Every real estate market is different, and the agents that thrive are the ones that stand out and make an impact in their community. Sometimes thriving entails employing some creative marketing tactics. Successfully promoting yourself and your business is one of the greatest strengths you can have as an agent.
Related: Social Skills: Marketing Your Testimonials to Attract New Business
Most agents promote themselves on their sites and on social and with local ads, but standing out in your particular market can be more challenging. Here are some creative ways real estate agents are making themselves more visible and having a positive effect on their communities:
Give guided walking tours
Image: Joyce Gold History Tours
Certainly a strategy that would work most effectively in larger cities, partnering with tour companies or providing guided tours through your own business is a unique and underemployed strategy in real estate to organically generate leads. In New York, Jeff Goodman, real estate agent at Halstead Property, has collaborated with famed tour guide Joyce Gold to create a private series of walking tours entitled “Rediscovering New York.”
“Most of my business is referral-based and most of my business now comes from people in my network who have come on the tours,” says Goodman.
He serves as the producer of the walking tours and says Gold is the reason people show up. Goodman also admits that as a longtime active member of New York’s LGBT community, his association with Gold also overlaps with local organizations, which only generates more leads.
Reach out to local TV and radio stations
In smaller towns and more rural areas, contacting your local TV or radio station can be an excellent way to market yourself. Radio hosts and news anchors are always looking to report on the local real estate market, and by being featured on a local program, you can position yourself as a real estate expert in your community.
Preferably contact a station that you frequently listen to. Simply find the program’s contact information online—most have their own websites—and shoot them a quick email or call! Really putting yourself out there on the air like that isn’t easy, but if you’re confident and speak on aspects of the real estate industry that you know you’re knowledgeable in, you’ll not only generate leads, but you’ll also bring us to our next topic...
Become an expert in a niche
There’s more than just one way to position yourself as a real estate expert in your community. By focusing on your niche, there’s no quicker way to becoming a go-to source. Whether it’s real estate investing, renting townhouses, selling waterfront properties or any other topic you can immerse yourself in, just be sure you’re constantly consuming content pertaining to that niche.
If you’re sharing your thoughts and relevant articles regularly to your website and social accounts, and getting your opinions out there on TV and the radio, leads will start streaming in. This is by no means a quick process, but if you stick with it and become an expert in your niche, your advice will be sought and business will soon follow.
Attend your clients’ housewarming parties
No matter where you live in this country, after all the paperwork is done and your client has moved into their new home, they’ll likely want to show it off to friends and family. Housewarming parties are a perfect way to position yourself as the person that can help your clients’ loved ones find their next home. In all likelihood, the homebuyer will give attendees a tour of the home and pile the compliments on you.
It’s also possible that over the course of the home-buying process, you and your client didn’t become especially close. If this is the case and you aren’t invited to a housewarming party, you can still reach out to your client and offer to sponsor their party. This will still give you an opportunity to have your name and branding present while guests are in the home. Be sure to provide business cards and a poster or two, as well as some sort of welcome gift with your branding on it.
There are many classic ways to market yourself in your community, such as associating with local charities and attending community events. These are often effective at generating leads, but sometimes it pays to think outside the box and take a more creative approach to getting your name out there. We’ve listed four of the more unique ways agents across the country are marketing themselves—what are some inventive ways you’re promoting yourself?
