How to Market to Drive 50-100 Buyers Through Your Listings Per Month

I feel marketing may be the most underused, misunderstood, and underappreciated thing in real estate. Most REALTORS® use traditional methods of marketing such as advertisements in newspapers and magazines and calling the neighbors. I believe the traditional marketing methods do not drive enough traffic to effectively sell a house.

LEARN HOW TO MARKET YOUR LISTINGS

So when I talk about marketing for listings, I’m talking about getting more potential buyers through the house. For example, if the listing is under a million dollars I’m expecting 50 to 75 people through the house in the first thirty days and if the listing is a million dollars then I’m expecting 25 to 50 people. 

From the many mastermind groups I’ve been through, I’ve learned that REALTORS® spend the least amount of their marketing budget truly trying to target buyers to sell that house! Versus market tactics that benefit the listing agent or market to other REALTORS®. This is a huge differentiation because the reality is buyers are now shopping without an agent. As a result, REALTORS® need to be doing direct-to-consumer advertising.

CONSUMER MARKETING

So, how do I respond if someone says to me, “Jeff, the newspaper is direct to consumer advertising”? Yes, it is, except do buyers look through the newspaper to find a house? The answer is a big fat “NO”.

Where do 90% of buyers start their search process? Online! If you’re looking through the aggregators, meaning those websites that are online that are getting the most amount of traffic, it’s going to be sites like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and Realtor.com. Of course, you can buy premier ads on any of these websites, but there are different things that you can do to make sure your listings stand out to make sure you’re getting the most amount of traffic. Most believe that there’s just general search traffic. Yes there is, but that’s also hard to master because that’s owned by the consumer. You also need to consider all the different types of ways people search for a house.

HOW TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR LISTINGS

Are you doing a good job marketing your listings for sale? On average, are you driving 30 to 50 people through a house each month? How are you going to drive traffic to your listings? 

The first part to answer these questions is understanding consumer behavior and realizing that consumer behavior is changing. When I first became a REALTOR® in 2003, the consumer contacted an agent 90% of the time before going to see a house because there was not enough information online. Well, now all the information is online. So how do you drive that consumer from what it sees online to come through the front door of your listing? It’s not just one simple thing, it’s many things that you have to pay attention to.

The first thing is I think it’s time for agents to stop trying to solely pitch to sellers, that they need to do advertising to reach buyers online. Secondly, like I previously mentioned are the aggregators, but there’s also the search process meaning Bing, Google, Facebook, and Instagram, which are all avenues to reach buyers.