The 5 Things Every Real Estate Agent Should Be Doing Online
If you’re a real estate agent, there are some simple things that you can do to get massive exposure in your target market, get more leads, and grow your business dramatically in the next 12 months.
If you want your business to be bigger and more successful next year, do these 5 things:
1. Invest In Your Own Website
The reality is that brokerage provided websites don’t cut it anymore. Brokerage provided sites are little more than a business card. They offer the ability for users to browse IDX… And that’s about it.
But a modern agent website needs smart lead capture tools (like landing pages, pop-ups, SEO friendly neighborhood farming pages, and a mobile-friendly blog)…
And you need to be able to take it with you, even if you switch brokerages!
If you switch brokerages and always take whatever website they give you, you’re starting from zero again. You can’t build an effective online presence if you’re always starting over.
You can build your own site on a free platform like WordPress, and supplement your site with marketing tools like Mail Chimp, LeadPages, and Sumo.
Or you can look at complete website packages designed specifically for real estate agents.
But whatever you do, take your business seriously enough to invest in your own online presence and get a website that your brokerage doesn’t own.
2. Become a Content Creator
Once you have a website, you MUST become a content creator. That means writing blog posts, engaging locals in your community on social media, shooting videos with your iPhone, and creating free guides that answer home buyer/seller questions.
Sorry, in today’s age… This isn’t optional.
87% of consumers start a real estate transaction by doing online research. If you don’t have a strong web presence in your market that answers people’s questions, you’re putting yourself at a massive disadvantage.
Research by Zillow shows that the most important factor that people use in evaluating an agent is local market knowledge.
People want to know you know the area. And guess what? They don’t want to just trust you and take your word for it. They want interesting content that shows you’re a respected, connected member of the community.
Creating great content about real estate, and about your local community, does exactly that.
3. Focus On Getting Business Tomorrow
At our company, we coach hundreds of agents every week. And I’ll be blunt:
The agents who are succeeding with online marketing are playing the long game.
The agents who are struggling ask questions like: “How do run a Facebook ad and close two deals this week?”
And I get it. If you have no business and you’ve got bills to pay… “Playing the long game” can be scary. But with online marketing, there’s really not another way.
Buying and selling real estate isn’t an impulsive action. Real estate transactions have a long cycle — from online research, to contacting an agent, to finding a home… That takes time.
Smart online marketing looks like this:
- Create LOTS of great content that gets people to your site, or engages them on social media, and use modern lead capture tools to collect lead contact information.
- Follow up immediately with the leads you generate and work with those who are more ready to take action now, and put non-responsive leads into long-term email sequences.
- Create automated, content-rich email sequences that nurture your leads over time and make it easy to contact you when they’re ready.
Building a marketing funnel like that takes time and patience. But once you establish these routines and systems, you can create a momentum that’s hard to stop once it starts.
That’s how you win online. Do the work today that will give you steady business tomorrow.
“What if I NEED business NOW?” This is a totally legitimate question. In the beginning, you may need to do traditional cold calling to generate immediate “hot” leads. It’s not that old school cold calling doesn’t work, it’s that it’s directly tied to your manual labor.
If your business is 100% dependent on manual lead generation (cold calling), then you’re not running a business. You have a job with the potential for high income.
But if you want to build a business that scales and will provide you some kind of freedom in the future, you MUST also invest in automated online lead generation systems that can scale without adding more hours of work to your day.
4. Jump Into Facebook Ads
One of the most powerful lead generation tools currently available for real estate agents is: Facebook ads.
NOT posting to your business page.
NOT boosting your posts to get social engagement.
But going into the Ads Manager, and created targeted conversion ads to generate real leads. Here’s an example:
Facebook gives you powerful targeting options like “likely to move” and “house hunting” that allow you to put relevant ads in front of people who are actively interested in buying or selling real estate.
If you’re not using Facebook ads to get more leads online, you’re missing a huge opportunity!
5. DONE Is Better Than Perfect
Finally, just start. We talk to a lot of agents every day who don’t run a Facebook ad because they’re scared it won’t work. They don’t publish a blog or upload a video because it isn’t perfect “yet.”
But here’s the real “secret” to succeeding in online marketing (in any industry):
Done is better than perfect. Your first blog post or video might be terrible. And guess what? That’s fine.
Just keep making content.
Because you will get better through doing. By your 20th YouTube video, you’ll be a pro. On your 34th blog, you’ll be writing better headlines and hitting 1,000 words in your sleep.
Relentless consistency will get you further than being “the best.”
Now get out there and grow you business :)
