Millenial Marketing: How Young Real Estate Professionals are Finding New Clients

Success in the competitive real estate market frequently depends on your capacity to properly market both yourself and your properties. Marketing yourself encompasses more than simply real estate; it also involves selling a way of life, creating rapport, and forging a powerful personal brand.

We’ll look at the key approaches and techniques real estate agents may employ to succeed in the always changing world of marketing.

Step #1. Understand Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is essential before implementing marketing methods. Are first-time homebuyers, empty-nesters, or investors your main clientele? Each group has specific requirements and tastes. You’ll get better results if you target these particular demographics with your marketing.

Knowing where your customers are is essential to effective marketing but avoid making the mistake of assuming that if you’re mostly targeting older customers, you have nothing to study from younger professionals in your field.

According to the Pew Research Center, the share of those 65 and older who are digitally active has grown in the past century. While those 65 and older also were the least likely of any age group to say they use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, still nearly half (45%) reported using some form of social media.

Social media activity among Americans 65 and older has grown fourfold since 2010, while use by the youngest people remained fairly constant in that timeframe. Since 2010, the distance between people under 30 and people 65 and older shrank from 71 points to 39 points.

Social media will only become more significant each year, even for those selling to a more mature audience.

Step #2. Build a Robust Online Brand

In the modern age, some net presence has become critical. Begin with a personal, focused website that showcases the areas you specialize in, a bit about yourself, listings, and customer testimonials.

Even if your brokerage provides a simple site, having your own can help you stand out and bring even more customers directly to you. With service like Squarespace and Wix, it’s easier than ever to create a simple, personal website.

If you’re eager for an extra step that will help draw in even more traffic, optimize your website for search engines (SEO) to ensure potential clients can find you easily. While SEO techniques can be complicated, even just doing a few simple things to get started can help tremendously:

• Build and foster a social media presence.
• Watching YouTube clips on SEO for beginners to help you.
• Take advantage of any tutorials your web host (Squarespace or Wix) has on the topic.
• Do some keyword research for your area to see what users are searching for.
• Develop long form content, such as blogs, for buying/ selling in your area.
• Use your best keywords in popular places, such as your page titles.

Content Marketing

Blogging and content development can establish you as a thought leader and expert in your area. Write articles on topics like home-buying tips, industry trends, community spotlights and in-depth guides to the homebuying process.

Once created, reveal these on your website and social media stations, as well as emailing them out to your contact list to give value to your audience.

Social Media

Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to connect with potential customers and other experts in the industry. Share helpful content, engaging photos, and updates about your property listings.

If you’re new to social media and uncertain where to start, just follow different real estate professionals to see what they’re doing well and include some of their techniques. Playing “follow the leader” is one of the best ways to understand what works with your audience.

Social media is mainly about connecting and helping people feel comfortable with you – be yourself and share a mix of industry insights as well as “casual professional” personal information.

This means nothing overly specific or personal, but about the same level as what you would communicate with employees or co-workers. Community activities, family news, trips and achievements all serve to provide people with a feeling of who you are as a person.

For example, if you share the birth of a child or grandchild, a trip abroad, or the completion of a marathon or 5K, that would all help your audience bond with you as a person. Sharing personal gripes or your thoughts on politics and news might alienate a lot of your audience. Following general rules for polite conversation even on social media will serve you well.

Email Marketing

Build and maintain an email list to retain customers and inform them about new listings, industry trends, and business insights. Customize your emails as much as possible for a more personalized approach.

You can send these out personally, or as your list grows, use a service like MailChimp that allows you greater capabilities, including sending out a personalized email batch in as long as it takes to click “send.”

This helps you maintain a regular connection with customers old and new, so ideally, they will maintain you top of mind for any referral possibilities or their next real estate purchase.

Step #3. Create Visual Content

Real estate is a very visual field. It isn’t enough to just talk about some of these properties or topics, and high- quality photos and videos will help you achieve effective results.

Investing in a quality smartphone, and improving your photography skills (again, YouTube tutorials will come in handy for this) will pay off– literally.

Particularly for social media updates, you don’t always need professional photography and videography to showcase properties in their best light. While those have their place in your marketing plan, when you’re trying to get a home in front of your audience as soon as possible, you’ll want to make sure you can immediately post flattering photos.

Many real estate agents even find success with video marketing. Investing in a camera and ring lighting for your smartphone means you can quickly create simple video content which allows you to talk about local trends, meeting area real estate experts and even getting customer testimonials to communicate across Instagram, Facebook and yet TikTok.

Many real estate agents set up weekly video content to help them stay on a schedule and give their audience something to look forward to. This could be a tour where they take you through one of their listings, or even interview local real estate-adjacent businesses, such as home inspectors or mortgage brokers.

Step #4. Create a Powerful Story

Every house and real estate professional has a story to tell.  Create compelling narratives around yourself and your listings to engage an audience and grow your personal brand.

No matter what method you’re using to market your home, use photos, videos and written articles to show distinctive features, community perks, and the lifestyle a buyer may enjoy in that home.

Narrative helps potential buyers connect emotionally with a house. If you can display to them what living in that home will feel like, it’s a lot easier to sell the potential of a property. This especially comes in handy with homes where a little more imagination is needed to see what a property could be.

Step #5. Don’t Stop Networking

Networking is a core of the real estate business. Just like you would at local events, it’s necessary to put yourself out there when using social media.

Social media is a great way to build relationships with another agents, mortgage brokers, companies, and home inspectors. These connections may provide referrals and valuable perspectives.

The best way to build social media connections is to pursue other experts and participate with their articles. This means “liking” and commenting on others ‘posts, and maybe even reaching out to do some collaborative content.

If you want your customers to know more about the home inspection method, for example, you may question a native trustworthy company and post a video of the conversation.

Likewise, if you’re in local community groups on Facebook or NextDoor, when someone is asking for real estate recommendations, you could offer yourself as a reference. You can also encourage current clients to “tag” your social media account when they see these posts from friends and neighbors.

Step #6. Track Your Results

It’s important to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing efforts so you know where to direct your focus. Use indicators like web traffic, lead transition rates, and social media engagement, and then modify your strategies based on what’s working.

For example, if you notice particular social media content or themes are getting more likes or engagement than your standard posts, you can ascertain that type of content resonates with customers. Finally, by producing more of that content, you can generate more and grow your audience over time.

Final Thoughts

Real estate is a continually evolving industry, so online marketing strategies are a vital part of having a successful profession. To stand out in a competitive marketplace, real estate agents must understand their audience, and get some signals from those who are new in the industry. By mastering the art of marketing, established real estate agents can develop their brand, get clients, and prosper in this dynamic industry.