see what’s really moving the needle in terms of sales, why not create unique landing pages for each platform?
A landing page simply directs visitors whenever they’re interested in contacting you, seeing a new listing, and so on. Tailoring them for each social media platform allows you to track where leads come from. You can also find out a lot more about each user’s interactions with your brand and their path to becoming a client.
Keep an eye out on which platforms, campaigns, and topics perform best. As long as you keep tracking your analytics and tweaking your strategy, it will gradually get more effective. This optimization process never ends, but the payoff increases over time.
A successful social media for real estate strategy is a lot like a successful relationship-building strategy in real life. You need consistent contact—and interactions that provide value and motivate people to keep coming back.
The goal: create enough interactions for your audience to get to know you as a real estate agent without overwhelming them to the point they tune you out.
This is a delicate balance to maintain, but the good news is it’s something you can always adjust as you go. Feedback from your networks (whether you’re gaining or losing followers, their engagement, etc.) will tell you if you’re headed in the right direction.
You can use social media software to schedule posts beforehand. This gives you the freedom to meet with clients, work open houses, and attend closings all while building your presence automatically. It’s easy to post multiple times a day this way.
Posting frequency is one thing, but you also have to consider the nature of the content itself. Most content breaks down into three different types:
Time-sensitive/promotional. These posts advertise new properties on the market, open houses, or your brand in general. Think of listing photos, tweets urging prospects to give you a call, and virtual tours with Facebook live streams or 360-degree photos.
how-to or informative. This content answers questions, shares tips, or finds alternative ways to provide value. It’s just as valuable a year from now as it is today. This could be decorating tips, a checklist to help you see how much house buyers could afford, or cool DIY renovation project ideas.
Fun or entertaining. This content might not be directly related to real estate, but it’s a great way for you to showcase your personality. It might be a review of a new restaurant in town, a heads-up about the traffic on the way home, or even those viral cat photos. Social media just gets prospects in the door. It’s your personality and expertise—real-life relationship skills—that will close the deal.
Understand the goal of each post you make, and mix things up to engage your audience and keep them coming back.
Finally, remember that there’s no need to create all this content yourself. Supplement your own efforts by sharing, retweeting, or linking to other great content in the real estate industry. Your clients are a great content source—whether it’s sharing a quote from their testimonial or a photo of them toasting a new home.
In order to be effective when hosting open houses, you have to be consistent. At a minimum, aim to host one open house per week. Anything less than that, and your efforts will be sporadic and won’t gain much traction. While hosting a single open house can generate a few leads, hosting open houses on a weekly schedule will ramp up your productivity and provide a steady lead source for your business.
2. Choose Only One Area to Work in
A great way to stay consistent and build traction with your open houses is to focus on a particular area, zip code, or neighborhood. Running around from one side of town to the other not only costs you valuable time but also hampers your ability to establish your brand and build your reputation in the area. Think strategically and target popular areas with a large number of people and homes.
3. Determine Your Schedule
Next, figure out which day of the week works best for you to hold open houses. Open houses are generally most effective on the weekends when people are off of work, but you can choose any day and time that works with your schedule. If you do decide to host open houses during the week, try and target hours where potential buyers might be driving home from work.
Decide how many hours you can dedicate every week and do your best to stick to it. Anywhere from four to six hours is ideal.
Newer agents who are just getting started in their business will want to delegate even more of their efforts to open houses. To really boost your opportunities, try aiming for eight hours per week, which you can break up into four hours on both Saturday and Sunday.
However, avoid setting goals that are unachievable or overly intimidating, which can make you feel burnt out. When setting a schedule, choose hours you can commit to every week without too much mental or physical strain, even if that means starting out small.
4. Don’t Wait to Get Listings
To be most successful, don’t just host an open house when you personally get a listing. Instead, actively search for new listings every week by calling up other agents or searching online. Ask the listing agent if they would allow you to do an open house for one of their listings.
I’ve found that when you call five agents, you’ll likely find at least one or two that will say yes.
I like to make these calls around Tuesday or Wednesday. This allows me to target newly listed homes, and gives me a better chance that they’ll still be available over the weekend.
That being said, it’s not bad to have a backup open house in case the primary accepts an offer prior to your open house. Just be sure to let the agent know that it’s a backup and may not happen if your primary is still available. Or you can also host the secondary open house on Sunday or let a fellow agent host it.
5. Target Homes at the Average Price Point
The key is to identify and target homes in the average price point of what people are buying in your market. These listings are typically in high demand, meaning you are bound to have more turnout at an open house in the area.
While you might think that hosting an open house at a higher-end luxury home will bring you more desirable leads, this isn’t necessarily true. Many times, homebuyers in the higher price ranges will already have relationships with real estate agents, which makes the potential to pick them up as a new client much lower.
6. Make Sure the Home Has Good Photos and Is Priced Correctly
When advertising a home for an open house, make sure it has attractive, high-quality photos. When you are looking for other listings to represent, choose homes with professional-looking photos capable of catching the public’s eye.
Additionally, an open house will only be successful if the house is priced correctly for the area. If the home is priced too high you won’t get as much traffic, so do a quick CMA before scheduling the open house.
7. Stay Clear of Gated Neighborhoods
Try to avoid hosting open houses in gated communities. Even if you can post a note letting people know to call you, many shoppers will see this as friction and just turn around, severely hampering your turn out.
8. Do The Work and Prepare
Do your homework and prepare beforehand. If your open house is on Saturday, you should be preparing around Wednesday.
Preparing for your open house should involve creating an in-depth comparative market analysis (CMA). It’s more than likely you’re going to have neighbors and people from around the area checking out the house. You want to make sure that you are the authority in that neighborhood and know intimately the recent sales and available listings for sale.
Additionally, you may also want to spend a morning or afternoon touring the available listings in the area that are comparable to yours. This will allow you to speak knowledgeably and even make suggestions to prospective clients if your open house is not a fit for them. You never know, this may make all the difference, and could turn a shopper into a client of yours!
The more you prepare and the more effort you put in, the higher chance you have that your open house will be effective.
9. Advertise on Social Media Beforehand
One strategy is to use Facebook ads to target the zip code that your open house will be in. This is especially effective if you use the same branding on your Facebook ads as on your open house signs. As buyers and sellers in the area start to recognize your branding, you’ll find many will drop in just to meet you and get your thoughts on the area.
Facebook ads are a great, budget-friendly way to increase exposure and get more people through the door at your open house. To run Facebook ads, share the open house event on your Facebook business page. Then pay to promote the event listing. Even $20-$50 can go a long way.
Also, be sure to let the listing agent know (unless of course, you’re the listing agent) to add the open house date and time to Zillow, Realtor.com, and the MLS since you won’t have the access to do that.
Finally, post the open house to Craigslist. Craigslist is a free source that will yield your open house lots of attention.
10. Use Signs For Branding
One of the lesser-known open house tips for realtors is to avoid using generic signage. For example, the ones you get from Home Depot or your local real estate board.
Instead, invest in yourself and your business and get around 50 open house signs with your own personal branding.
The upfront cost will pay itself back with the first listing you get because people start to recognize you after seeing your signs over and over again.
BuildaSign.com is a good option to get a large number of custom signs. The reason I recommend getting 50 signs is that you’re going to want to get signs with different directional arrows. You should get at least 15 left arrows, 15 right arrows, and 20 straight arrow signs made.
Don’t include the time and address on your signs, since you will be using these for multiple listings over time, and you may need to do different times. Instead, make sure “Open House” is in large font along with your name, phone number, and brokerage info (per state regulations).
Go out and set up at least 20 to 25 signs at least a couple of hours before your open house is supposed to start. This is where consistency will pay off because if you do this every week in the same area people will get familiar with your branding and you’ll see bigger crowds at your open houses.
Be sure to plan where you wish to place the open house signs the night before. I like to print out a Google map of the area and mark where I’m going to need right, left, and straight signs. This allows me to bring the right amount of each sign and saves me time the next morning as I’m putting signs up.
Be sure to use as many signs as you can and start placing them as close to the main streets as you can.
In an effort to help you maximize productivity, we’ve compiled seven real estate agent tips that will help you get a grip on any disorganization and chaos in your everyday life and make you a top agent in 2022.
Make the Most of Your Open Houses: Holding open houses is key for real estate agents to attract possible buyers for their clients. Open houses require a lot of preparation such as multiple client meetings, scheduling, real estate marketing, making sure the house is ready to show, creating and printing copies of brochures, etc. Once this hard work is done, make the most of your scheduled open house with a featured giveaway. This giveaway should include a product the viewers will value, like a customized reusable bag, which will also accomplish promotion of your brand.
Send Memorable Mailing Campaigns: Real estate is a competitive game. Any seasoned real estate agent knows clients will not simply come to you without any effort on your behalf. With so many buyer options, you must distinguish yourself in every way possible to avoid getting lost in the shuffle. In order for your real estate agency to stand out, it’s important to reach clients through a variety of outlets.
Some have discounted mail as an obsolete form of communication, but it is still an influential way to efficiently reach a vast number of potential clients. Offer a product potential future clients will utilize, while keeping your brand front of mind. Your mail campaign should include unique, customizable home-shaped magnets, which deliver a personalized message and is an inexpensive option for tight real estate marketing budgets. Unlike a business card, these magnets will not be overlooked and thrown out with the rest of the promotional mail. Instead, potential customers can easily affix them on the fridge and automatically serve as a reminder when they need a real estate agent option.
Stand Out with Events: Promotional events are a great way to attract homebuyers for your clients, as well as networking with potential future clientele. To ensure you make the most of your efforts of putting together and marketing a promotional event, make the best impression possible with everyone you encounter.
Use promotional products, such as banners and signs, to stand out and encourage attendance. It gives you a chance to highlight your brand in a positive way, while also catching the attention of those in attendance and others passing by.
Keep in Touch: Ongoing communication helps to build positive relationships and increase referrals and repeat business. To help manage your time spent connecting with clients, prioritize the people in your database who have proven to be most valuable to your business. Send your bests clients a luxury tumbler set to express your appreciation for their ongoing business with you. Treating your best clients to special treatment is a great way to reinforce and even strengthen those profitable relationships.
Canva is one of the staples of graphic design right now. Compared to the very famous and mostly utilized adobe photoshop Canva is really easy to use and a great time saver. If you are not familiar with Canva it is one of the best tools to utilize in creating graphics, videos, and all general social media content for your real estate business. At times Canva can feel overwhelming due to the sheer number of designs available on their website and because of that let us help you with these simple tips on how you can improve your brand and catch the eyes of your clients with simple yet effective Canva designs.
Tip #1: Be Consistent With Your Brand.
Canva provides a ton of options even if you are only using a free account. This in turn affects how we curate our designs and templates. Most of the time newcomers would try their best to be progressive and keep on using new templates and color combinations on their posts. Flexing those creative muscles is a good thing but always keep in mind that you want consistency on your post, meaning you need to stick to your brand so people will be able to remember you. Using the same template for recurring posts is a good practice as your post will be easily recognizable by people. Associating your brand colors on your post creates a certain familiarity to it helping your potential clients remember you easily.
Tip #2: Use Templates.
Canva has made it easy for us to use, edit and customize their templates. Canva’s user interface is designed for ease of use and customization is vast. Be it for new listings or Sold listings, calling card designs you name it Canva will have a template for it. Moving to more advanced social media posts such as testimonials, polls, giveaways, and announcements Canva has you covered on these as well. Creating original content has never been easier.
Tip #3 Working Smarter
Creating a design in Canva is like cooking your favorite dish. There are a lot of ingredients in preparing a dish and we layer or add them to the pan one by one until it’s cooked, It’s exactly the same with Canva. You’ll find different elements in Canva that help spice us your design, like animated pictures, backgrounds, fonts, and even your personal logo. Once you have found the right recipe for your taste you can keep on using that recipe to create your social media post. Canva will save your design so every time you need it or even if you need it for something else you can tweak parts of your design to fit whatever you need it for which saves you a lot of time, and time you could be using on something else.
Tip #4 Batch Creating Content
A great example of this is your testimonials. Curate as many testimonials as you can from all places that you have like Google, Zillow,Realtor.com choose a great template in Canva to combine the two, and as easy as that you already have ready-made content for weeks or even months if you have been in the real estate business for some time now. You can create a recurring post on your social media in one sitting and you don’t have to worry about it in the coming days. We could not stress enough how much time and resources this can save.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
The Life of Reason, 1905
Sound’s a bit ominous but we can take away so much from this quote from George Santayana. Keeping track of the progress of your business might get confusing at times. There are a lot of aspects to your business and a lot of factors to consider specifically in real estate. So where do you actually start? These are the 5 top KPIs ( Key Performance Indicators ) to use to keep track of your progress and be able to pinpoint your weak points and strengths.
Appointment To Listing Conversion Rate.
Your appointment to listing conversion rate is the percentage of conversions you get from the number of your appointments. As per the Keller Williams Economic Model, this metric is essential for determining the number of appointments your business needs to make to hit its income goal. In theory, if you are converting 2 appointments out of 10, and your goal is 5 converted listings per month you can say that you need 25 appointments per month to meet your goal. of course, it’s not gonna be exact math all the time but having this information can help you map out a schedule for the month. Your conversion rate is a key factor to your success always make sure to keep track of it.
Leads Generated.
Leads generated for both sellers and buyers goas hand in hand with our first metric. This tracks the number of potential buyers or sellers you plan to contact to schedule that appointment.
This is the life source of your business. You can never have enough good leads. By assessing how good your lead generation tools you ensure that you have fuel to keep your economic engine going. Keep track of where your leads come from be it from your website, referrals, or social media. by doing so you can target specific markets you can improve on or pursue. a source that generates high-quality leads should be a great focus of your KPI.
Cost Of Lead Generation.
Cost per lead answers the question: How much does it cost for us to generate a single lead? Modern sales teams want to be efficient in their time and spending to acquire new leads. This sales KPI is important to track because it will impact your customer acquisition cost.
As a note, the most accurate average cost per lead KPI tallies up all marketing expenses (including employee salaries).
Listings Closed
The total number of closings you had whether monthly or per quarter. This is your success metric. Make sure tracking this is your TOP priority, as this is the final conversion. This is a KPI that should be shared to align marketing, sales, and product teams. It’s also worth noting that the Closed listing rate is an account-focused metric, so unlike the appointments to listing conversion rate that measures potential customers, the listing to closing rate measures sales only.
Utilizing your social media to build your clientele is a staple of today’s Market. But it is easier said than done. Look at your socials right now and check how many followers/ friends you have… Done? now look at how many likes or comments you have on your post. if you are getting a quarter of how many friends or followers you have on your post then you are doing a mighty fine job. right now follower count does not equal conversions of potential leads. Right now it’s all about the engagement! Here are tips on how you can improve your social media engagements in very simple ways.
Show the real YOU.
"Just Be Yourself" you might be tired of hearing this cliche, But a cliche is a cliche for a reason. Be
it your daily routine, your traveling, spending time with your family, or even your passion projects it is really good to show your potential market who you are. Not only does it build trust but it connects you to your audience on a personal level. People like doing business with other people they can relate with. Creating engagement with your personal post paints you in a very human and relatable way not only being seen as someone looking for transactions.
Be The Knowledge Broker
There are a lot of ready buyers or sellers in your audience that's why they are subscribed to you. They might just be on the fence because they don't have a lot of information on how to start or is it the right time to make a move right now. Providing consistent information can help nudge those people to take the leap and start their business with you. Simple tips on how to make your home more appealing in open houses or a list of great mortgage companies you can post a lot of these being an experienced realtor.
Show of the Local Area
Take the time to connect to other local businesses in your area. You can help promote a friend's restaurant or bakeshop. Take a photo of yourself in the local park. Remember when you are selling a property you are also selling the local area the property is in. If people can see what they are buying into not just the house but the community around it that might be the last push they need to start considering buying in your area.
Show Them How You Work!
This might be a crucial one. Providing your audience a sneak peek at how you operate gives them an idea of how working with you really is. you vlog about a previous appointment with clients or go live on an open house. By showing these behind-the-scenes activities you are highlighting what are the benefits of working with you. It creates a sense of familiarity with your audience and in turn, when the time comes and they are ready they will contact the person they already know they can trust.
Though these tips might be simple they impact your social media. Personalizing your feed builds that connection people are always looking for in their realtor. selling or buying someone’s home is one of the biggest financial moves a person will make their entire lives and they want someone they can trust that someone could be you!
Having a script ready helps you lead your clients to a mutually agreed-upon result. A script can also help you build confidence as per the saying “Knowledge equals confidence, and ignorance equals fear”. By following these simple scripts you can get to the endgame faster be it a Yes or a No.
“What’s Important to you and what are you looking for in an agent that will represent you?”
Being able to gather this information is crucial to how you will be positioning yourself throughout the sale process. finding out the priority of your client helps you to customize your presentation be it for selling or buying a home catering to the exact needs of the client raising your chances of getting that highly sought-after yes.
” If There Was An Advantage … In Time, Money & Marketing Exposure Would it be worth 20 minutes of your time to talk about it?”
Following up on the first script, Now that you are aware of the needs of your client you start to provide them with the advantages of working with you. By stating to the client that you can help them with what they value within the transaction and respecting their time by compressing your presentation it is a guarantee that they will take the time to discuss is more.
“If The Home Is Not Selling, It’s Not Compelling In Today’s Market”
This script open’s up the way for you to share your expertise in today’s market. Being able to showcase what value can you add to the transaction by providing current trends and marketing strategies, Adding insight to the value of the home they are trying to sell or simply providing them the reason why you are the right person to help them sell the property
“Have you had any thoughts of selling? Do you know anyone who’s had thoughts of selling?”
One of the best scripts to open up with people. You can literally ask this question to anyone. Have you had any thoughts of selling?… if they reply with an unsure “well …” you can automatically assume that’s a yes opening up to a lot of possibilities. If it’s a resounding “No” then you can continue on with “do you know anyone who’s had thoughts of selling?” people will often know someone who needs help with selling their property. Using this two-part question will help you get value on all your interactions be it a direct sale or a referral
Having these scripts ready for any interaction will help you seem more confident and Knowledgable to your clients. They are simple questions that unlock endless possibilities be it to direct client meetings or chance encounters.
A lot of Real Estate Agents try to generate leads by face to face prospecting to grow their sphere of influence.
Let’s say you are prospecting, exchanging business information, doing some online adverts and now you have accuired a book full of new prospects.
Despite this, you are still having a hard time connecting and closing them to full-time clients. if this sounds familiar, you can utilize these steps to improve your close ratio for your Real Estate Business.
Why are your Leads not Converting?
Reviewing your failed conversions should be your first priority, Learning from past failures can up your game in closing clients. Based on our research most real estate agents miss out on opportunities due to a lack of a systematic follow-up process.
50% of the work is getting our leads and prospects into your CRM, What you need is to connect with them actively and follow up with them periodically. Keep in mind that not everyone is ready to buy or sell right away.
Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest investments that someone will make in their lifetime. This takes time and moreover, the client will always choose an agent that they trust.
So here are 4 Technique that could improve your closing and follow up process that can turn leads into actual sale.
#1 Organize your CRM to create an effective Follow Up Method
This goes without saying but we must emphasize this: Make sure you log in to all the incoming leads to your CRM. Most Real Estate marketing software integrates with popular CRMs. You can start by segmenting leads and prospects based on where they came from. The lead source will give you an idea if it’s a hot lead.
If you meet someone at a coffee shop and he/she gives you their information then you can categorize them as “face to face prospects”.
In cases where you are referred to as a prospect from a closed client ( which is one of the best types of prospect ) make sure that you tagged this as well. Don’t forget to attach the contact who referred you to this lead make sure you add their information to the profile as well.
Create plans for following up based on the information you have gathered for different types of lead. You may want to push harder on prospects that are considered “hot” or on the verge of buying or selling. The more data you have the more tailor-made your approach can be.
#2 Personalize your Drip Emails.
Most of the top agents close their leads by ensuring their clients feel that the email they have received have been specifically sent to them.
The first thing that you should implement in your drip campaign is to separate potential buyers, sellers, and investors. Send a weekly email update of new properties according to their preference and target areas.
For potential real estate investors, you should email them updates on new investment opportunities and real estate market trends.
#3 Retarget Your Database To Grab Attention Throughout Their Decision Making Process.
In order to improve your close ratio, you need to use retargeting ads to re-engage with your database and existing leads. You can upload your existing database and showcase your ads all over the internet using Google Adwords.
Retargeting allows you to maintain your presence in front of your database and prospects. If you want the best possible results then try to create custom ads based on specific pages people are visiting on your website.
Retargeting ensures that you stay on top of mind for existing prospects. Couple this will periodic follow-ups and email, you will see more people closing as real estate clients.
#4 Provide Value Before Calling.
A simple yet effective trick is offering valuable content to all of your prospective clients. The more value you can provide to your leads, the higher your chance of closing them
Here are several examples of value-added services you can provide to prospective clients:
Home Buyer’s Guide
Weekly articles on mortage rates, real estate reports, market updates
Testimonials from previous clients
Neigborhoos news and events
Value-adding is one of the best marketing strategies in today’s fast-paced world. It’s the simple rule of giving someone something valuable and they will respond in kind by doing business with you.
Michael Patterson shares how he started his career in Real Estate
How To Get Started?
Are you thinking of changing careers? Or have you recently graduated and still undecided as to what career path to choose? Maybe you just need a little extra on the side? Well whatever reason you may have of seeking a new career allow us to help you on what are the steps to take to be a licensed Realtor.
Preparing for the Real Estate Market The Real Estate Industry is thriving right now, But it doesn’t remove the risks of venturing into unknown territory. Make sure that you do your due diligence in researching the local market before you take the leap.
Complete the 60 hours of Official Pre-Licensing Classes Maryland requires 60 hours of education, which you can take in a classroom or online. Contact The National Association Of Realtors to learn more.
Pass The Maryland Real Estate Exam The passing score of 70% on the final exam is required for you to get licensed. The good news is there is no limit on how many times you can take the exam
Choose a broker to sponsor you To sell real estate in Maryland, a licensed broker must agree that you may affiliate with his or her brokerage. Lucky for you this is where Ikon one can help you with! just click on this link joinikonone.com to learn more