Real Estate Marketing Plan Template & Strategy Guide

Businesses in the real estate industry are constantly looking for new ways to improve their marketing strategies. This can be challenging because many firms lack the resources needed to create a comprehensive plan, so it’s important that they consider how they will stay ahead of this growing trend while still staying within budget constraints.

To market oneself as a real estate expert successfully, you’ll need a real estate marketing strategy. It entails determining broad and particular marketing objectives, developing a budget, and thoroughly analyzing your target audience, agricultural region, and competitors. You may then create a unique selling proposition, set a deadline, and put your strategy into action.

Free real estate marketing plan template.

We created a free real estate marketing strategy template to help you create a plan to advertise and develop your firm. Use the form to plan out your marketing tactics, revenue objectives, and schedule.

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1. Identify Your Overall Objectives & Goals

A realtor marketing strategy should be included in your entire real estate business plan and should correspond to the techniques you want to use in order to build a profitable company. The following elements should be included in your business plan:

• SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
• Goals for your real estate business that are specific and quantifiable
• Metrics for determining or proving success
• Marketing methods and strategy
• Strategy for generating and nurturing leads
• Targeted income

Setting initial objectives might be challenging if you are new to the real estate market and have no prior experience or data to draw on. Having said that, you may still make educated guesses and create realistic objectives and expectations for yourself.

Inquire with a mentor or coworker about their first year in real estate and how far they got in terms of completing transactions, marketing, and generating leads. If they agree, inquire about the difference between what they earned and what they expected to earn. This will offer you a rough concept of how to set your objectives while staying within industry guidelines for first-year real estate agents.

Do your homework. Indeed.com, for example, displays the average income of numerous professions, including real estate brokers in the United States. Results are also shown in terms of years of expertise, and if you establish a free account, you may filter your search by state. Real estate-specific websites, such as NAR.com, also provide substantial articles and statistics on real estate agent wages.

A major component of your overall business plan objectives and goals is your Targeted income. According to ZipRecruiter, the national average salary for a first-year real estate agent is about $88,000, but this number varies based on state, location within the state, and median home prices in the area.

The good news for first-year realtors, according to a McKissock study, is that your income is likely to double in the second year. Whatever your overall Targeted income is, it ties directly into your real estate agent marketing plan because, without income, you will not be able to afford business and marketing expenses.

If you’ve been in the business for a long, you should have plenty of data and experience to draw on when determining your objectives for the future year. Review your past year’s objectives to see which techniques worked, what you accomplished, and what you need to change for the new year. You’ll be able to modify your marketing strategy to harmonize with your overarching aims if you grasp your general company goals and what you’d want to accomplish in the next year.

2. Identify broad marketing objectives

It’s time to define basic marketing objectives for your real estate firm now that you’ve set your overall business goals, including revenue. These are intended to serve as an overview so that you may write down your precise objectives and how to attain them.

Goal-setting examples of marketing channels to prioritize (Source: Smartinsights.com)

To acquire the most exposure for your brand, you should plan to use a variety of channels and methods. However, you should divide these objectives by marketing strategies and channels employed, such as print materials, internet advertisements, email, and so on, so that your goals and metrics are extremely clear.

Create quantifiable objectives for each of the following channels and decide how you want to use them. Your goal statement should include how you want to achieve the objective and how you intend to track your progress.

If you’re a rookie agent, your objectives should be more broad until you have a deeper grasp of your industry. Experienced agents, on the other hand, may set targets based on the prior year’s achievements. Take a look at the following samples for some ideas:

Goals of a Real Estate Marketing Plan Example

With an all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing system, Market Leader can help you with both online and print marketing media. To monitor your success with leads and client conversions, they link with over 40 third-party lead sources including Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. Additionally, the marketing suite capabilities enable you to construct a website, share content on social media and deliver print materials instantly via Shutterfly. It also links to your local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), allowing you to transmit listings as part of your marketing materials.

3. Projected Marketing Budget Estimation

Budget for marketing as an example (Source: ZipperAgent)

The majority of agents spend roughly 10% of their net revenue on marketing. New agents may only devote $1,000—or perhaps less—to marketing techniques if they haven’t closed any sales yet. As your real estate expertise grows and you start to generate more money, you may raise your marketing budget proportionately.

All marketing efforts, including print and online approaches like social media, signs, newsletters, postcards, Google advertisements, and so on, should be included in your budget. You want the greatest services for your company, but you also want pricing that is within your budget. To develop a vendor comparison, consider looking at several vendor possibilities.

For example, if you want to buy leads from Zillow Premier Agent or REDX, do some research to evaluate the features and cost of each lead-generating provider to see which is a better match for your business objectives. Take a look at the table below for a comparison.

REDX is designed for seasoned real estate professionals who specialize in foreclosure, expired, and for-sale-by-owner leads. The Vortex CRM is offered as an organization tool for managing your leads, and since the leads are exclusive, there’s a better chance of them converting.

Zillow Premier Agent might be ideal for novice agents seeking for low-cost leads to get their feet wet, as well as agents with unique properties they want to promote and generate leads from. Choose the one that is best for your company and include it in your real estate marketing budget.

4. Know Your Geographic Farm Area Data & Identify Your Target Audience

The ZIP code, town, or city where you will concentrate the bulk of your marketing efforts is referred to as a geographic farm area. You must employ regional and demographic data to drive your marketing tactics and speak to your area of expertise if your marketing strategy is to be successful. You will be better able to appeal to your core audience via your marketing materials and convert them more efficiently if you grasp the fundamental composition of your market.

Choose a real estate area comprising of one or two areas, such as the Lower East Side or East Village, rather than targeting all of Manhattan. This enables you to identify your target audience in that place, promote directly to their interests, become an expert in architecture, restaurants, and events, and, as a result, convert customers more effectively.

Claritas divided groupings in the East Village, New York (ZIP code 10009)

Free data about your target agricultural area may be available on websites like Claritas.com or City-Data.com, where you can explore individual ZIP codes to acquire a complete picture of the region and start segmenting your audience. Creating segmented groups will boost response rates, set your company apart from the competition, attract your ideal customers, and boost brand loyalty.

You’ll be able to build marketing materials that appeal directly to their interests while producing your marketing materials. Each group’s resources will vary in terms of phrasing, visuals, and media, so you’ll need to change appropriately.

If your farm area is the East Village, for example, you may divide your audience into “Aspiring A-Listers,” according to Claritas. These are individuals who are characterized as “Young Digerati,” who are rich younger people, typically with children, and “Lower-Middle Scale” older people without children.

Focus on roommates and freshly graduated students migrating to the region for a career who are wanting to rent rather than purchase for “Aspiring A-Listers.” Consider working with local pubs, restaurants, and brand-name retailers to attract this market, since they are focused on their social life.

Focus on people who have lived and worked in New York City for many years and are ready to upgrade to a bigger house to target the “Young Digerati” group. Use rapid response (aka QR) codes, and digital advertisements over print ads, and concentrate your marketing efforts on fashionable businesses since they are often eco-friendly and tech-savvy.

Home Prices & Market Trends

Knowing the housing prices in your agricultural region puts you miles ahead of the competition, demonstrating your experience and enabling you to talk to your target demographic with confidence. You’ll be able to direct buyer and renter customers to the ideal area depending on their budget, as well as aid sellers in pricing their houses appropriately so they may sell fast.

You may look at Redfin’s thorough reports to discover what’s going on in your neighborhood. The following is an example of the East in Manhattan, New York City:

Redfin’s home prices and market trends

Demographics of the Area

Knowing the demographics of your target location, in addition to house pricing and market trends, confirms your position as the local expert. It also guides the creation of your marketing plan, ensuring that your real estate branding, tagline, logo, and other marketing materials appeal to your target demographic.

For example, knowing that the majority of your population is 48 years old on average, married, and has a median salary of $119,000 shows that they are not likely first-time homebuyers. Here are some demographics for the East Village, ZIP code 10009, from City-Data.com as an example of a more in-depth, data-based example:

• Males make up 46.8% of the population.
• Females make up 53.2 percent of the population.
• 57.5 percent have never married.
• 28.0 percent are now married.
• 2.3 percent of the population is separated.
• Widowed people make up 5.3 percent of the population.
• 6.9% of the population is divorced.
• The average inhabitant is 37.4 years old.
• The average number of rooms in an apartment is 3.5.
• The average size of a household is 1.9 individuals.
• $66,626 is the estimated median household income.
• Accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, and real estate and rental and leasing are the top industries in ZIP code.

Make the best decision for your marketing strategy based on these data. In other words, limiting your marketing to roommates and couples in the East Village area may give excellent results if the average number of rooms is 3.5, the average size family is 1.9 persons, and 57.5 percent have never been married.

Types of Clients to Target

Once you have a good grasp of your target market, create client personas to acquire a better picture of your ideal customers. A persona is a made-up character that represents the traits of your ideal or average customer. You need to know the common attributes and characteristics of the people in your agricultural region in order to target a particular audience with real estate marketing materials that will interest and engage them.

Keep the target persona in mind while generating videos, writing listing descriptions, designing flyers, postcards, social posts, and advertising, or other real estate marketing materials. Here are some examples of customer personas to get you started:

For their careers, a couple from Boston is moving to New York City (NYC). They’re searching for a house with enough space for one of them to work from home and are considering establishing a family. They want to be near to parks and the train so they can commute to work in NYC. They want an apartment building with pre-war traits and prefer to live on the second or third level.

• Relocating to New York City
• Age: 25-40
• $400,000 in total income
• First-time homebuyers have a unique set of circumstances when it comes to selling their home.
• Family size: two, however, there may be a need for more room due to children.
• Restaurants, foodies, comedy clubs, charity volunteers, and shopping are all common hobbies.

An elderly guy who had resided in the East Village for decades with his wife but had lately been widowed. His children have moved out of the house, and he owns another property on Cape Cod that he wishes to live in full-time. His East Village apartment has risen greatly in value over the last 40 years, and he wants to sell it for the top price, despite his personal attachment to the property.

• For the last 40 years, he has owned an apartment in the East Village.
• Age: 60-70
• Retired with a $100,000 annual fixed income
• Owns multiple homes and is a first-time or second-time seller.
• Widower; children are no longer living at home.
• Bird watching, reading, sailing, and antiques are all common pastimes.

Two young ladies who graduated from New York University, one of whom began working as a server at a prominent restaurant while attending graduate school, and the other of whom work at a Midtown East marketing agency. They opted to live together in the East Village after graduation since they are acquainted with the region from their time at New York University. They can’t afford a separate apartment right now, so they’re searching for a two-bedroom near public transit.

• From New Jersey, I moved to New York City for employment and study.
• Age: 21-26
• $100,000 in total income
• Never leased or acquired a home before selling it.
• 2 people in the family
• Nightlife, foodies, family-owned enterprises, pets, studying, and music are all common interests and pastimes.

Use your client personas to make sure you’re marketing to your target demographic effectively and precisely. For one reason, that is what they like. According to HubSpot, a tailored message is considerably more enticing to 90 percent of customers, and 80 percent feel it makes them more likely to convert. This requires customizing marketing materials like email drip campaigns, social media advertisements, and farm postcards to reach your target market.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software such as LionDesk may help you organize and classify your personalities. You may divide your buyers, sellers, renters, investors, and others into distinct pipelines and send automatic emails to each group using LionDesk. To boost lead conversion rates, you may send tailored messages and information to certain target audiences in this manner.

5. Examine the competition in the market

It’s improbable that you’ll be the only real estate agent in your farm’s neighborhood. Examine your competition to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of other brokerages and individual agents in your area. Examining how your competitors advertise within your agricultural region can help you choose where to focus your efforts.

Take a drive or a bike ride around your target neighborhood, noting any real estate marketing activities that you see. Find out who is supporting events and advertising in local retailers and restaurants by doing some investigation. Take your study to the computer after you have a broad notion, such as real estate brokers who are directing people to specific landing sites reflective of your farm region or who are reaching out to them via social media advertisements and content.

Competition in Brokerage

The brokerage with which your license is associated speaks a lot about your own company. Examine your sponsoring brokerage: is it a big-box or a niche operation? Do they primarily deal with buyers and sellers, or do they also work with renters? Is their portfolio mostly comprised of business or residential listings? Find comparable brokerages in your region after you’ve figured out the answers to these questions.

Comparing other brokerages to yours can help you learn how theirs differs from yours. Take a look at the things below:

• Each month, the average number of listings is
• This year, a number of transactions were completed.
• The average cost of a listing
• Percentage of MLS listings
• Property types that are served
• Their purpose, principles, and objectives
• At the brokerage, how many real estate agents work?
• Brokerage is a specialization.

After you’ve obtained this data, go through your brokerage’s strengths and limitations to determine how you can make the most of its uniqueness. For example, if your brokerage is a boutique business with 30 agents and there is a major brokerage in the region with 500 agents, consumers wanting customized attention may choose your boutique firm. If a rival specialized in high-rise rental buildings while your brokerage mostly represents single-family houses, your intended customer base will be very different.

Competition for Individual Agents

After you’ve examined brokerages, you’ll want to look into the activities and marketing techniques of individual agents. Your competition, particularly if they are performing well in the market, is likely to have some distinct advantages. Knowing what your strengths are can help you with self-evaluation and company development. Keep an eye out for the following strategies:

• Examine your competitor’s website for structure and style, as well as what features are included in the website that may be generating leads. Also, check to see whether you get advertising that retargets you on other websites after you visit, as well as what sorts of ads you receive.
• Listings: Look at your rivals’ listings on sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and others to see how they put up their listings, what kind of wording and photos they use, and what they could be doing properly to attract customers to your region.
• Examine your rivals’ social media accounts, especially on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, for postings and adverts. Check to see whether they publish listings, and walk-through videos, have large followings, and engage with prospective clients on social media.
• Look at what keywords your rivals are targeting in their advertisements and what kind of advertising they are utilizing to generate leads in your region using Google ads.
• Take a snapshot of any real estate competition advertising you encounter in print and consider what sorts of outlets are bringing them results and who they are reaching out to.
• Design for a specific theme or look that appeals to local shoppers or merchants while looking at signs and enormous billboards promoting rival services.
• Pay attention to what kind of branding works in your region when it comes to slogans and taglines.

What your competition is doing incorrectly is not usually a visible error, but rather a deficiency. Real estate marketing flaws allow you to profit from the flaws of even the most successful agents in the area. If an agent, for example, does not communicate with local companies on social media, this is something you can do to set yourself apart.

If you see that your rivals aren’t providing a necessary or specialty service, make sure you are and include it as a strategy in your firm. A close evaluation of your rivals’ efforts can reveal flaws in their marketing techniques that may be used as the foundation of your real estate marketing strategy.

6. Figure out what makes you stand out from the crowd.

You should have a good idea of what holes in the market you can fill and how you can fill them after researching the regional and demographic environment and analyzing your competitors. Utilize what you’ve learned to identify your unique selling proposition and provide something new to the marketplace.

Taking advantage of a competitor’s flaws may make a big impact right away. Make virtual tours of listings a part of your real estate marketing strategy if other real estate agents and brokerages in the region don’t. Create a website or channel to exhibit your video gallery and upload virtual video tours for each listing using YouTube or Matterport. Send out email campaigns with a link to your virtual tour films, which you can then use during listing presentations.

Reach out to that niche if there’s a gap in the market for a certain house type or target demographic. If your real estate expertise is foreclosure listings, for example, your marketing materials should target investors, house flippers, and other potential buyers of foreclosure homes. Create marketing materials with instructional information to help folks who wish to enter this industry learn more.

Having a strategic plan that includes your value proposition will also help you craft marketing materials to reflect your unique position amongst your peers.

7. Establish Timeline & Set Your Plan in Motion

Now that you’ve gathered all of the necessary elements for a successful real estate marketing campaign, it’s time to put your plans into action. Even when using the greatest real estate marketing methods, solid structure and consistency are essential. A marketing calendar may help you stay on track to fulfill your objectives.

Social media postings, events, email newsletters, postcard mailings, and everything else you utilize to generate leads should all be on your schedule. While you won’t be able to complete everything right away, prioritize the most crucial tasks to get your name and business in front of as many people as possible. These include things like your logo, motto, headshots, and business cards, as well as your internet presence (e.g., website, social media profiles, and listing website profiles).

To be consistent with social media posting, create your own schedule or utilize an automatic posting service like Artur’In. To automate email campaigns, create reminders in your customer relationship manager (CRM). Consider adding new techniques and methods throughout the year so you don’t feel rushed to finish everything on your marketing strategy at once.

An example of a Placester webpage

Consider using an all-in-one CRM and marketing lead generation firm like Placester for bigger tasks like your website, landing pages, and lead capturing tools. Placester was created with real estate professionals in mind. For busy agents, it features a plug-and-play website builder, automated processes, and auto-responders. Placester’s simple interface and low cost enable agents to get their marketing campaigns up and running quickly.

8. Track Your Progress & Readjust as Needed

Your real estate marketing strategy should not be a one-and-done activity; it should be a dynamic document that evolves over time. Review your plan at least once a quarter to keep track of your progress and make any necessary changes. If you find that your objectives are too high or not lofty enough as the year progresses, feel free to adjust and reorganize them to meet your real estate company.

Consider hiring a real estate marketing firm to help you examine or adjust your strategy and track your results.

Conclusion

Individual agents, teams, and brokerages alike need a comprehensive plan for real estate success. It needs to include specific, measurable goals and strategies to reach its intended audience, build its brand, and ultimately, achieve its targeted income.