The single most important thing in real estate is marketing. It is the way you find sellers and buyers. Without it you have no hope of success in the real estate industry. There are two main categories of real estate marketing: offline and online. Both are essential in developing a profitable business. The following are ways in which you can optimize your advertising dollar.
Offline
Most of you have no doubt seen signs strategically placed around busy intersections and residential neighborhoods. These are called bandit signs, so named Real Estate Services because technically they are not allowed in most city ordinances. Although there are usually no repercussions, the signs are removed regularly, so they will have to be replaced periodically. If you put your bandit signs out on Thursdays, you will have a good chance of them making it through the weekend at least. Choose locations near the types of homes you are interested in. Make sure the signs are visible with easily memorized contact info.
Direct mail consisting of postcards or letters is a good way to bring in leads. The post office has a system where you can set up your own campaign. Postcards are the most cost effective. Make sure they have an eye-catching design. Target only the areas you are interested in by mailing to specific zip codes.
Flyers, posters, handouts, inserts, and door hangers can be effective real estate marketing tools. Color is preferable to black and white. It can be time consuming to distribute this type of advertising. Often, you can hire a high school or college student in need of some extra cash to do this for you. Of course, there is always newspaper and magazine ads, however, these are fast being replaced by online marketing.
Online
Craigslist is a great way to advertise. Not only is it free, it gets tons of traffic. Place your ads in as many relevant categories as you can. Make sure you change the ads from category to category as Craigslist does not allow duplicate content. There are also other real estate sites that allow you to advertise on, some free, some not. It just takes a little research to find them.
A website with squeeze pages to capture information is a must. Not only do you need these things, you have to SEO them. SEO (search engine optimization) gives your pages importance in the search engines, ie Google, Yahoo, Bing. If you are not well versed in how to SEO, there are many great SEO companies out there that do great work in this field. It is almost a necessity to be on the first page of a search result in order to generate business.
Hopefully, these tips will help you in your real estate marketing. Remember it takes money to make money, but you don’t want to break the bank. Use your advertising budget wisely and keep track of your results. That way you can focus your dollars where they are doing the most good.