Marketing for Real Estate Agents

Longing to leave a lasting impression? Ready to establish or renew your brand? No problem. You’ve come to the right place.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

What Is Marketing?

CHAPTER 1

What’s the Plan?

CHAPTER 2

Traditional Marketing

CHAPTER 3

Digital Marketing

CHAPTER 4

Creative Marketing

CHAPTER 5

Personal Branding

CHAPTER 6

Networking

CHAPTER 7

Tracking and Measuring Success

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION WHAT IS MARKETING? Real estate agents spend considerable time and money marketing not just their listings but also their service specialties and personal brand. Marketing refers to the entire mix of activities and messages agents can use to connect with existing and future clients, including advertising. Marketing defines value broadly for clients, while advertising sharpens that message and makes it actionable.

Marketing and advertising, together, drive every agent’s ultimate goal: closed sales.

Marketing defined “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

—American Marketing Association During 2013, the real estate industry spent a whopping $27.3 billion on advertising, with more than half of that going to digital media, according to the Real Estate Advertising 2013 Outlook report from Borrell Associates. That’s a lot of money. And it’s just a subset of the expenses that agents pay to compete in the busy real estate marketplace. Per the National Association of Realtors®, the typical agent spends about 20 percent of their gross income on business-related expenses, including marketing and promotion.

Understanding the basic rules of marketing and applying them effectively is key to your bottom line.

This eBook will walk you through the fundamentals.

What’s the Plan?

Smart marketers plan ahead. Real estate agents need to do the exact same thing. Your marketing approach needs to include messages designed for clients wherever they might be in the decisionmaking cycle—thinking about buying or selling, heavily researching, poised to act, remembering you fondly and referring you to friends.

DEFINE YOUR MARKETING MIX During the 1960s, the term “marketing mix” emerged, and it’s still around today. A marketing mix is a combination of contexts that, together, connect a company’s products or services with the buyers seeking them. Initially developed to show how companies could push products out to a market of receptive consumers, the mix evolved in the early 1990s to address the idea that the discerning consumer holds more power in the client-business relationship than initially believed.

The “4 Ps” – The marketer’s perspective (product-oriented) Product (or service): How does the product deliver something the customer wants?

Place: Where can consumers connect with the product? (Open house? Website?)

Price: How was pricing set and how does it stack up against rival products?

Promotion: What are the best times, places, and media for promoting the product?

The “4 Cs” – The customer’s perspective (customer-focused) Customers: What does the customer want and how can a product satisfy the need?

Convenience: Can consumers connect with the product via their chosen medium?

Cost: How will the customer perceive the price? What influences this perception?

Communication: Which channels (PR, ads, referrals) will link consumer and company?

The newer customer-centric point of view reflects today’s marketing philosophies and the sense, illustrated in social media, that companies and customers have a relationship that begins before and continues beyond a transaction.

As a real estate agent, you instinctively understand product marketing—individual listings call for this type of thinking, what with comparative market analyses to set pricing and specific tactics designed to position a property within its local market. But for most of you, a customer-centric relationship approach is key to growing business over time: It’s how you win referrals, build a brand and reputation, and book repeat business from returning clients.

Your marketing mix needs to include a blend of approaches that helps you deliver value to potential, current, and future clients. Whether you’re deliberately placing yourself in environments where new prospects can easily find and contact you, or carefully designing a communications strategy that gently reminds past clients that your business is built on referrals from folks like them, your mix needs to offer the right messages at the right time.

ELEMENTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN Every real estate practice needs a business plan. The plan defines your values and strengths (helping first-time home buyers fulfill a dream, helping downsizers transition onward), your business goals (financial or otherwise), and clarifies where you excel as an agent and what kind of practice you intend to operate both near-term and long-term. Your business plan creates a roadmap that also determines your marketing plan and budget, and its goals and intentions help you focus, define, and measure your marketing efficacy.

Check out these organizations for free business plan templates and tools: • The U.S. Small Business Administration offers a general small business plan guide.

• The National Association of Realtors® offers an industry-specific business plan guide.

• Bplans offers paid business planning tools and sample real estate business plans.

The major elements of a business plan include a mission and vision, goals and objectives, a SWOT analysis, a marketing plan, and a marketing budget.

Mission and vision Your mission and vision define your goals as a professional, and help you direct your business toward your ideal scenario. They define what you will do (specialize in first-time buyers or empty nesters, for instance), but also what you won’t do (take listings below a certain price point or outside a certain geography). Over time, respecting your mission helps edit and shape your profile as an agent.

A vision statement is a broad view of how you want to leave an impact on customers and the greater community, whereas a mission statement is a clear, concise declaration about your business strategy.

Ask yourself these questions: • What are your values and promises to customers?

• Do you want to work with buyers or sellers? Or both?

• Do you want to work with specific populations—a particular ethnicity or life stage?

Do you want to define your practice by specializing in particular types of property inventory, such as luxury real estate, sustainable architecture, in-city properties, fixers, new construction developments, or condos?

Example mission statement Our mission is to provide superior service to our buyers and sellers through leadership, experience and knowledge. We are committed to passionately exceed our customer’s expectations, and we engage in honest, loyal and ethical business practices. We maintain an ongoing commitment to serve our communities by contributing our time and financial resources.

Example vision statement To be the leading real estate agent in the Smithtown metropolitan area, providing an exceptional real estate experience to every client.

Goals and objectives What are your business goals, in quantified terms? What steps do you need to take to complete these goals? For example: • Do you want to grow listings or the number of closed sales?

• Do you want to grow commissions and thus income to a certain dollar volume?

• Do you want to become the best-known listing agent in a particular neighborhood?

Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely—in other words, SMART. Once your business goals are SMART, break down each goal into objectives, which are the specific set of tasks and activities you need to do to accomplish the goal. Periodically review your goals and make adjustments if necessary.

Example goals •

Be ranked in the top 10 listing agents for first-time home buyers in Smithtown.

•

Exceed $180,000 in commissions in 2014 and $220,000 in 2015.

•

Exceed 275 leads in 2014 and 350 leads in 2015.

•

Customer testimonials of at least three sentences written by 70 percent of closed clients.

•

Write a minimum of two blog posts per week.

•

Make five prospecting calls every day.

SWOT analysis SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is a strategic planning method designed by a Stanford Research Institute leader to help businesses understand the viability of their business goals. Looking at an objective (doubling listings, closing more transactions in a given time period, gaining buyer clients) and then running a SWOT analysis can help you understand if you’re positioned to succeed—or if you need to adjust your approach.

Strengths Do you have special skills, credentials, referrals, or connections to a particular population that, together, position you as a leader or obvious choice for target clients?

Weaknesses What do competitors do better? Do you need to gain new credentials or skills, communicate across new media, or hire an assistant to free up your schedule?

Opportunities Where’s the market headed, and how can you participate? What can you do today versus over time to take advantage of the environment?

Threats What could happen that is beyond your control, and how can you prepare? For example, local or national economic shocks like layoffs at a major employer, natural disasters, or challenges with shifting property inventory.

Marketing plan Marketing plans are a key ingredient in your overall business plan. Every marketing plan must address the following topics.

Vision What’s your ideal business mix?

Goals What are your personal, financial, strategic, and tactical goals?

Ideal customer Will you serve buyers, sellers, first-timer buyers, investors, clients looking to downsize?

Differentiators and branding promise What makes your work unique? If you had a tagline, what would it be?

Product/service mix and pricing What are your offerings and commission structure?

Marketing materials How will you communicate your services and at what frequency? Aside from business cards and a sign on your vehicle, will you blog daily, advertise in the paper, send direct mail quarterly, or host an annual party?

Online marketing How will you advertise and present yourself online?

Lead generation, management, and conversion approach How will you engage prospective clients who visit open houses, your website or online listings, or who connect with you in other ways? Will you use drip email to remain top-ofmind? Will you require Web registration to view your online listings?

Marketing calendar How often will you communicate and in what way?

Sales forecast How will marketing efforts drive real results?

Marketing budget How much will you spend monthly and yearly? How will you track your expenses versus actual results? See the next section for more details.

Marketing budget How much should you budget for marketing? A common rule of thumb is that agents should spend about 10 percent of their commissions on marketing, and some sources up that to 15 percent. Many factors—local market norms, property price points, how many years you’ve been in business—can influence what makes the most sense for you.

Your marketing budget should include setup and

The National Association of Realtors® illustrates here how different agents with vastly different business sizes and approaches worked with different marketing budgets, to positive affect.

operating costs for the following items.

Personal branding •

Print collateral: business cards, letterhead, post-it notes, fliers, signage

•

Direct mail: postcards, newsletters offering market updates or home repair tips

•

Brokerage branding, if applicable, to bolster your own brand

Print/traditional •

Display advertising: newspapers, magazines, billboards, road signs, buses

•

Radio or broadcast advertising

Online •

Website: business site, potential separate URLs for properties, tracking visitors

•

Search engine optimization

•

Video: agent philosophy and introduction, listing videos for applicable properties

•

Content marketing: producing a blog or series of articles to engage visitors

•

Paid advertising: banners, participating in real estate media sites

•

Social media: paid and unpaid use of the media

•

Email marketing: managing communications, lists, and tracking results

Sponsorships and community service •

Participating in events, festivals, teams or volunteer work: PTA, United Way

•

Financial or service donations to good causes, charities, or centers of worship

•

Participating in local clubs: Rotary Club, Lions Club, American Legion

Referral strategy and rewards •

Congratulating clients on completed transactions: flowers, phone calls

•

Remaining in touch with past clients: social media, holiday cards, annual client appreciation events, providing referrals for home services

•

Developing a rewards strategy for clients who send referrals: thank you notes, gift items

REMEMBER: RETURN ON INVESTMENT A fundamental component of every real estate business plan and marketing budget is calculating the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing and advertising expenditures. ROI is the ratio of your profit to your costs. The more expensive your marketing efforts, the more income you need to generate to justify the expense—or the more time you’ll need to give to your marketing efforts to produce your desired effect.

Before embarking on a marketing effort, you’ll need to set goals for results so you can take a realistic look at whether the marketing initiative worked—or if it worked, but took more time than expected.

For instance, if you plan to redesign your website to generate more customer leads, then you’d measure how worthwhile the redesign was by looking at how many customers took action on the site or subscribed to information or other offers on it, and further, how many called or requested services, an appointment, or even became buyer or listing clients.

The basic formula for marketing ROI looks like this:

Gross Profit – Marketing Investment x 100 Marketing Investment

However, how you define your return (closed sales versus number of new leads) and how you define your investment costs (ongoing versus a one-time expense) has everything to do with results.

Regardless, if you track ROI in the same way over time, the results will show where your marketing is most and least effective. Industry-specific software tools can help, or you can design your own ROI methodology. Postcard marketing companies offer tools as well.

There’s more than one way to calculate return on investment, as illustrated here. If you plan to build referral-based business, you might want to look at the “customer lifetime value” (CLV) of key clients who help drive your business—in essence, how much you need to invest to sustain and grow business generated by these successful relationships.

REALISM AND ROI: AN EXAMPLE IN ACTION Tracking your return on investment requires that you have a realistic sense of benchmarks from the industry. For instance, continuing the website redesign example (to better respond to leads), knowing that only 2–4 percent of online leads turn into legitimate business and that it can take four to six months for those leads to become that business, means that an agent trying to determine ROI for the redesign effort would want to measure results over a generous period of time—perhaps over 12 months.

This example has an agent looking over a one-year period at the results of an online campaign.

Assuming that the agent garners 360 leads per year, and that only 2.5 percent (or 0.025) are legitimate, that the agent’s average sale is for a $250,000 property upon which there’s a 2.5 percent commission, this would suggest that it’s possible for the agent to make $56,250 off the effort.

However, going back to the ROI formula, the marketing investment numbers are important—and can vary widely. What if the agent in this scenario invested $14,000 on the new and improved website and technology? And what if the agent needed to spend $8,000 on part-time help managing the leads, designing and implementing drip campaigns, and handling other technology maintenance tasks to respond to the leads? The resulting math looks like this:

$56,250 (gross profit) – $22,000 (marketing investment) x 100 = 155% $22,000 (marketing investment)

The ROI of 155 percent is compelling. But the investment made in this example would be considerable, particularly for a new agent. It also assumes that the agent’s website traffic is robust— suggesting the agent has spent money promoting their website.

An agent newer to the field might realistically aspire to half the leads (180) cited in this example and also sell less expensive homes ($150,000), which using this formula would result in $27,000 gross profit. Perhaps the newer agent’s marketing investment was $7,000 for an updated website, and $7,000 for occasional part-time help with it. Then the formula looks like this:

$27,000 (gross profit) – $14,000 (marketing investment) x 100 = 92.9% $14,000 (marketing investment)

In this second example, an ROI below 100 percent suggests that while there’s money to be made in redesigning the website to capture and monetize leads, the new agent either needs to spend a little less, use the new tools more effectively to make the investment worthwhile, or sell higherticket homes. The agent should also assess whether a second year on this new marketing program would show favorable results. Chances are it would, since website spending will be much lower and presumably the agent can grow listings.

CHAPTER 2

Traditional Marketing Do you think knocking on doors, sponsoring local causes, sending direct mail, and putting ads in traditional media are passé? Not so. Even in the digital age, physical presence matters.

Real estate agents know that all real estate is local, and that building relationships fosters a successful business. Whether your best clients originate from online clicks or a handshake at a fundraiser you co-sponsored, you can’t run a business without them. That’s why it’s important to understand some of the classic ways agents market their services and how they sync up with newer-fangled ways to nurture clients.

How buyers begin a home search (percent of respondents)

KNOCK, KNOCK Newer agents need to do a lot of meet and greets to gain new clients. Most remind their friends and associates early and often that their services are available, and many raise their hand to represent open houses to meet potential buyers. If you’re looking for listings, one of the most oldfashioned—but potentially effective—ways to develop new clients is knocking on doors to sell your services directly.

Door knocking isn’t just for new agents. Established agents often use the practice when they’ve signed or just sold a listing in the neighborhood—since they have a positive talking point to share with the client’s neighbors. Agents also use door knocking as a regular part of “farming” a particular ZIP code where they’re hoping to establish themselves. Buyer’s agents also try door knocking to unlock the type of for-sale inventory their clients are seeking.

Door knocking can be time-consuming, but agents who’ve succeeded at it recommend the following strategies: 1. Make it a habit. Knock regularly, and knock on enough doors.

One agent who has had success knocking on doors recommends allocating at least an hour—or about 25 doors—each week, and expecting about one appointment per 50 doors. This will vary by market.

2. Bring collateral. Aside from a business card, bring a leavebehind postcard or newsletter in the event that residents aren’t home.

3. Use data to plot your route. Search the local multiple listing service for expired, withdrawn, or incomplete sale listings and knock on those doors. If your market is recovering from a slump, look at listings that appeared during the worst years and consider approaching the homeowners about today’s changed marketplace. Zillow offers “potential listings” searches that show homes entering or in foreclosure as well as homes owned by people who have set a Make Me Move® price—which, if realistic, might mean they’re ready to sell.

SPONSORSHIP Sponsorship is a form of marketing in which a business pays for all or part of an event or cause’s costs in exchange for the brand-building benefits that this brings the sponsor. Agents can easily sponsor local sports or cultural events and festivals, nonprofit organizations’ activities, or events and volunteer efforts run by the local chapter of a mega-charity (United Way, Red Cross).

In exchange for providing financial or volunteer support, your business will receive recognition in programs, on organization or event websites, and in nonprofit reports to the community about support from businesses. These mentions show the community where you do business that you give back, while also letting you align with like-minded businesses and potential new clients.

Sponsorships can take many forms. Some sponsor-seeking organizations (such as operators of events and festivals) have spelled-out sponsorship levels, along with their cost and sponsor benefits. Other sponsorships emerge casually and are thus customized. Regardless, sponsorship is an excellent way to connect around a cause that a community supports and lets you align with people around a cause or interest aside from real estate. Organizations always appreciate their sponsors—and appreciation can produce referrals.

Think in terms of sponsorships that would help your brand in subtle ways: • Perhaps the neighborhood retail association of a community where you work holds a monthly art walk and needs a sponsor to buy beer and wine for store guests, and each store features signage indicating that tonight’s drinks come courtesy of your business.

• Maybe the local Little League team needs funds. You could contribute cash and maybe some branded post-game snack bags for little players, then post a banner with your business’s name at the ballfield. That’d help you target family buyers or sellers.

DIRECT MAIL Direct mail is a form of advertising sent directly to a prospective or past client’s home address.

Such mailings might include postcards (new listing!), flyers, or newsletters. To wage an effective direct mail campaign, you’ll need to possess, develop, or buy access to an appropriate mailing list.

You can develop your own lists based on incoming contacts from your website or other channels, and many organizations sell lists, including credit reporting agencies like Experian and phone directory publishers.

According to the National Association of Realtors®, agents are more likely to use email (65-68 percent) or the phone (58 percent) than direct mail to target potential and prospective clients. However, about 42–43 percent of all agents use direct mail to target both types of clients.

The key to direct mail is developing and managing an effective list, then correctly targeting the audience it represents. Often, agents target populations like renters who might be contemplating their first home purchase, or households with substantial home equity and thus might consider moving up or downsizing.

Direct mail is retro, yes, but its cost is typically low relative to other media. If a campaign is well crafted, you can expect a response rate ranging from 2–5 percent. The conversion rate of direct mail rises if messaging to your audience is consistent and mailings continue over time—particularly, some sources say, for the minority of agents who send five or more mailings to the same address. Real Estate Marketing Magazine estimates that the average cost to send postcard mailings to one home monthly over a five-year period is $30—which, if successful, is a low-cost way to acquire a client.

PRINT ADVERTISING Agents’ choices for print advertising include newspapers (display or classified ads), weekly smalltown or neighborhood alternative papers, and general-interest or real estate-specific magazines.

Critics of print advertising claim that digital marketing is cheaper and more measurable and cite statistics that, these days, close to 90 percent of all real estate buyers start their home search online.

But in many contexts print advertising still makes sense, as an adjunct to online advertising and for agent branding.

Print media is worth considering if: • You’re targeting a particular neighborhood or part of town (Brooklyn, the East Bay of San Francisco, etc.) and it has print publications with a small but targeted audience.

• You’re marketing luxury properties where sales strategies are national and photo-oriented.

• You’re targeting a population that still reads ink-and-paper (older downsizers, perhaps).

Adults ages 45 to 64 show slightly higher usage of magazines than those in other age ranges, and 32 percent of adults over 65 are likely to use newspaper ads in their search, versus 23 percent overall, according to NAR. Most print media will offer a media kit with audience specifics—how many readers, demographics, etc.

Increasingly, some print media—especially real estate specific products such as The Real Estate Book— let agents offer QR codes and texting codes alongside phone numbers and URLs, better marrying print efforts with digital ones. A QR code (or “quick response” code) is a barcode readable via smart phones, which scan the code and then can pick up website URLs.

BROADCAST AND OUTDOOR ADVERTISING Broadcast media—including television and radio—can be expensive to buy and create. However, agents may choose to use it for general branding or to attract the small population (4 percent) of buyers who consider broadcast messaging a starting point for a home search. Some agents prefer radio spots because they can be produced and placed quickly and inexpensively, and as with an online video, spots allow an agent to speak, gesture, and express their personality.

Well-placed outdoor advertising can be an effective, if less-used way, to reach clients, especially considering that many home buyers begin a home search by walking or driving through prospective neighborhoods, attending open houses, and looking for yard signs. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America counts four major categories of outdoor advertising: billboards (large highway road signs and smaller posters), “street furniture” (bus stops, newsstands), transit-related advertising (bus shelters, advertising in buses or subway cars, at airports), and alternative locations (sports stadiums, cinemas).

CHAPTER 3

Digital Marketing Developing a smart digital marketing strategy isn’t just essential to your business—it is your business.

Your Web presence and accessibility via a website, social media, portals, and mobile technologies are vitally important ingredients in your digital marketing mix.

Buying a home is one of the most research-intensive purchases a consumer can make, and thus consumers who go through with a purchase spend considerable time—typically four months— researching the home buying process (financing and inspection info) and searching for homes (what homes are on the market, in what neighborhoods, and at what price point).

As an agent you need to make your presence known online so customers can interact with you at the point within their decision-making process when enlisting an agent’s help makes sense to them— whether that’s early on when they’re eyeballing how to qualify for a loan and fantasizing about a particular neighborhood, or after attending multiple open houses and deciding it’s time to hire a representative who can help them find a property with specific criteria. The agent who understands how consumers use digital media can target audiences appropriately and turn leads into sales.

How the Internet fits into home searches

The statistics above are broad, but two themes emerge: Clients are online looking for information, and they also consider agents reliable sources of it. The agent who can deliver information not just about their listings but also about other concerns a buyer may have—market trends, neighborhood information, innovative approaches to the local market, expertise in a particular property type—can win business.

Smart agents understand that content marketing paired with one-to-one marketing and relationships are necessary parts of their digital marketing mix. Content marketing refers to the creation of customized content that is delivered via your website, blog posts, and social media presence. Prospective clients will read, share, and (hopefully) act upon this content—choosing to contact you for your newsletter, updates on listings, or, ultimately, your services as a buyer’s or listing agent.

What follows is a look at pieces of the digital marketing puzzle.

WEBSITE The vast majority of real estate agents have a website, and the average amount they spend on their site is surprisingly small—a median of $200. If you’re affiliated with a brokerage, its site will list your information along with your listings. You’ll also list your properties on your local multiple listing service and can add (for free) listings to portals such as Zillow, extending your digital presence. But to build your own brand and demonstrate your approach to the market, and to attract new buyer (or seller) clients, you’re going to need to do more than just display your digital calling card.

With your own website, you can share your approach to the market, your specialties or your geographic area, the type of client you hope to attract, how to reach you offline, how to link with you directly as well as on social media or elsewhere, possibly a blog or personal video, and how site visitors can opt in to email updates or other communications from you. The Zillow Premier Agent® program offers customized, SEO-friendly websites for agents, complete with searchable listings from your MLS. Consider these 7 must haves when you set up your real estate website.

For those prospective clients who do opt in to receive communications, you will want to use a drip campaign. A drip campaign sends automated communications on a scheduled basis to prospective clients, sharing your brand and keeping it fresh in their minds. Consumers perform an average of 11 searches on a real estate website before acting. By offering appropriate calls to action along the way, the campaign can serve the consumer as casual researcher but, over time, engage them at the moment when they’re ready to start looking seriously.

BLOGGING While agent websites can be quite effective, they usually don’t help set you apart from other agents the way a blog can. Blogging allows you to demonstrate your competence and authority and your place in the local community, and it also lets you build your brand while nurturing a relationship with potential clients. Whether you blog on your own website, or guest blog for a local paper or business journal, you must do it regularly—at least once a week—both to remain relevant and to retain search rankings.

For search engine purposes, it’s generally best for your blog to live on your website (www.you.com/blog) versus using a separate blogging platform (such as Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress). Also, each blog post is its own webpage—which means every post gives you one more opportunity to be found in search results, particularly if you’ve optimized the post with keywords.

To bolster your blog’s reach and relevance, consider these writing tips: • Provide market stats and offer your own spin and commentary on them.

• Discuss market inventory. Make yourself the go-to commentator on condos, new construction, senior housing, or rare listings in a hot neighborhood.

• Link to other news sources, but provide value-added commentary. For example, excerpt or link to news articles and topics.

• Allow guest bloggers. Ask a handyman, mortgage lender, or banker to provide tips and tricks for financing, inspection, etc.

• Make your posts shareable on social media, which will amplify their reach.

Become a valuable resource on the subject of real estate in your particular market or neighborhoods.

The more you do so, the more opportunities you have to stay top of mind with potential clients.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION AND MARKETING You can have the most beautiful website, the most engaging blog, and the friendliest social media persona around, but if clients can’t find you, that’s a problem. According to the 2012 Google & Compete New Home Shopper Study, home shoppers using search engines are 9 percent more likely to take action on a real estate brand’s website. In addition, 52 percent of actions on real estate websites come from search engine traffic. Make sure your website and blog use keywords and phrases that increase your visibility on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

There are a couple of ways to do this: • SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is free and involves the intelligent use of key words and phrases to increase your rankings in search engine results. Many website designers and hosts embed SEO features into their templates, allowing you to choose words and phrases that are invisibly tagged or back-linked in search engines. You can also use tools such as Google AdWords to research keyword combinations that are effective.

• SEM: Search engine marketing (SEM) involves paying to enhance your appearance and rankings in search results, either buying keywords that guarantee your placement in a search for particular terms or investing in advertising known as pay per click (PPC) in which you pay when consumers click on a keyword you’ve purchased.

SEO and SEM resources: • The Beginner’s Guide to SEO • What Is Search Marketing?

• The Definitive Guide to Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

In recent years, Google and other search engines have changed their search algorithms such that websites which garner traffic aren’t just technically savvy but also savvy about offering fresh content that is networked and trafficked. The “content farms” of yesteryear, replete with overuse of the same terms and phrases, no longer top out rankings and have been ousted by websites with fresh, high quality content.

This means it’s important that all of your content—blog, social media, website, listings—apply these principles and add informative, valuable content regularly to attract the appropriate audience. Sometimes, that means including some fairly obvious information: Some 69 percent of consumers who took action on a real estate website used a locally-focused term (“New York co-op Upper East Side” or “Portland bungalow”), according to the 2012 Google & Compete New Home Shopper Study.

SOCIAL MEDIA Social media sites let you create and nurture social networks inexpensively and easily, and swap information with members of your network. A Facebook post, a tweet on Twitter, or a posting on Google+ are seen by your network of linked connections or arms’ length followers—they can respond spontaneously or contact you directly.

Social media sites also allow you to broadcast content published elsewhere—whether it’s from your website’s blog, a new listing on the MLS, a news article, or a real estate video posted on YouTube— with your own unique spin on it, delivering value much like a blog post but in a smaller package that is more immediately interactive.

Since photos and video are increasingly important in marketing, many agents are also developing Pinterest boards—a kind of bulletin board or image scrapbook—that showcase local architecture, neighborhood landmarks (if they’re working a particular neighborhood), images from listings, remodeling projects, and so forth.

It’s a soft sell in social Social media is generally used to connect with people and share personal information. Your agenda might be to nudge personal relationships into business ones, but listening to your online friends and observing their life changes (baby on the way, engagements, an adult kid heading off to college) may be a better gauge of their potential as prospects than hitting them over the head with reminders that you’re an agent. In addition, social media is a great place to provide useful information—whether it’s a referral to a great new landscaping service, a tip about a new restaurant opening in the ZIP code, or to post a picture of last weekend’s volunteer work event—in addition to the occasional new listing.

PORTALS Portals—major websites that offer real estate listings as well as other content relevant to home buyers and homeowners—provide yet another outlet for digital marketing. Aside from marketing listings on these websites, agents can also market their services through targeted advertising buys—purchasing

by ZIP code or other criteria and then appearing in the results when consumers run searches.

Portals play an important role in nurturing home shoppers, who visit sites like Zillow to research property values, view property images, research remodeling and market data, and begin the home buying (or selling) research process. At Zillow, 75 percent of all site visitors will buy within two years.

Agents can not only post their listings for free, but they can use paid Premier Agent advertising tools to guarantee exclusive appearances on listings appearing within buyers’ site searches.

More than 73 million unique users visited Zillow, Inc.’s mobile applications and websites in December 2014.

MOBILE Especially among new home buyers and the demographic ages 25 to 34, Internet searches from mobile devices are an increasing part of the landscape. According to the 2012 Google & Compete Home Shopper Mobile Survey, some 89 percent of all new home buyers now use mobile searches at the beginning and during their search, and 68 percent of these new home buyers use mobile apps.

Many agents also use QR codes—barcodes which when scanned by mobile devices link to webbased content or a website—on outdoor signage or on listing flyers, knowing that mobile-inclined clients might scan the codes rather than grab a flyer.

When choosing your digital marketing mix, it’s important to be mindful of how consumers are accessing your information, and mobile is here to stay. Most social media sites and major brokerage sites are searchable via mobile devices, and social media sites offer apps that speed and simplify usage. Make sure your own website is easy to find via mobile, or that it at least has an optional mobile interface.

CHAPTER 4

Creative Marketing Real estate marketing is both art and science. Whether you’re an expert doorknocker with a winning personality, or a tech geek with an inspired dashboard for measuring your digital efforts’ impact, marketing is also about the creative, human touch—the distinct ways you choose to cultivate your audience.

There are dozens of ways to market as an agent and to do so without hitting prospective clients over the head. Because buying and selling real estate are big and typically stressful decisions for consumers, they need to trust both your dealmaking skills and that your personality is a good fit for them.

Aside from making your presence known through traditional marketing and digital marketing, creative marketing lets you make contact with clients in innovative ways or showcase your distinct personality so they can relate to the person behind the agent.

Here’s a look at some of the ways agents market creatively.

DISPLAY YOUR VALUES AND SPECIALTIES Many buyers decide early on that they’re looking for a home that reflects their lifestyle, life stage, or values. This means that agents who have earned special designations possess an extra tipping point in attracting such buyers, some of whom may conduct an agent search in part around the designations.

Some designations are built around property type (distressed property, luxury real estate, builtgreen properties, farmland, second homes) and others are designed around client type (seniors, minorities, military relocation). The National Association of Realtors® provides a complete list of designations and certifications.

Keep in mind that while these designations generate a handy acronym to add to your website or business card, they aren’t the only way to distinguish your values or intended area of specialty.

You can develop your own designation, such as an urban condo specialist, the go-to agent in a popular school district, or the agent who helps aesthetically inclined buyers who like a certain type of housing stock. Use your special designation on your blog, in your tagline, and with any other marketing materials where it can add value.

Another way to display your values and specialties is through volunteer work in your community, especially volunteer work that aligns with your values or agent mission. Working with economic or neighborhood development organizations, port authorities, transit or biking initiatives, political campaigns that impact the communities you represent, the arts, education, or a senior center could help you land corresponding work. As in real estate, volunteer work is about adding value to a cause, and is a great way to demonstrate your care. To seek opportunities in your area, visit Idealist or VolunteerMatch.

GET CREATIVE WITH OPEN HOUSES Open houses are a great way to not only make new client contacts but also learn about a neighborhood or block where you haven’t previously worked. Depending on the local market’s dynamics and the property in question, there are dozens of ways to make an impression on prospective buyers and sellers.

Many listing agents deem open houses a waste of time, arguing that visitors to them aren’t always serious. Given that the typical home buyer views at least 10 homes over a multi-week period, and that some buyers begin doing “research” long before they’re pre-qualified, it’s possible to attract a buyer without even knowing it. Additionally, other “looky-loo” visitors—neighbors, those out walking on a Sunday, real estate geeks—may wind up informing friends about the property without your knowing.

Open house resources: •

Who comes to open houses?

•

Why have an open house?

•

Post an open house on Zillow

• Tips for a successful open house

Some open houses work out better than others. If you’re planning an open house to talk directly to consumers, try these tactics: • Coordinate with other agents. Consider coordinating with other agents in your brokerage who have similar-priced listings in the neighborhood, so that multiple open houses will draw as many people as possible.

• Play with the date. Sunday is the most common day for open houses, but don’t rule out Saturday. Examine the neighborhood calendar to see if public events—a Thursday night art walk, a Monday night annual block party, yard sales or estate sales—might also be opportune times to showcase your properties.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE MEDIA Get to know your local and regional real estate editors and reporters, and make informed and friendly comments on their stories. Real estate sections are always looking for story ideas (bidding wars are back, inventory has shifted) and experts to cite about market trends (what works in staging, creative offers). It’s a great way to get your name into people’s minds, and to build your reputation as an authority.

Figure out the angle on your listing—it’s made from unusual materials, it has a custom accessory dwelling unit, it’s authentic mid-century, it’s a steal—and share the angle with national real estate blogs like Curbed, décor blogs, or local architectural publications. In addition, publications that cater to readers with a high net worth, such as local business journals, are good places to offer expertise on topics like the luxury condo market, second homes, or managing investment property.

Keep in mind that “media” is a broad term: Don’t forget social media platforms including Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—befriend businesses and causes that share your values or align with the populations and geographies where you work. This helps prospective clients understand what you care about, and see what they share in common with you, which builds trust.

SHARE YOUR REPUTATION Many agents work exclusively by referral. But even if that’s not true for you, a referral goes a long way in showing future clients that past ones were pleased. Including testimonials from past and present clients can help you gain more attention than agents who haven’t made the effort to request them. But knowing when and how to request them is also an art.

Additional resources: • Tips to get more real estate reviews •

Agent reviews: What are clients looking for?

• Tips for handling negative reviews On Zillow, you can easily seek and add testimonials from clients to your profile. For more information, see these frequently asked questions.

GIVE GOOD GIFTS TO PAST CLIENTS Agents often give gifts to remain top of mind for past clients. While a pen or notepad are all well and good, they’re also easily lost or placed in a drawer. Gifts that tend to ingrain your name into clients’ minds are thoughtful and frequently used.

Consider a subscription-based gift (food, publication), an engraved frequently used gift (keys, flashlight, potholder, knife), a gift directly related to the home’s architecture or history (historic photo from a city archive, a digital re-rendering of a home photo), and so forth.

Additional resources: •

Creative real estate promotional items

•

Real estate branding that sticks

DEVELOP A LISTING APPROACH AND PHILOSOPHY Whether you’re marketing a listing or looking for listings, past performance may predict future results—especially in the eyes of clients. Agents who develop a customizable philosophy for existing and prospective listings can gain clients’ confidence. The agent who immediately understands how a home fits into the current market, how to price it, and how to promote its assets gains clients’ confidence—as does examples of how you sold similar homes.

Perhaps your approach to marketing a listing always includes window washing and a deep clean, or you can cite research indicating that listing in June may yield better results than waiting until July.

Maybe you help the home seller develop a personal statement about the property, and a folder or collection of information about the property’s history or the neighborhood’s attributes.

Many agents now include staging in their fee, or will refer their seller to a short list of staging professionals. Staging is seen as one of the best investments sellers can make in order to boost curb appeal, according to Zillow research.

CHAPTER 5

Personal Branding Which came first, your business or your brand? On the one hand, you already work with particular clientele—suggesting that their business is your brand. On the other hand, you can steer your brand in new directions to attract new business—but do so with a careful eye towards existing clientele.

Branding is a confusing concept to many real estate agents. They understand the necessity of a marketing mix—a series of contexts into which they place messages and listings—and advertising, the practice of deploying specific messages in specific settings and with calls to action. But branding?

It’s looser and more broadly defined—it’s the impression that consumers have of you, a sometimes unconscious response to how you present yourself.

If marketing and advertising let you speak for yourself and the products you sell, your brand is how your audience perceives you based on your messages. Your brand is how others remember you—and it’s built from a mix of direct statements and subtle messaging that you deliver in encounters with current and future clients.

Here, you’ll learn some of the ways you can move from creatively marketing your real estate practice to building a brand that supports and sustains your business over time.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.”

— Seth Godin

BRANDING AND BUSINESS A strong business plan includes a carefully crafted mission and vision, a clear set of goals and objectives, a competitive analysis, and a marketing plan and budget. Your brand both illustrates and reinforces all of these goals, but it should be a key element of your marketing plan. Who do you already work with—and who do you want to work with? Once you know, how can you brand yourself to attract the clients you’re seeking?

Here are some exercises and tips to help you think about your brand as an agent: • Know thyself. Ask yourself what words and phrases you want clients to think of when they consider you. Then, without sharing your ideas, ask ten friends or acquaintances what terms come to mind when they consider you. Then ask professional peers or past clients the same thing. If terms align, you’re communicating your brand. If they don’t, consider changing your brand approach or your understanding of it.

• Know your customers. In considering your brand, don’t just think of how you want to be seen. Think of your customers as your brand. Maybe you’re an ace at handling tough clients, first-time buyers, or diverse lifestyles—translated to brand values, this might mean you’re sensitive, informative, or open-minded. Here are some tips on using customer knowledge to develop your brand.

• Understand how brands work. Brand is your reputation, what people remember or take away from interacting with you. A customer-led brand strategy can grow your business.

BRANDING THROUGH ART AND LANGUAGE Your business card, website, headshot, and logo can all subtly communicate the kind of buyer you work with or want to work with. Here’s a look at some of the choices you’ll need to consider with regard to brand impacts.

Taglines and slogans Taglines and slogans that appear on your business cards, websites, or email signatures can help you connect emotionally with clients and give clients details that make your name memorable.

Your tagline can include a geographic focus (Your East Bay Expert), a play on your name (The Real Estate Smith), a focus on a type of property (The Downtown Source), or a twist on the home buying process that hints at your specialty. For example, a tagline that

references “Your Key to the Future” might be handy for an agent that deals with ultramodern architecture, or for an agent that helps first-time home buyers who picture a new future that launches the minute they get those house keys.

Here are some tips for creating effective real estate slogans and writing remarkable taglines.

Headshot Your photo conveys a lot about you. Are you smiling, open and friendly? Serious, businesslike, and confident? Looking directly into the camera, or slightly off to the side?

Is there a city vista or countryside backdrop in the background? Are you dressed in a formal suit or a workday casual outfit suitable for a home inspection or long day?

Depending on how you choose to appear, clients will develop an impression of you and your practice. If you’re a serious, businesslike agent in a suit standing in front of a city backdrop, that suggests you market downtown real estate to investors or high net worth individuals. Wearing bright lipstick and an artistic scarf might suggest that you’re creative and bold, ready to work with indie clients or emerging ZIP codes. Follow these tips to make the most of your headshot.

Letterhead and logos Your letterhead and logo say a lot about your specialties and tastes. An abstract logo might communicate modern tastes, while a retro bungalow image might suggest you help buyers find in-city cottages or family-friendly residences.

The font style you choose—boxy and bold, old-fashioned, formal, print, cursive—and the color it’s in all communicate your brand values and approach.

Color is important in branding, with some colors and tones more appealing to men versus women, and each color suggesting values with positive and negative traits.

Red, for instance, indicates decisiveness and action but also aggression. But a muted rusty red, reminiscent of a prior era, might suggest you represent older housing stock desirable in your market. Study other agents’ logos and what they say to you.

Read more about the psychology of color and how it’s used in marketing and branding.

WALK YOUR TALK One of the best ways to communicate your brand is something you’ve heard since childhood: Be yourself. Also, live the life you’re selling, so clients see that you’re an authentic authority on the listings you’re either showing or representing. Many agents already do this, but don’t do it enough.

If you’re an urban specialist helping Gen Y buyers with starter condos in walkable neighborhoods, maybe you publicly eschew a car and use mass transit, bike commute, or use car-share services like Uber, Car2Go, or Zipcar. Navigating town the way your clients might will prove to them that you understand their lifestyle. If you’re building a name for yourself marketing green buildings, maybe you choose an organic cafe for client coffee meetings or sponsor a booth at the local farmers market.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

— Will Rogers Your wardrobe and appearance can also communicate your values, as can your vehicle. If you drive a convertible to a muddy farm, or regularly wedge your outsized SUV into tiny urban parking garages, you’re sending a message to your clients that you don’t live the life you’re selling them. If this begins happening frequently, it’s worth reconsidering whether to replace your vehicle with a different make when the opportunity arises—which, if you lease your vehicle, could be sooner rather than later.

CO-BRANDING Designations can lend your brand credibility, but they’re not the only way to bolster it. You can’t control how consumers will think of your brand, but you can choose how to communicate it.

Brokerage affiliations with reputable firms can help your brand, as can memberships in national or state-level professional organizations.

If you handle listings for new condo buildings or new construction—perhaps as a listing agent for a selection of homes in a forthcoming development—your affiliation with the builders or marketers behind those projects can help build your brand.

Additionally, affiliating your brand with platforms that consumers trust can help you gain credibility with prospective clients or with your listings. Zillow offers tools to help you co-brand your listings and general brand. When a visitor to your website or blog clicks a Zillow link, they will see your branding at the top of each page they visit on Zillow.

CHAPTER 6

Networking Whether you’re working toward a first closing or refining your particular brand as an agent, networking contributes to your success. There are dozens of member-based organizations, events, and digital networking arenas to help you meet and greet.

You are the company you keep. This is true in business, in your social life, at leisure, and even online.

If you’re an agent working to showcase and define your areas of interest and expertise, you’ll need to join professional networks that add legitimacy to your bio or resume while also joining social networks and organizations that let you interact with the populations you intend to nurture for clients. Here’s a look at where to go to grow your networks.

REAL ESTATE ASSOCIATIONS There are dozens of reasons to affiliate with real estate associations—they provide credentials to legitimize your business, a place to learn best practices and swap shop talk, a source of continuing education, discounts to services agents need such as insurance or auto care, and access to statistics to share with clients. Associations can lead to referrals: An agent with a client moving to another part of the country or an individual parachuting into a market may use association affiliations or credentials as a filter for locating an agent in that new market. Plus, association dues are typically deductible as a business expense.

At the national level, many agents become members of the National Association of Realtors® and are thus called Realtors®, a term the organization has trademarked. In addition to organizations like NAR, which has a broad mission and also leads lobbying efforts within the housing and finance markets, there are dozens of other organizations that you can join to show clients special expertise or transaction-related talents. These organizations range from the National Association of Exclusive Buyers Agents, an association whose agents only represent buyers, to the CCIM Institute, where members have completed continuing education to handle commercial and investment deals.

Other national organizations can help you showcase the client demographics you plan to serve. For instance, the Asian Real Estate Association of America supports Asian neighborhood development and includes agents who serve Asian clientele, while the National Association of Gay and Lesbian

Real Estate Professionals supports agents who specialize in this population. Here’s a guide to the many types of associations you can join.

In many communities, you must join a state or regional real estate agent association or NAR branch in order to list your properties with the local multiple listing service. These associations—as with national associations—can also provide valuable resources for agents in the form of local market data and reports, conferences and mixers, and access to continuing education relevant to a given local market.

SUMMITS AND EVENTS Networking at industry conferences and local in-person events is also useful for honing your approach to the market. Zillow Summits held in various cities teach agents best practices, give a local market overview led by a staff economist, highlight new tools for agents, and offer conversation with Zillow executives. Premier Agent summits are for agents already using this advertising program at Zillow, while Zillow Select and Zillow 360 summits provide an overview and future look at how agents can work with Zillow for best results.

Other organizations, ranging from NAR to real estate media organization Inman to real estate research centers at universities within your state offer annual as well as regional, targeted conferences that address topics and audiences ranging from new technologies in real estate to regional issues in real estate to how to become a real estate entrepreneur and practices in urban planning.

DIGITAL NETWORKS There are no less than 25 social networking sites that might make sense for you as a real estate agent, but it’s better to master a few than to execute poorly across all of them. Agents can benefit by participating in social media and digital networks when they share their own (or others’ relevant) expertise, interact and respond to other people’s comments or concerns, and share their successes and listings judiciously.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

— Dale Carnegie

Today’s social media and digital networks are interactive and bi-directional. Agents who just push their product or services at others without listening to or interacting with them aren’t likely to benefit from the medium, while those who take the time to observe the questions, conversation topics, and sentiments of their online peers and respond to them with an authentic voice are much more likely to nurture legitimate relationships within it.

Because real estate is a heavily researched consumer purchase, and consumers consider agents a viable source of advice and information on it, one of the best places to start building your digital footprint is within advice forums. Zillow’s real estate forums allow agents to comment on and answer questions both from consumers in the local or national marketplace and from fellow agents, as does the more general question-and-answer site Quora. A prospective client who sees that you’ve honed your approach to the market a certain way or have a point of view to share based off of recent transactions will trust your authority and begin following you or interacting with you, bookmarking you for future use in a transaction.

Other relevant networks include Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. These sites all offer different opportunities for agents: Pinterest and Facebook offer good environments for showcasing photo-oriented material, while Google+ and Twitter allow for quick sharing of information and near-instant responses to others’ thoughts, moods, and queries. LinkedIn, used by job seekers and for professional networking, is a good place to showcase your credentials and also note job changes and shifts in current or past clients’ lives which might portend relocation.

Participation in these networks is free and you can maintain multiple personae on them. For example, using Facebook both as an individual (Joe Broker) and as a business (Joe Broker Brokerage LLC) with its own page—the latter of which offers analytics and tools that show which posts drew the most response based on time of day or content (photos versus text, for instance). It’s possible to schedule Twitter posts in advance, which can be helpful for efforts like open house promotions or reminders about other news relevant to your practice.

Here are a few tips for nurturing connections across digital networks: • Make it personal, but keep it professional Be professional—positive, rational, approachable—yet also personal. It’s a fine line. Writing “So excited to have a new listing!” on Facebook is a transparent sales pitch, while “So excited to have a new listing in XYZ Neighborhood, seems really up and coming. Who here lives in the area?

I’d love to learn what you like about it so I can share that information at the open house this weekend” lets people know about the listing while also inviting them to share information and, thus, maybe even a few referrals.

• Give and receive: Ask and answer open-ended or opinion questions In fundraising, there’s an old adage: If you want someone’s money, ask for their advice, and if you want someone’s advice, ask for their money. But the kernel of truth tucked into these observations is that if you ask for advice and input from others you gain their trust and, maybe, their business. Letting people share with you is as important as sharing with them in digital media.

• Pace yourself: Jab, jab, jab, right hook The boxing term above comes from the title of social media maven Gary Vaynerchuk’s book on social media. Also known as “Give, Give, Give, Ask,” the rule suggests that when you use social media with a professional agenda, you need to offer useful information to your connections at least three times before dropping a call to action related to your own business. It’s all about engendering trust, so that when you do make a call to action your audience will take it and consider it seriously.

CHAPTER 7

Tracking and Measuring Success It’s tempting to market your business without ever pausing to analyze the results of your marketing efforts, but it’s vital to examine and adjust results if your marketing plan is to sustain and grow your business.

Every marketing plan is different, but evaluating a marketing plan’s impacts should be a fairly clearcut exercise. All real estate agents share the same goal: Locating and eventually converting sales leads, while remaining in contact with prior clients who might offer repeat business or referrals.

Your marketing plan’s success relates to how well it performed in developing and deepening leads over the course of the past year (or your timeframe of choice).

When examining your marketing plan’s efficacy, consider these three questions: • Where did your leads come from?

Did prospective customers appear at open houses? Via friend referrals? Social media? Your website? Did they call after seeing a yard sign? If you’ve tracked all leads using contact management or CRM software, this information should be readily available. Did you expect your leads to materialize where they did? Why or why not? And how will that inform your marketing plan in the future?

• What were your expectations?

If your marketing plan delivered successfully and helped you achieve the goals you set (eight new listing clients, more transactions above a particular price point), what about it was the most successful and can you shift your emphasis toward that part of the plan?

• How will you refine your approach?

If your plan didn’t deliver, how can you change it? Did you set realistic expectations? What results would you consider acceptable, awesome, or unacceptable? Did your plan run into seasonal or marketplace challenges that you could’ve anticipated or that you need to factor into planning near-term?

REVIEW YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN Knowing that consumers overwhelmingly use the Internet to locate potential homes to buy as well as to research the home buying process, most agents make heavy use of digital marketing to reach them. Digital marketing efforts can be deployed quickly, but analyzing results from a sea of available data after the fact can be challenging. The same three questions above apply to analyzing an online marketing plan. However, there are more ways to find out exactly where consumers are on the continuum between “just window shopping” and “ready to enlist an agent.”

Online, you can target and also analyze your leads using tools such as Google Analytics or Facebook Insights to find out about demographic and geographic data, and those who advertise on Zillow via the Premier Agent program can learn how many contacts are viewing listings per month, how many page views listings have generated through searches on Zillow, how many times consumers clicked through to look at full listing details, and how many times your agent profile was viewed. This data can let you know if you’re reaching clients whose age ranges, incomes, or locations match the inventory you’re selling or the audience you hope to serve.

You can also learn a lot about how well your website is performing by understanding its traffic. There are three types of website traffic: • Direct: Someone specifically signed in to your site because they knew of it. Digital marketing experts suggest checking this weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

• Referral-based: A visitor “clicked through” to your site via a partner website such as Zillow or as a result of a social media posting you made. This should be monitored weekly as social media approaches can be adjusted based on traffic.

• Organic: This occurs when a visitor finds your website after performing a keyword search that suggested your site, among many, as a result. This should be checked monthly or quarterly, as search algorithms adjust slowly to content terms on sites.

In addition to understanding website traffic, you’ll want to understand page view trends. How many unique visitors did your website have and how many came back more than once? You’ll also want to double-check your site’s speed and usability: Does it load easily, and can mobile users find you and your listings? On your website, what’s your “funnel”—marketing-speak for the path toward direct contact between a prospect and you. If a prospect came to your site once to look at a particular listing, then came back and read your bio, what could lead them to the contact form or to call?

If you notice that your website gets a lot of browsing prospects but none seem serious just yet, or you’re not sure that keyword advertising is delivering the results you’d expected, spend time analyzing your search engine approach or consider a retargeting campaign that uses digital “cookies” to follow your visitors and remind them at periodic interludes about your services and that lets you adjust digital ads instantaneously.

CONCLUSION Rome wasn’t built in a day—nor was its real estate built, bought, or sold in such a short timeframe.

As an agent, developing a strong marketing practice takes time, but agents who adjust and measure their approaches and use the right tools to achieve their goals find that the return on their marketing investment is more than worth the effort. In a marketplace where consumers are increasingly using the Internet to inform their real estate research, agents need to present themselves to clients where clients are seeking help—whether it’s on a mobile app or a portal site such as Zillow.