Many real estate agents and brokers feel their business hits a lull during the holiday season, when people are more focused on priorities other than buying or selling a house. In addition to using this slower period to plan for the year ahead, you can use it as an opportunity to reconnect with your network and show them how much they mean to you. Here are some ways that you can build upon your relationships during the holidays to increase your brand value and plant seeds for the year ahead.
Host A Holiday Client Appreciation Party ‘Tis the season for parties! One of the best ways that you can get some face-to-face time with your team, clients, and referral partners is to host an annual client appreciation party during the holidays. While the main point of this event is for you to strengthen the relationships that empower your business, there are opportunities for you to market your brand as well. Set up a holiday photo booth with props and encourage guests to post their photos to social media with a branded hashtag. You could also hire a professional photographer to take fun candid’s of the party to use in your social media marketing. This shows the world how much you care about the people of your community; not just the houses they live in. Don’t forget to write a press release and publish photos on your social pages. Send A Personalized Holiday Card Holiday cards are a long-celebrated tradition. Although it may be easier to send out a standard card to everyone, your efforts will go a lot farther if you write a personal message in each one. It doesn’t have to belong, but it should reflect your appreciation for their contribution to your business. It also never hurts to share an inside joke or pleasant memory if you can. Again, this is not about directly soliciting business, but leveraging the law of reciprocity to your advantage. Write Holiday Themed Blog Posts Themed blog posts are often some of the most popular of the entire year. While helpful tips about how to make it through the holidays or holiday decorations are always popular, why not take a more hyperlocal approach? Offer a local holiday shopping guide profiling the mom-and-pop shops that make your neighborhood so great. Local restaurants and other businesses with holiday specials work, too. A list of the best holiday-themed events in your market will also be a big hit. Themed hyperlocal posts like these increase your SEO reach, position you as a local expert, and generate loads more traffic by being so shareable on social media. Don’t forget to include hyperlocal and holiday-themed hashtags to help expand your reach with every post a bit further. Give Back To Those That Need It Most Although you should be giving back to charity and your community throughout the year, the holidays are certainly one of the most heart-warming times to do it. There are countless ways that you can deepen your connection with the community while doing good. Food, coat, and toy drives at your office offer the opportunity to get some facetime with people that wish to join your cause. By having the collection point at your office, you can get priceless face to face time with your clients as well. You could also organize a team of caroling agents to visit homeless shelters and aging communities where holiday cheer could use a boost. For a more hands-on approach, consider gathering volunteers for Habitat for Humanity or local soup kitchens. Social media posts, blogs, and videos are a great way to show the positive impact of giving back during the holidays and showcase your dedication to the community. Host A Home Decorating Contest On the lighter side, you can start an annual home decorating contest. Encourage your network and social audience to submit their most festive rooms or exterior decorations for the chance to win a prize. Consider enlisting your networking group and/or other local small businesses to provide prizes and encourage them to promote the contest. To expand your reach further, consider making it a requirement that they like your page, share your post, or subscribe to your newsletter in order to enter. Announce the winners during a Facebook Live event and don’t forget to tag everyone involved in the contest for even more free exposure. At the Holidays, Keep it Real The holidays are a wonderful opportunity for you to take stock of your production, set new goals, and reconnect with the people that have enabled you to get where you are today. Although it is wise to continue marketing yourself during the final months of the year to keep your pipeline full, it is important to be tactful and lead with reciprocity. Strike a balance in your marketing strategy by investing the time in your relationships with the community and leveraging online channels to promote your dedication. At Weichert, we believe the real estate business is based on personal relationships and is the driving force behind all the tools and systems we develop and prescribe for our affiliates. If this sounds like it would be a fit with your brokerage, go to www.weichertfranchising.com to learn more about a franchise opportunity. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/5-real-estate-marketing-ideas-for-the-holidays/
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Maybe you’ve heard of it and maybe you haven’t, but one of the latest buzz phrases in marketing is “experiential marketing”. As the name suggests, experiential marketing is all about taking that face-to-face approach to the next level. This is done through the transformation of common events into standout experiences, which are then shareable on social media. So how can real estate brokers and agents use this to grow and market their business to a new generation of customers?
We’re all familiar with traditional marketing approaches like open houses or door knocking. These approaches are indeed personal and generate contact directly between you and potential prospects. Experiential marketing, however, takes that further by establishing more shareable experiences and more personal connections around your brokerage and your agents. In this way, people have an opportunity to get to know you and your brand in a less-salesy, more personal way. In the words of our founder Jim Weichert, “people buy you, before your products or services.” For brokers and agents committed to a long-term career, experiential marketing can deliver both short and long-term results. Here’s a few ideas to get you started. Creating Experiences for Your Clients & Partners Almost any event you have sponsored in the past, such as an open house or seminar, can be upgraded to an experiential marketing event with a little extra work and thought. The experience you provide will vary, but the key is to make it fun, memorable, and shareable. Some events may not be tied to a specific home sale, but bringing visibility to your brand creates the opportunity for outreach in the future. Educational Events Most brokers have hosted educational events that allow you to showcase your real estate expertise in a more personal way than a blog post or postcard. Common events include first-time homebuyer classes, staging classes, and real estate investing classes. One way to make these events more experiential is to host them in more interesting places, like a local wine bar, or microbrewery, at an art gallery, or even inside a home you have listed. The key is to present a complete experience around the training, that is compelling enough to merit posting and sharing on social media. When creating these events, cost and creativity are your only limitations, but three words that help set the tone are: fun, food, and photo ops. Events with Hyperlocal Focus Events that allow you to mingle with local prospects and clients while indulging in local business are powerful for networking and making a positive impression. Some examples of hyperlocal events could include historic walking tours of your area, wine tasting tours, and “best of” restaurant tours. Organize a cleanup day at a local park and invite parents and kids. Rent an ice cream or food truck to coincide with a group door knocking event. Choose something you’re passionate about and that you feel your community will enjoy. Encourage people to take pictures and share their experiences on social media to get the maximum value out of your efforts. Partner with Other Local Influencers A way to host more compelling events and keep costs down is to partner with other local influencers or businesses. Host an event at the local animal shelter or pet adoption agency. If you’re marketing a 3 bedroom ranch in a family area, consider throwing a barbecue or partner with a local restaurant to cater an event for a local charity. An event catered by a beloved local hot dog shack will have just as much pull (maybe more) as a 4-star restaurant and give a sense of fun to the entire gathering. Or turn the tables and let your office be the host for a wine tasting, exhibit for local artists or holiday event like a pumpkin giveaway or trunk or treat. Document the Journey as well as the Event Don’t view the planning, brainstorming, and even the headaches of setting up your experience as things to hide. Instead use these as opportunities for photo ops to create content that will give you more mileage out of your event, such as pictures of the team setting up or your planning meetings. This way you can get a dozen or more pieces of content to publish across multiple channels for weeks, instead of just a single Instagram story published on the day of the event. Remember that one of the key goals of experiential marketing is its ability to leverage the connections of all those involved by getting them to share on social media. Encourage all manner of photographs and selfies at your event and encourage attendees to post. Staying Connected Online, Compliments the Experience While these experiences and events are an opportunity for you to connect more deeply with your network offline, your social media strategy can enhance these connections even further. Post consistently in the lead-up to the event to build anticipation and use the phone and email to increase touch points as much as possible. At the event, have someone create content like live feeds and video that can be used later as well. Make sure your team will respond promptly to every comment and interaction on their social profiles. It turns out that experiential marketing leverages some of the things that real estate professionals do best: being friendly and being organized. Experiential marketing ties directly into the Weichert philosophy of the personal connection in real estate as first practiced by founder Jim Weichert, handing out business cards twice a day in a Chatham, NJ train station. But the experience we most often create at Weichert, is one of success. For more information on becoming a Weichert franchise, visit www.weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/how-to-use-experiential-marketing-in-real-estate/ Your bustling independent brokerage is a testament to how hard you’ve worked to be known as an expert in your local real estate market. Still, it’s hard to keep up with new real estate laws, tax changes and the ever forward march of technology and digital strategies while running your daily brokerage operations. You can’t expect to know everything. That’s where having a solid support network of other brokers and real estate experts can really help. In fact, a Real Trends study indicates that independent brokers without a network do less in sales than brokerages affiliated with their larger franchised competitors who have broker networks (8.7 percent versus 10 percent or more of total sales transaction volume).
Your Broker Network Helps You Grow As a broker, connecting with others is an integral part of running a real estate operation. Having a tuned-in network of peers and industry partners to depend on is an invaluable asset when you need to keep up-to-date, seek expert answers, or require help problem solving. You may even find a mentor to help coach you toward better efficiency and a more rewarding, balanced life. These associations can also increase sales when you show your own knowledge and trustworthiness. Buyers and sellers may be referred to your brokerage and exclusive listings shared for faster sales. Broker Networking Strategies Independent brokers all face similar challenges that can be resolved together on national, regional or local levels. Different networking strategies get different results. Try a mix of these four ways to associate with other independent brokers and real estate partners and build your broker network:
Overall, broker networking is a challenge for the independent. This is where being part of an established national brand can give you a leg up. The right affiliation allows you to simply plug in and offers a sixth way to build a support network. Weichert affiliate Brokers for instance, enjoy a built-in broker network that connects them to hundreds of affiliates across the country. They enjoy regional and national opportunities to meet both virtually and face to face through events like our “Saw Session” workshops, regional Broker Council Meetings, Management Academies and national conferences, not to mention active Facebook discussion groups and advisory meetings. Plus, Weichert Workforce Mobility, our top-rated relocation company, offers affiliates the opportunity to qualify for relocation leads. Because we foster a community of support and sharing, members are very comfortable just even picking up the phone or emailing one-on-one to get advice, share ideas, bounce things around and share referrals. The family-like support that brokers receive as part of the Weichert system is one of the biggest reasons affiliates join us and stay with us. Get Expert Advice When you just don’t have the time to be an expert in every part of running your brokerage, having a network of peers and industry experts can be invaluable. But don’t just take our word for it, see what Weichert Affiliate Julie Fugate has to say about having comprehensive support.. Don’t feel like you have to go it alone. You can still run your own business while benefiting from an affiliation with a larger system. Learn more at weichertfranchise.com or call 877-957-9692. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/six-ways-network-fellow-brokers/ When it comes to home automation and technology, it’s getting seriously exciting out there. Falling Price points for smart home equipment, and the availability of supporting mobile device apps for control and monitoring, have made much of this tech affordable for the do-it-yourselfer or homeowners of modest means. More and more homes are incorporating smart home features and equipment every day, and failure to properly highlight these features is a missed opportunity, particularly when marketing to millennials and other tech-savvy buyers.
Most Brokers probably don’t have a lot of fully equipped smart homes in inventory, but many homes may have some built in features that can be highlighted. Even if they don’t have any, however, the wireless nature of modern smart home systems makes almost any home a candidate for some really cool and affordable tech. So the real question for brokers is: How are you using trends in smart home tech to market your homes? Are you creating a vision of the smart home for potential buyers even when a home isn’t yet equipped? And when it has some capability are you highlighting it? Smart Home Capabilities For That Selling Advantage If you don’t have connections with reliable smart home or security system companies, you probably should. These systems are often integrated together and present some amazing capabilities for the homeowner.
Smart Homes Are Both A Technology And A Vision While fully equipped “Smart Homes” don’t come into your inventory every day, your ability to talk the technology, have good partners for consultation and installation, and to create the vision for clients as you walk through homes can differentiate you and help you close the sale. Smart homes are an idea whose time has come and real estate agents can use this to market homes, whether they are smart home ready or not! Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/trends-smart-home-technology/ 4/18/2017 4 Reasons Why Using A Real Estate Contact Management System (CRM) Helps With Your Lead Management StrategyRead NowIn the real estate industry, leads are everything. They’re what can build your business, help you grow, expand your team and increase profits – but too often, promising leads can get lost in the day to day frenzy of activity. This is where a real estate CRM system comes into play. These software systems are developed specifically for the real estate industry in order to help your team make the most of their leads. Here’s how:
Get the Most Out of Real Estate Lead Generation with the Weichert® CRM System The Weichert Franchising System combines decades of real estate experience and expertise with cutting-edge technology, real estate coaching programs and tools, including an innovative, easy-to-use real estate CRM system. Designed to support real estate agents and agencies that want to grow and succeed in a tech-savvy market, this system focuses on combining high-quality lead generation resources with streamlined customer service and real estate business management tools. For more information, please contact us today and see if the Weichert Franchise is a good fit for your brokerage. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-crm/4-reasons-using-real-estate-contact-management-system-crm-helps-lead-management-strategy/ Marketing to today’s homebuyers and building a business is one of the toughest challenges facing today’s real estate sales teams. Not only are homebuyers faced with more housing options than ever before and a tough economic climate, they’ve also changed the way they search for, evaluate and purchase products and services.
Flyers and print advertisements are decreasing in effectiveness, while online activity continues to increase. In this digital-first reality, the success of your real estate business comes down to one essential factor – is your agency’s online marketing up to the challenge? Here’s some insight into effective online real estate marketing. Know Where Your Real Estate Agency’s Online Marketing Weaknesses Are Not having an online marketing strategy means missing out on sales – it’s just that simple. Many agencies find this to be a difficult pill to swallow, but if you’re struggling to connect meaningfully with potential new clients, having a strong and attractive online presence is key to correcting it. Common weaknesses in online marketing strategies may include:
Understanding Why Online Marketing Matters For a long time, online marketing was treated as a fad that could never replace traditional and print marketing. However, this industry has taken off in a way that has impacted advertising and marketing for almost every business across the country and the globe. This is because it offers the one thing that modern consumers demand – instant accessibility. Being able to see listings as they are loaded over tablets and smartphones, viewing detailed tours of homes and apartments over Facebook and Instagram, being able to contact agents immediately about a listing and get answers to questions – these things are invaluable to today’s market. It also allows consumers to “check you out” before doing business with you and if your online presence is outdated or not up to snuff, you won’t be getting their call. It is important to realize that feeding the need for instant, accessible and detailed information is a powerful way for growing a business. By developing online marketing expertise and implementing effective campaigns, your agency can tap into the market of today’s homebuyers on a level that they understand and respond to, through tools they are familiar with. Your clients are already on these platforms, so why aren’t you? Speak to Weichert Experts for The Best Real Estate Marketing Tools, Training and Techniques The Weichert Real Estate Franchising System was developed specifically to assist real estate agents and agencies to not only overcome the challenges that face the property market, but also to transform these challenges into opportunities for growth and success. Developed through decades of experience and expertise, our unique system offers the right combination of one-on-one training and support, industry insight, access to high-value resources, and real estate-specific CRM and marketing tools to access the modern consumer market. For more information, please contact us today and see if a Weichert Franchise is a fit for your brokerage. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/real-estate-marketing-get-agency-online-growing/ Millennials are entering the housing market and their priorities are very different from previous generations. As a result, many real estate agents are struggling to get in front of this segment and finding that their old methods of marketing and advertising aren’t working. Here are some tips from the real estate marketing and franchise leaders at Weichert.
Become the First Choice Real Estate Agency for MillennialsThe Weichert Real Estate Franchise system is evolving continuously, informed by hundreds of brokers as well as industry and technology experts across the country. We know what works when marketing to millennials, and our system transforms these challenges faced by real estate agents into opportunities for growth and success. With proven training, tools and support, our specialist team is here to support brokers and drive lead generation, growth, technology and provide ongoing, up-to-date guidance. For more information, please contact us today and see if a Weichert Franchise is a fit for your brokerage. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/attracting-first-time-homebuyer-selling-millennials/ |
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