In our 2021 Agent Playbook, we identified real estate agents’ 2021 goals and challenges as well as the tactics they’ve used previously to achieve their goals. When we looked at agents’ responses, we found that effective marketing is top of mind for agents looking to win more listings in 2021.
This shows us that while some agents are finding great success from their marketing efforts, many others are struggling to find the resources and identify the tactics that will help them grow their business.
We’re here to help with our best marketing tips for agents to jumpstart 2021 (and a little surprise at the end)!
Refresh Messaging and Materials
A lot changed in 2020, but one thing is clear as we begin navigating 2021: inventory will remain low, resulting in high competition amongst the surplus of agents. So, what makes you stand out? What makes you the best agent to help home buyers and sellers achieve their goals as seamlessly as possible? Answering these questions will be the key to refreshing your messaging and materials to win listings this year.
In our recent survey, having a competitive advantage or offering a variety of services was mentioned enough—both as a challenge and a way to achieve success—to warrant our attention.
With almost 1.5 million REALTORS® across the U.S., competition is fierce, so setting yourself apart with better services and branding is of utmost importance. From providing a pre-listing home improvement solution to specializing and excelling within a niche, agents are finding ways to address seller pain points and provide above-average service. Those that provide more services and find the best way to communicate them to potential clients will be the agents who excel in 2021.
To land on your competitive edge, ask yourself the following questions:
– What pain points are homebuyers and owners facing?
– Are those pain points different in the current economic landscape than they are normally?
– Which additional services can I provide to address these pain points?
– How can I affect the one thing sellers care about most: increasing the sale price?
– How can I concisely explain how working with me, specifically, and gaining access to my suite of services is the best way to buy or sell a home?
If you have a large enough audience, you can fine-tune your messaging through testing. If your audience isn’t quite large enough though, that’s fine! Go with your gut and just listen to what past, current and potential clients are saying. If you want tips for expanding your digital audience, read on.
Get Started on Social Media
In our survey, many agents stated that they didn’t have the funds for marketing efforts, and according to REW’s report, 53 percent of agents spend less than $5,000 on marketing annually.
Social media can seem like a tall mountain to climb, and many platforms have become pay-to-play—but not all of them! You can still get significant reach organically (without draining all of your time) on Instagram and Pinterest. Assuming you’re posting good content with good copy and visuals, it’s all about the hashtags.
You’ll find a lot of advice out there that suggests that you do your research to figure out the best keywords and hashtags to shove into your pins and posts. But this research takes time, especially since there’s no keyword tool for Instagram and Pinterest. So, instead of spending hours trying to figure out which hashtags and keywords will work best, keep it natural—then finish things off by plugging in a few relevant keywords and hashtags that you think the Pinterest community may be interested in.
Take a look at this pin. We shared it back in September, then sat back to see what would happen. A few months later, we noticed more traffic coming in from Pinterest, and we found the pin had gotten “picked up.” We did include keywords (like Dream Fireplace) and hashtags, but those keywords and tags were chosen based on industry knowledge, not SEO expertise.
This pin didn’t require hours of keyword research, time out of our schedules to interact with other Pinterest users or any ad spend—yet it’s getting thousands of impressions each month and a decent number of clicks (and it’s only gaining more traction)!
In summary, use hashtags and vary them, but don’t feel the need to do hours of research to find the right hashtags. Just use your industry knowledge to land on the right terms.
Introduce Tools to Increase List Price
At the end of the day, your sellers will be more likely to refer you to friends and family if you can achieve their target list price. The easiest way to sell for more, of course, is to make smart pre-listing home improvements that add value. You might be wary about suggesting pre-listing home improvements because you’ve been down the path before—and it ultimately resulted in you spending hours of your time managing projects.
With Curbio, you won’t need to take any time out of your day to manage projects for sellers. Our project managers are full-time Curbio employees who value the trust we’ve built with over 500 agents through 1,000-plus successful projects. They’ll save you hours of project management time and help you maximize your sellers’ happiness and profit. Your sellers will walk away from the closing table overjoyed because Curbio’s pay-at-closing model allowed them to significantly increase their profit without any upfront cash—and they’ll thank you with a lifetime of referrals!
We’re happy to share our best marketing tips for agents, but we aren’t stopping there.
By partnering with Curbio, you already get a leg up in your marketing by providing a higher level of service and listing better—and now, we’re sweetening the deal. We’re providing marketing assistance through various means, including a $500 cash card for your marketing expenses. You’ll receive the $500 cash card for each project that you receive an estimate for before the end of March 2021. Learn more about the how and why behind this marketing assistance program here.
Olivia Mariani is the director of Marketing at Curbio. To learn more about Curbio’s pre-listing home improvement solution and how it can help you grow your business, visit curbio.com.
