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Digital Marketing For Real Estate Agents
- Jolynn Gray
- Jan 11
- 10 min read
Updated: Jan 12
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What is digital marketing for real estate agents?
Digital Marketing For Real Estate Agents helps create brand awareness and promote your properties and services online via marketing channels such as social media, websites, and online business profiles.
You have probably heard this a thousand times before but many homebuyers are truly starting their home searches online these days, and for obvious reasons, #1, it's easy to hop on your laptop and search for properties nearby from the comfort of your own home, and #2, you can save tons of gas from riding around looking for open houses all day. Searching for homes online helps homebuyers cast their net far and wide beyond their usual travel routes to places they may not have known existed. This is where you can take full advantage of this modern-day trend of digital marketing for real estate agents. Utilizing digital marketing helps you introduce your brand and expertise, build trust within your sphere of influence, and promote your listings and services.
If you are a new or experienced agent looking to broaden your reach and attract new and consistent leads. These 5 digital marketing tips will help you achieve your business objectives.
Real estate digital marketing helps you create a consistent brand for your business.
This step is really important. If you want to set a firm foundation for marketing your real estate business, start with branding. When you become a new real estate agent creating a consistent brand image for your business will benefit you in more ways than one. Branding is essential because it helps distinguish you from your competition and leaves a memorable mark for your audience to recognize you. Branding encompasses a lot of elements such as your mission and value statement, logo, brand name, and brand colors to name a few. All these elements work to position your brand in a unique location in the minds of your customers. Whatever brand style you choose let it be known as a brand that cares for its audience and brings tremendous value.
I truly believe your brand should reflect your personality and the values you represent so that when you look at your business you feel a sense of contribution. You are contributing to your community and helping so many people change their zip codes and their lives.
Homeownership for a lot of people is a sense of accomplishment and what better role you can play than to contribute valuable information and guidance to help your clients make informed decisions.
Elements of your brand identity should include your brand name, brand purpose, logo, graphics and images, shapes, Color palette, Typography, tone and voice, and a catchy tagline or slogan. (Hubspot, Brand Identity). “The goal of branding is to earn space in the mind of the target audience and become their preferred option for doing business” (Hubspot, What is branding?)
If you are an experienced agent and you did not create a brand for yourself, no worries, you can always rebrand your current business. Your current clients will love the new look and consistency and you can attract new leads for your business.
If you're looking to create a new brand strategy for the first time or revitalize your current branding for your business consider these great branding strategists to help you brand storm and find your unique brand style.
Create an online Google Profile
Creating an online Google Business Profile helps you take charge of your business's first impression, easily connect with potential customers, and showcase the best of your business services (Google Business Profile). A Google business profile is like a snapshot of your business, which shows your logo, brand images, website, contact information, social media profiles, business address, and business hours. It also helps create credibility and trust as it allows customers to read or leave reviews on the quality of service you provide, which in turn can contribute to lead generation. People tend to trust and do business with people or brands with positive client reviews and experiences. A Google profile leads to search engine optimization (SEO), which helps rank your business higher in search results for increased visibility. (Luxury Presence, 2024)
Real Estate Website
Remember when I told you branding is important? Having a professional and visually appealing real estate website is another reason why. Creating your brand identity makes it so much easier to create your website, which is basically an online storefront to fully showcase your brand image as well as your business products and services. A real estate website is another must-have element in a real estate agent’s digital marketing toolkit.
There are numerous benefits to having a real estate website. It allows you to showcase your brand image and purpose, serves as a hub spot to educate your clients about real estate news and market trends, helps you grow your email list, gives you complete freedom on marketing your properties, displays your customer testimonials, gain qualified leads and build credibility and trust with your audience. (Real Estate Industry)
You also have the option to add MLS listings to your site using an IDX plugin like iHomefinder in content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. IDX, also known as (Internet Data Exchange), allows Licensed REALTORS® who are registered in their local MLS (Multiple Listing Service) database to display the most comprehensive and up-to-date property listing information on their agent website (Morris Marketing). Many potential homebuyers love this feature because they are generally unable to gain access to the MLS Listing service unless they have an agent representation in place. So, offering the IDX listing service on your website offers the opportunity to capture new lead information, such as their name, phone number, and email address, before allowing them to use your MLS listing service on your website. If you are a licensed realtor currently registered in your local MLS and want to add the MLS listing service to your website, you can sign up for the iHomefinder IDX plugin here.
Your entire site should be responsive and as speedy as possible. The faster your pages load, the less likely you are to lose impatient visitors who aren’t willing to wait for the information. (WebFx). Finding a good web hosting service provider will help ensure the speed and reliability of your site for customer visits. Great web hosting providers are Elementor if you are building a WordPress website or A2 Web Hosting, which works with WordPress or other applicable content management systems (CMS).
Here are some additional tips to consider when building your website:
Find a good content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Webflow. Wix and Squaresquare have their own built-in web hosting services.
If you are using WordPress for your CMS, then Elementor is an awesome website builder to start with, as it is the #1 Website Builder for WordPress websites and offers Web Hosting Services as well. A win-win.
Find a fast and reliable Web Hosting provider like A2 Web Hosting if your CMS does not already include one.
Purchase a domain (Try Squarespace domains or A2 Web Hosting).
Your Website must be user-friendly, mobile responsive, and SEO-Optimized.
Create a lead magnet or use the IDX/MLS listing service from iHomefinder as a lead capture tool for potential clients on your site - This will contribute to the growth of your email list which is crucial for lead conversion.
Create a blog to showcase your real estate knowledge and market expertise.
Show social proof or client testimonials to build trust with your audience.
If all this sounds overwhelming, I completely understand, especially if you are not experienced with creating websites, which is why you may want to consider working with an experienced real estate website designer to handle all the design work. Fiverr offers a lot of talented website developers who can help you realize your dream website in no time. Check out this list of real estate website designers to help take your real estate business to the next level.
Real Estate Social Media
Social media is another effective digital marketing tool that helps real estate agents build brand awareness, credibility, and a sense of community with their target audience. The most popular platform for real estate agents and their clients is Facebook. According to NAR, 87% of realtors use Facebook to promote their businesses. Facebook offers agents the option to create a separate business profile page, join relevant Facebook groups, create ad campaigns, and showcase their listings. Other social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn are also great digital marketing platforms to generate leads for your business.
Instagram is a visual-first platform with over 2 billion users, so naturally, this would be a great option for showcasing your properties through pictures and reels. Instagram has great targeting capabilities, with the use of hashtags, and is effective for brand building. Ideas to post on Instagram are property listings, virtual tours, before/after transformations, local area highlights, client success stories, home improvement projects, and market updates. (Vanessa John, 2024)
“LinkedIn has a higher engagement and response rate than most platforms…” (Stephen Smulders, 2024) LinkedIn is a great place to get started if you are a new real estate agent looking to build connections with the right people in the industry. Many new and experienced agents join LinkedIn to share properties, real estate news, wins, tips, and network with other realtors in their community.
YouTube and TikTok are also great platforms for agents to showcase their property listings with high-quality video tours. YouTube gives your audience across the globe a first-hand look at your portfolio and professional brand to help them determine if you would be a great fit to help them purchase or sell their home.
Important tips to keep in mind when growing your social media platforms are to post high-quality photos/videos, optimize your profile/bio sections, post regularly and consistently, engage your audience, and maintain your brand style and values at all times. A great tool to use to create beautiful and engaging content is Canva graphic design suite. Canva offers a wide array of free design templates and brochures for easy professional graphics. You can also check out Inspire Creative Studio's ready-made real estate marketing Canva flyers in our template shop here.
Email Marketing
You may be surprised to learn that email marketing is still one of the most highly effective digital marketing tools for lead conversion. Email Marketing is a tried and true digital marketing channel to educate your audience, build brand awareness, foster customer relationships, showcase your listings, and increase lead conversion. The greatest benefit of email marketing is that you are in complete control of your email list and how you promote your properties and ultimately market your business. Regularly marketing to and maintaining your email list increases your chances of lead conversion.
When starting out with email marketing, you will need a lead magnet or lead capture tool to grow your email list. As I mentioned previously, you can use the iHomefinder IDX plugin on your website which would allow potential buyers to view properties on the multiple listing service (MLS) on your site, and through this tool you can capture important information such as their name, phone number, and email address to grow your email list. Another option for a lead magnet is offering a free, valuable resource that will help homebuyers in their home search such as an ebook, homebuyer checklist, seller checklist, or buyers guide. Through these lead magnets, you will also have the opportunity to capture important buyer information to grow your email list and ultimately lead to your next potential client.
When implementing email marketing into your digital marketing strategy, email marketing software to consider are Mailerlite, and Kit (Formerly Convertkit).
Mailerlite offers the ability to create beautiful marketing campaigns with easy drag-and-drop mail builder features, automate workflows, and ready-made email templates. Kit also offers user-friendly landing pages, mobile responsive emails, subscriber analytics, and lead capture integrations to name a few. To get started with either of these offers click the links below.
Digital Marketing is essential for the success of your business as a new and experienced agent. It helps you reach a broader audience, create brand awareness, build trust, and increase lead generation, which is a necessity for the growth of your real estate business. Implementing these digital marketing tools will set a firm foundation for your brand and help take your business to the next level.
Citations
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Vanessa John I use my 18 years of experience in digital marketing and paid advertising to help business owners and advertisers navigate the tech landscape., and Vanessa John.
“15 Instagram Tips for Real Estate Agents Who Want to Grow.” Madgicx, madgicx.com/blog/instagram-tips-for-real-estate-agents. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.
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