These top producers share their best secrets for a winning real estate listing marketing plan. There is a great marketing plan to sell a house for you here!
Do you want to win more listings?
We interviewed some of the top producers across the world and asked them a simple question:
Their answers are amazing! You’ll learn all types of tips for real estate listing marketing plans and more.
Whether you’re looking to get more listing appointments or convert more of those appointments into contracts, you’ll garner a gem out of these tips.
Top Producers Share Their Secrets For The Perfect Real Estate Listing Marketing Plan:
“It’s not enough just to be a ‘post and pray realtor’ and hope someone will show up and buy the listing!” – Click to tweet
Real estate agents need to make more of an effort in putting together an online listing marketing plan. It’s not enough just to be a ‘post and pray Realtor’ and hope someone will show up and buy the listing!
Start by creating high quality online listings. We live in a day and age where people are spoilt with data and they don’t just want to know the amount of beds and baths anymore. They want to know about all of the features, its precise location relative to major amenities, and above all, they want to browse through 15-20 high quality, professional photos (vs. distorted thumbnails).
The way you, as an agent, publish your listings online, says everything about your skills, professionalism and attitude towards your job. Either do it right or not at all!
Once the listing has been properly created, it’s now time to give it the widest possible online exposure. An agent’s online presence and the exposure of the listing to his network are crucial in the marketing of property. All top producing agents worth their salt will be using every marketing tool available to get as many potential buyers to the property as possible.
One of those tools is content marketing via blogging. Whether it be guest blogging on sites such as ActiveRain, Bill Gassett, or ImmoAfrica, over time, the agent builds an image and reputation with clients and fellow real estate agents. Not only will the agent become a source of real estate information, they will turn to him for his services! In order to achieve this level, one needs to realize that it won’t happen overnight and will require quite some work, but can be attained by making it a strategic part of the agent’s overall listing marketing plan.
The #1 thing I tell agents I mentor who are struggling with getting listings is to get back to basics. That starts with knowing your communities, subdivisions, and neighborhoods, understanding how to put together a quality market analysis that accurately depicts how much a homeowner can expect to get in today’s market, and doing your homework about their neighborhood and the surrounding area.
Do you know how many sales there were in this community in the last year? Last 6 months? How many homes were taken off the market during this time-frame? What is the average sales price to list price for the properties that sold? Any FSBOs on the market? Are there currently foreclosures or short sales available? Any distressed homes sales? Are you competing with new construction? Any new retail biz’ coming in this area soon to increase traffic? Upcoming road or utility works planned? The more you know, the better prepared you are to provide quality service, gain their trust, and win the listing.
It also helps if you can point homeowners to information that provides them with information about the area/city demographics. For instance, in my area, I always point them to my real estate in Warner Robins GA page on my WP blog where they can find out more information about our city. While some sellers may already know this information, some may not. The goal is they will pass this information along to their sphere of influence because you never know who they know and where the next buyer for their home will come from.
Our marketing plan for listings is multi-faceted, and trying to sum it up in a single tip will be difficult. So let me just spell out the process. We build an online marketing “platform” that works for us 365 days a year, 24-7. The center of this platform is our website/blog. Then, we place our listings in this ongoing platform. Here’s how it works:
We blog about our county, our cities, and our neighborhoods, optimizing for those search terms that buyers are using. Add to that, our blog informative blog posts about real estate topics. Then add to that our social media posts and the communities that we take part of that support our content (and we support theirs). Think of it like a funnel, drawing real estate searches to more and more detailed, niche information. This is an ongoing daily process that takes consistency.
When we get a new listing, we follow a system that is optimized and fits into our ongoing website marketing. Firstly, and most importantly, we use hi-definition walk-through video, and photos
Strong Opinion Alert: In today’s highly visual world wide web, I can’t over stress the need to use great video and photos of your listings. Great homes often go unnoticed by potential buyers because the photos are shoddy and there is no video. And by video, I don’t mean a compilation of still photos. I’ve written passionately about the need for quality video and photos on my website: The Best in Real Estate Marketing – Photography And Video
We are fortunate to have Houselens in our market! Houselens is an approved MLS vendor, so the video can be viewed directly from our MLS, as well as on all the syndicated portals. But even better, Houselens provides the raw video file to the agents. We upload the video to our own YouTube channel, optimized with links to our website and keywords. That video is then embedded into a blog post about the listing, ideally written 4 or 5 days before the listing is added to the MLS. This gives us a head-start in Search.
I add to this basic platform several other high page-rank tools, like Slideshare. The combination of these components creates a listing page that competes very well with the big syndicators. The whole package, however, is the key, which includes consistent blogging, community and neighborhood pages, hi-def video and photography, social media know-how, and collaboration with social media communities. It’s a commitment that makes a world of difference to our overall marketing.
One of the best ways to enhance your ability to land more listings is by having a real estate blog and using it as a tool to really showcase your clients property. One point to make clear is the fact I’m not talking about some kind of jazzed up IDX page. An IDX page is what nearly every real estate agent has. What I am talking about is a well optimized blog page that is completely dedicated to a home you are marketing.
Here is an example of a home at 5 College Street, Hopkinton, Massachusetts. This is a standalone page completely dedicated to marketing the property. You will notice there are quite a few photos showcasing some of the best features, vivid descriptions, an embedded Youtube video tour and a Google map showing the location of the home. The video tour is a key part of the overall presentation within the blog.
If you have a look at the video below on College Street, one of my favorite parts is the narration that not only describes why someone would want to take a look but also the strengths of the community in which it resides.
Delving further into the blog you will notice a link to a community page for Hopkinton Mass. This give readers who are not familiar with the town a detailed look into what makes this a special place to live. Within this community page there is information on schools, demographics, local attractions, a look at the local real estate market and much more. On numerous occasions I have spoken about how real estate community website pages are a must for Realtors looking to increase their reach locally online. These pages are the perfect way to showcase your expertise as a Realtor who knows the city or town inside and out. Keep in mind buyers and sellers like working with those they believe are knowledgeable.
Now just imagine being at your next listing presentation and showing the homeowner something extra you do for all of your clients homes. Trust me when I tell you they will be impressed! Value added services are what people care about today. Consumers pay us a handsome real estate commission when selling a home. One big consideration they have is knowing they are getting the most bang for their buck. Having a page completely dedicated to your clients home is a great way to impress them and increase your chances of landing the listing.
There are many real estate agents who turn their cheek when it comes to blogging. Many think that it is a waste of time and there is no way you can be successful doing it. I am here to tell you they are completely wrong! What if I were to tell you in some of my best years my blog was bringing in around $500,000 in gross commission income? Has that gotten your attention? Yes it’s true! Between my local city pages and all the popular articles about helping those who were in need of a short sale Realtor in Massachusetts, this is the kind of revenue my blog was generating. While short sales are not in vogue like they were a few years ago, business still comes from articles that were written a long time ago. A well optimized blog article can continue to perform for you years later. It is like having an income stream on auto-pilot.
Keep in mind that creating the content is only half the battle. You need to make sure you have a marketing game plan in place for your blog. Using social media for real estate exposure should be a key consideration along with proper onsite and offsite SEO tactics. Many Realtors do not take the time to learn the basics of search engine optimization. This is a big mistake because there are only ten spots on the first page of Google and thousands of people who are vying for them. It is only those who make the time to learn who excel.
One of the best things I did early on in my real estate career was to create a comprehensive and cohesive marketing plan presentation. I learned many agents do not have a clearly defined marketing plan or if they do it is haphazardly put together. Taking the time to create an effective marketing plan will go a long way in securing the listing.
As a newer agent, I found that I was able to sign listings even when going up against the “go to” listing agents in my area. Several seller’s said their decision was based on the fact that I showed them, with my marketing plan, what I was going to do to get there listing sold rather than just saying yes I can sell your home.
My marketing plan is a bound book that had been professionally designed that I can just grab and go. It is about 40 pages and it is one cohesive piece. It follows the same format all the way through. Type fonts were chosen by my graphic designer and every page follows the same look and format. I use quality paper and images in the presentation.
The quality of the presentation alone will impress a seller as it looks like a professionally prepared marketing piece. Let’s face it, you are marketing a sellers home and the quality of your presentation will show you are a marketing professional. So when we talk about quality what are we talking about.
I do not have my marketing plan on the computer for two reasons. I do not want to rely on trying to catch a signal to show key aspects of the plan AND the book format appeals to a wider range of seller’s personalities. I do bring a tablet to highlight certain features of the marketing plan like virtual tours, websites, internet marketing etc…But in the event I cannot catch a wireless signal my presentations is still complete.
I cover three general areas in my marketing plan…preparing the home, pricing the home and presenting the home. It is important you show a seller how all three of these arenas tie together for a successful home sale and how you will help them with each step. Any time I hear an objection over and over I create a page to handle that objection.
A key point is most people will find information more credible if it is written or heard before they actually raise the objection or question. Design your marketing plan towards the typical questions or objections you receive during a listing appointment.
Remember when revamping your marketing plan that this is your chance to stand out and shine. Does your marketing plan differentiate from the other agents out there? Make sure the answer is yes and you can almost always get the listings you want.
My #1 tip would be to get creative with video. – Click To Tweet
What is your #1 tip for realtors looking to revamp their listing marketing plan?
My #1 tip would be to get creative with video. For years, photos have been the most popular visual medium to sell homes. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then video is worth a million words! I started videoing homes in 2009 with an small handheld Sony camcorder. It was much harder to video homes back then. Software was glitchy and the whole process took much longer than it does now. Today, I use a GoPro and a basic drone for aerial shots. I can get my footage and mix down the whole video in around 5 hours. I choose to do the work myself because I am constantly learning new ways to make videos and this knowledge is extremely valuable. I now use this knowledge to create Facebook Ad videos that perform MUCH better than static photo ads.
Why is video important? Rather than tell you, let me show you:
Imagine having your home on the market for 3 months and the showing requests are getting farther apart. You’re starting to wonder if your home will ever sell. You notice that your neighbors home just came on the market and you go online to check out their listing. In the description it says “Search the property address on YouTube for an HD Video Walkthrough” so you find their house on YouTube and it looks great. You also notice that their video has already been viewed over 300 times. Your house has a canned virtual tour that shows the same photos as the online listing and provides no extra info to help sell the home. How would you feel? To make this scenario even more powerful, image that your neighbors house sold within a few days. As a consumer, what would your response be? Your neighbors house sold in a few days with impressive marketing and you’re stuck waiting for a buyer with your limited property photos online. This is why I love video marketing! It sells real estate fast and it causes other consumers to find you and ask you to help them. Most agents are not utilizing it, so it causes your marketing efforts to stand out from the rest.
How do you suggest agents best bring technology into their real estate listing presentation?
I used to show up to a listing appointment with my laptop, an iPad, a printed binder with many pages of information, and a device to display my listing presentation on the seller’s TV. People are not impressed by technology like they used to be. Now I just bring a small binder with a few pages of relevant info and an iPad. The iPad is for showing them the videos that I have created for other properties. The binder contains comparable sold properties and some info on how I plan to sell their house. That’s all I use. While I’m there, I put the attention on the sellers, rather than myself, and I try to learn their story and what their expectations are. I’ve learned over the years that most sellers do not want a ton of info and homework. They want the process to be simplified, transparent, and easy to understand. They also want to be heard, understood, and to have their concerns addressed upfront. My advice would be to focus on how you will use technology to sell their house, rather than use it to educate them at the listing appointment. Show them how you use technology to create videos, attract online buyers, and make the selling process easier for them in a short, simplified presentation. They’ll appreciate it!
If you want to win sellers with your listing presentation, I swear by including a SWOT analysis.
This shows prospective clients that you have a customized strategy for their individual needs and are not just going to market their real estate with the same broad stroke that may not be effective for every listing.
Also, I adapted from NAR’s Nobu Hatu the use of the Chromecast when presenting listing presentations in someone’s home or office. For less than $35, you are able to project your presentation on the big screen for a certified WOW factor. HDTVs can make almost anything look good!
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