How do you stand out from the crowd and keep your geographic farming efforts running strong? Today we're breaking down some of the best techniques to dominate your area, rank higher on search engines and get more leads.
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In part one of Real Estate Farming we talked about how to choose your geographic farming area, determining the best size and doing the research necessary to ensure that it’s a viable marketing area. If you missed “Real Estate Farming” Part 1, you’ll find it here.
Today we’ll take a look at how to build name or brand awareness in your geographic farming area and ways that specific agents are using geographic farming in their real estate businesses.
But, before we dive into all that, take a minute to ensure that no other agent is farming the area you’ve chosen. Check the MLS activity for any agent’s name that pops up frequently. The last thing you want to do is waste time and money in an area in which another agent has an established presence.
Before you start marketing to your geographic farming area, create an online “home” for your leads. This is where you will drive all your marketing. While a squeeze page works well for this, give Easy Agent Pro’s InstaFarm app a whirl.
You’ll find an example of how one agent used the app in this
Easy Agent Pro video (at :35).
By the way, use basic online writing best practices when you enter the text below the header. The text in the video example needs way more white space. Shorten your paragraphs to no more than 5 sentences (less is better).
Avoid words such as “cumulative,” empty adjectives such as “great” and the word “families” (for obvious reasons). And, despite what Kelvin Krupiak (the video’s narrator) claims, you know better than to use crime statistics, right?
If you’re spending the time and money to drive people to this page, ensure that it’s compelling and readable.
Next, head over to your neighborhood’s NextDoor.com online community. While you must be a resident of the neighborhood you choose, the platform includes posts from nearby neighborhoods that you are free to participate in.
Be sure to read the Community Guidelines – direct marketing to neighbors is considered spam and isn’t tolerated. You can, however, mention your services in responses to anyone looking for an agent.
The most important aspect of your participation, however,
will be getting your name out there as someone who is knowledgeable and
involved in the neighborhood.
Now it’s time to become the “mayor” of your geo-farm area. Remember, like most marketing you won’t become an overnight success. This is going to take time, consistency and commitment before it starts to pay off.
Keep that in mind too, that when choosing marketing vehicles, go with those that you’ve been successful with in the past and those that you won’t mind doing repeatedly.
For some agents, this includes door-knocking while other agents would quit farming if it was a requirement. Thankfully, it’s not, but it has been successful for many agents.
You don’t even necessarily have to knock—print up some door hangers with a marketing message driving the homeowners back to your InstaFarm page. Prospects Plus sells door hangers as does Vista Print.
We ran across a 2013 YouTube video produced by TopAgentInterviews.com. It includes an interview with Arizona agent Joshua Smith, who prints up 10,000 “cheap” doorhangers, delivers them to his farm and “lists 7 -15 homes per month.”
He teams up with a local title company to help defray costs and says he ends up paying about “10 cents a door to have them delivered.”
When I was selling real estate, I relied heavily on direct mail for marketing to my farm. Back then, I had lots of competition. Today, more agents are choosing email, leaving less competition in mailboxes for agent messages.
And, the bonus is that people prefer direct mail marketing messages
over email. See the stats for yourself and get some real estate direct mail marketing tips, here.
Any online platform that allows you to target by ZIP code, is
worth consideration. The two most popular among agents are Facebook ads and Zillow Premier Agent.
Then, join some online groups popular in your geo-farm. For instance, I belong to a Facebook gardening group specific to my city and you wouldn’t believe how many posts are from local gardeners asking for advice on how to move their plants if they decide to sell their homes.
Like NextDoor, these groups aren’t necessarily for marketing your services. Being visible in them helps get your name out there and humanizes you as one of their neighbors who, oh-by-the-way, just happens to be a real estate agent.
Offline, start getting involved in local events and groups. Sponsor the area’s kids’ soccer or baseball team. Throw an event, or help sponsor one. Volunteer to help clean up the park, walk dogs at the animal shelter or give talks on your hobbies at the area elementary school.
Geographic farming is ideal for the new real estate agent but don’t rule it out if you’re a veteran. Either way, consistency is key.
Here’s some great tips to help your farm pages rank higher on Google:
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