There’s never been a better time to be in real estate. Homes are selling for record prices and at record numbers, and real estate businesses all over the world are raking in the profits.
Well, maybe not all of them. Many real estate companies struggle to reach home buyers in their areas because they don’t have the right realtor marketing materials.
That’s what this article is meant to help with. Read on for a complete list of things realtors need to do marketing the right way in 2023.
13 Key Real Estate Marketing Materials for 2023
There’s no shortage of realtor marketing products available today, but which ones really matter when you’re trying to grow your business? Start with these 13 essential marketing materials for realtors:
1. Engaging Website
It’s 2023 — if you don’t have a website, people aren’t going to believe your business is real. But you also don’t want a website that looks like it was designed in 1999. You need a modern, engaging website that quickly communicates what you have to offer and why home buyers should work with you.
What does that look like in practice? It looks like easy-to-read website copy, customer reviews, and clear listings entered directly onto your website. Choose artwork and photographs that showcase the kinds of properties your firm deals with, and don’t forget to include a photo of you and your team, too.
2. Photorealistic Renderings
These days, home buyers expect details. They want to see not just the empty homes you have available, but what those homes would look like when they’re decorated in a unique and inviting style.
What’s the solution? Photorealistic renderings. These are highly detailed 3D renderings made with leading floor plan software like Cedreo. Real estate professionals can create photorealistic renderings to show interested home buyers what homes for sale would look like, but you can even take it a step further.
What if a home buyer is considering a home but would like to make renovations or additions? This is the perfect use case for a photorealistic rendering. With the right software in hand, you can quickly mock up what the home would look like with the changes made. That makes the sale much more likely.
3. Testimonials and Reviews
In home buying and selling, no realtor marketing material is as powerful as a testimonial or review straight from the mouth of a happy client. That’s why it is critically important that you obsessively collect testimonials and reviews.
But what do you do with them once you’ve collected them? Put them everywhere — on your website, on social media, in print ads, on billboards. Wherever you are advertising your services, you need to have testimonials and reviews nearby. That’s how many prospective clients will be convinced to work with you and not your competitor down the street.
4. Videos That Sell
Most real estate professionals have been doing videos of some kind for a while. But if you’re stuck in the endless loop of creating a video showing the empty rooms of a high-value property, it’s time to rethink how you’re using video in your marketing strategy.
Videos sell. But they don’t sell homes as they currently stand. They can sell the lifestyle of the person who might one day purchase and live in the home that is currently for sale. Use marketing videos to convey the emotion and feeling of living in the home, neighborhood and surrounding city. Sell a lifestyle — not a property — and you’ll sell more.
5. Eye-Catching Mailers
Despite the number of digital real estate marketing materials available today, good old print media is still alive and well in the real estate industry. That means the mailers realtors have been sending out for years can still pack a punch.
Keep in mind, however, that they are not guaranteed to pack a punch. To be effective, mailers have to be eye-catching, memorable and to the point. In terms of the visuals, real estate is all about homes, so a photograph of a particularly gorgeous home you’ve sold or helped a buyer acquire is a great lead visual.
Other elements to include in real estate mailers include your name and contact information, customer testimonials, examples of prices or success stories and your website URL.
6. Memorable Business Cards
Business cards are so common in real estate that many people have developed a sort of blindness that prevents them from even noticing the standard white or black business card with a logo and slogan.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use business cards as realtor marketing materials. It just means you need to create business cards that stand out. How do you do that? By taking the norm and flipping it upside down.
Most real estate business cards are a logo, firm name, phone number and email address. Do more with yours. Use your photo to stand out. List your Instagram handle as the way for people to find you. Do something different, and people are more likely to remember your business card.
7. Engaging Open House Signs
Do you really care when you’re driving through a neighborhood and see the typical “Open House” sign? You probably don’t because they all look the same, and they all are doing the same thing.
That should tell you something: Doing the same old thing with your own open house signs isn’t going to get you far. So, do something different. The possibilities are endless, but here’s just one idea: Instead of an arrow pointing in the direction of the open house, use a QR code or short link that takes users to Google Maps directions leading them to the listing. Even better: Link to the listing on your website, too.
That’s just the beginning, and exactly what you do is less important than the idea that you do something different than the hundreds of other realtors doing the same old thing with their open house signs.
8. Real Estate Flyers
If you ever hear someone say a particular type of real estate marketing materials is dead, don’t listen to them. Methods like distributing flyers work today for the same reasons they did years before the internet ever existed: They give people a preview of the homes you’re going to help them sell or buy, and they attract and persuade them to action in the process.
In other words, you don’t have to depart too much from the norm with your real estate flyers. Many real estate professionals have given up on this marketing strategy, but that just means you have less competition. Used in conjunction with various other realtor marketing methods, flyers can have a big effect on your bottom line.
9. Use PPC Ads to Target Buyers and Sellers
One of the struggles of marketing a real estate business is that you can’t be sure you’re going to get any return on your investment. You can send dozens of mailers out and never be sure that they were even read. But there is one real estate marketing product that can truly guarantee at least some measure of ROI: pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
PPC is a method of online advertising in which you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You bid on particular keywords — in real estate, keywords like “homes for sale in Houston” or “NYC realtor” work well — and when people search those or similar keywords, your PPC ad shows up.
You don’t pay a cent, however, unless those searchers actually click on your ad.
To put it simply, PPC allows you to specifically target buyers or sellers through smart keyword bidding, and it protects your budget by only making you pay for the clicks you actually get. Very few realtor marketing materials can make that promise.
10. Search Engine Optimized Blog Posts
Search engine optimization (SEO) has become a sort of buzzword in industries like real estate. Everyone knows they should be doing it in order to build up their stream of inbound leads, but few are actually making the investment of time and effort required to get their website ranking higher in Google for relevant keywords.
You don’t have to take a course and become an SEO guru. To get started with SEO as a real estate marketing effort, all you have to do is start writing. More specifically, you have to write blog posts with a few SEO best practices in mind:
- Target a keyword with each blog post, using that keyword in the post title and a couple of times throughout the body of the article.
- Directly address the reader who would likely search the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you are targeting the keyword “sellers’ real estate agent Miami,” you wouldn’t then write about how your firm can help those who are looking to buy a home in the Miami area.
- Publish the blog post on your website, and make a plan to publish more posts regularly. Do what makes sense for your schedule, but be consistent. If you can do a blog post per week, that is excellent. If it’s only one per month, that’s fine, too — just expect the results to be somewhat slower.
11. Share Social Media Posts
It’s time to face the truth: The world we live in lives on social media. So, when you’re trying to market your real estate services, you need to meet people where they are: on social media.
That means you should have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and more. Really, any platform that has a significant number of users you would consider to be good potential clients is worth being on.
And you have to do more than simply exist on the platform. You have to actively post and participate in the platform. What you post matters: Post about things relevant to your audience, such as tips for buying or selling a home.
One of the most powerful ways to market your real estate business on social media is to post success stories. When you help a couple with a baby on the way close on their dream family home, take a picture and ask them if you can put it on social media. If a client posts about how happy they are to have bought or sold a home, share their post on your profile. There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than social proof, and that’s what social media for businesses is all about.
12. Email Marketing Newsletters
Want to take a guess at one of the most valuable marketing materials for realtors? You probably won’t get it on the first try unless you’re already seeing the massive results an email marketing strategy can bring.
It’s true: Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for real estate businesses to market their services. Why? Because instead of relying on a search engine to place you at the top of the search results or paying to have your ad seen only by those who happen to open the magazine or drive by the billboard, email marketing puts you at the top of the inbox of thousands of people who could make great customers.
One problem: You have to actually have email addresses to send your marketing messages to. How do you get those? By building up your email list. Start with a simple signup form on your website, telling people they can keep up with your firm by submitting their email, but don’t stop there.
Create an email newsletter that adds real value for the type of people who might make great clients for your business. Craft emails about home buying or selling tips and strategies, include interesting listings and otherwise give people a reason to want to receive your emails.
Once you’ve created something people actually want to get in their inboxes, you’ll start to see your email list grow. Over time, it will only become more valuable as a real estate marketing asset for your business.
13. Post properties on industry lead gen sites
You may not love the idea of sites like Zillow and Redfin dominating the real estate market, but if you purposely avoid them for that reason, you’re missing out. Because these websites have become so well-known, they are a powerful source of leads for real estate businesses like yours.
So, participate in the platforms. Put your listings up on these and other lead generation sites, and keep them up to date. You will reach an entirely new and shockingly large audience if you just play the game the big fish want you to play, and your other marketing strategies will still be promoting your brand in a more pure fashion elsewhere.
Conclusion
Realtor marketing materials come in a lot shapes and sizes, and while some are better suited to particular markets or purposes, they are all important as you build a well-rounded marketing strategy.
That’s why it’s important that you at least try them all. Find the ones that work best and double down. Over time, you’ll see your investment in marketing pay off.
As you create more marketing assets for your real estate business, you may notice that it’s a time-consuming process. That’s the perfect time to try Cedreo. A leading 2D and 3D home design software, realtors use Cedreo to create eye-catching marketing materials that sell homes fast. Try it for free today.
