Local Real Estate Marketing Tips

Bad real estate marketing tips can feel like a hamster wheel. It is just going around in a circle with no real direction. PPC campaigns and social media advertising is great for exposure,but they often have horrible conversion rates.

Recent content on GeekEstate has done a good job covering CRM’s and database tools. How do you fill those systems with good quality leads?

You get local!

I think lots of agents are missing out on a very valuable gold mine of leads.

The Real Estate Agent Problem

If you are part of a real estate brokerage that does lots of “self-promoting” practices, I don’t blame you for going big (and not thinking more local). I know a good amount modern brokerages spend lots of resources on coaching, it seems to be a trend. Which is nice for your own pep talks in the mirror every morning, but let this be why you ignore the leads right outside your own front door.

Marketing to a local group means researching and finding the perfect market to target. Ill share a couple ways I found some recently.

Neighborhoods

Our office is in Southern California (Riverside). I found neighborhood data by simply checking the Government website for my specific area. As you can see, Riverside has 25 different neighborhoods for local marketing.

Our office recently had a listing for a house go up in “Wood Streets”. A historic neighborhood in our city, that has lots of older homes with that classic Southern California architecture from the 1920’s. A truly beautiful part of this city. I did some more research on the area (I do research like this on listings before I write marketing content for them). As part of a marketing promotion for the home, I ended doing a blog on the neighborhood and added lots of my own personal content. You can read that blog here.

For full disclosure, I do marketing representing the firm, but am not a real estate agent. I try to trickle down marketing ideas to our agents. Writing a blog about an area where you have a new listing is a great marketing tool. Local blogs strengthen your status as a expert in areas you pick for focus. How many local agents in Riverside even know the Wood Streets neighborhood exists?

Wood Streets is a close knit community. I found community groups, and a couple area blogs floating around the internet. I even found a nonprofit organization that represents just that neighborhood. To my own surprise, a couple of real estate agents were already involved with this project. Research concluded that these agents complete marketing strategy is just around this one community. Their marketing content, website, community involvement was all about Wood Streets.

This is how you dominate a market. You focus on building relationships first and less on your business.

Planting the Seed

It is important in our industry to reach out to people you can connect with. After the Wood Streets blog, I did some research on zip codes around our office. I pulled up all the houses near our office that purchased their home with a VA Loan. We are a veteran owned and operated firm. Which allows us a DVBE (Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise) certification. These are people we can connect with. We understand exactly the unique situations military buyers or sellers might have. Our military clients find it easy to deal with a company that speaks their language.

Instead of sending a real estate agent to randomly door knock neighborhoods. We can send a military Veteran RE agent to door knock on houses we KNOW have a military background.

Instead of sending out mailers to random houses, our target market is smaller and way more likely to connect. That saves us money and allows our content to be extremely specific.

What I am trying to say is, don’t get caught up in the big picture. Just because you have a license does not mean million dollar listings are coming your way. Building a strong sphere of influence will be the single best thing you do as an agent.  If you meet someone, build their trust by giving them something of value before you even try to ask for business. To be honest, that should be a question they bring up.

Local Marketing Tip

Having a hard time thinking of ways to connect with people?

Location is something we all have in common. Anyone can start there. Pick a neighborhood in your city and blog about the 5 best places to eat in that area. Don’t just pull that data from Yelp and call it a day. VISIT the place. Talk to the owner. Tell them you are writing a blog featuring their restaurant that is going to be shared on social media (use your own and maybe your brokerage). Get a quote and take pictures of your experience. Make it personal and engaging. Restaurant owners are very connected in the community, they just might bring up your name when someone asks about buying or selling. Make sure to visit the place often and be sure to get your friends there and tell them to mention your name when they go.

Follow Up & Be Organized

This website has been posting some great content lately about CRM’s and technology tools to keep your database organized. This how you build that database with strong local leads. Don’t put in all this work to only forget about an easy follow up. Cold local leads will not turn into success stories overnight. It will be a process that takes time and dedication.

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