No Cost Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents

The real estate industry continues to be more and more competitive every day. Real estate agents are constantly looking for new ways to market themselves to make their services and expertise stand out from the crowd. Below are a few powerful marketing ideas for real estate agents that you can start right now.

Start a real estate blog right now

The bottom line when it comes to digital marketing is that if you can get a potential client on your website, you’ve already won. Once someone is on your website, you have their attention and an opportunity to earn their business, but not every person looking for real estate information is ready to engage an agent immediately, so how do you get visitors to your site and once there, keep them engaged and perhaps get their information to continue to market to them? In a word:  blog. People do a lot of research before they engage a real estate agent and more often these days, that research is happening online. If you want to grab some of that valuable traffic for your website, you need to provide information people are looking for. You need to provide answers to the questions people are asking. You can do that through an onsite blog. Dedicate time each week (at the very least!) to write a great little blog about a topic of interest to your target audience. It’s not as hard as you think!  You likely get asked the same dozen or so questions each week; take those questions and provide answers in a blog post!  Let’s say you’re a real estate agent in Gilbert, AZ. Perhaps you’re more interested in attracting home sellers in Gilbert, AZ. You can write blog posts about how to stage your home, top 6 things you should repair before putting your home on the market, or even answer location-specific questions like what are the top features Gilbert home buyers are looking for in a home? Show potential clients that you’re the expert in real estate, you have deep expertise in the area(s) you specialize in, and you want to help others. Don’t push out information you want people to know about you on your blog; provide information people want. Write blogs posts on your site that are focused, helpful and informative, and you’ll attract qualified traffic to your site.

Get social and share real estate information

The best way to make people aware of the awesome content you’re providing on your site is to share those blog posts on social media channels. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are just a few to start. Set up strong branded social profiles, and start connecting with potential clients. Share your blog posts, but also share other helpful industry information people are looking for. Should you post house listings on your social channel as well?  Of course!  Just don’t let house listings be the ONLY thing you post; people aren’t interested in seeing what they could easily find on MLS, they want helpful information to help them make a decision on what do to, where to buy a house, and who the best agent to help them might be. In addition to posting, proactively reach out and engage with people and groups. Get connected with like-minded people who can help you get clients.

Make your real estate website a true resource for clients

So many real estate websites look alike. You see the agent’s picture, maybe a small bio about the agent, and the listings….lots of listings. Buyers and sellers need more than that, though. They need helpful information (that’s where the blog comes in). They need calculators to determine mortgage payments or moving costs. They want handy checklists that they can print off and use when they’re preparing their home for sale, or looking to buy a home.  They want to know about communities, school districts, and restaurants in the area. Make your website different by providing these types of resources.

Stay connected with your website visitors

Most real estate websites do a good job collecting visitor information regarding areas they’re looking to buy or sell. But what about people that are really early in the home buyer or home seller process?  They may not be ready to actively engage an agent, so how do you capture their information to stay in touch?  There are a few great approaches you can take to at least capture an email address to keep in touch with website visitors. Remember those handy checklists mentioned earlier?  How about asking for an email address in order to download those lists?  How about making it easy for them to subscribe to a newsletter or an RSS feed of your blog?  Not everyone is ready to divulge their contact information to an agent, but giving people a reason, something of value, in exchange for a name and email address is a low level of commitment or them, and a win for you in building your contact database.

These are just a few ideas that real estate agents can use to marketing their business without spending any money at all. Dedicate the time towards even one of these no-cost marketing ideas for real estate agents can bring invaluable business.