Every real estate agency needs a solid marketing plan in order to be successful. Ensuring you have one will not only draw in potential partners, clients and tenants but will also encourage them to keep coming back to a brand they can trust. But what constitutes a successful marketing plan?
Plan, Plan and Plan
The key thing to always consider when beginning a marketing plan is to ask yourself: “What are my objectives here, and how am I going to measure them?”
Having a clearly planned out vision of what you want to achieve, as well as having specific measures to know if you have met your initial goals, is vital. Some simple metrics to measure a successful marketing scheme may include total visits, total sales, total marketing costs or cost per lead.
The importance of each metric will vary depending on what you want to achieve from your marketing plan, so make sure you are measuring what you need for the type of success you want.
Alongside a clear list of goals, you should also bear in mind your intended audience and expected returns on your investment.
You may also have a hundred great ideas floating around about how you intend to reach those goals, but a good marketing scheme ensures that only the best ideas are plucked and put into an easily digestible tactical action plan.
Other important things to consider in these early planning stages are the tools you will need to build the marketing plan itself, specific technologies you may have to use, as well as a clear understanding of your total budget and timeline.
A bad plan, or worse, no plan at all can make or break a marketing plan, so make sure you strategise accordingly before leaping into action.
Quality Photos Need Quality Content
You may not think it, but good photography and high-quality photos can really help you draw in your audience. Similarly, poor photography and low-quality photos can have the opposite effect.
A bad photo gives your audience a negative impression of the overall property, or worse, a bad photo could stop prospects from wanting to check out your property at all. It’s a competitive market out there, and you don’t want something as simple as a low-quality image stopping you from reaching your audience.
But while an eye-catching image may initially draw people in, you’re going to need quality written content to keep them there. A good copy needs to quickly and efficiently tell its audience the benefits of choosing this property and not another. Failure to do so, or not including the essentials such as location, room sizes and cost, can and will cost potential clients.
These potential clients will also want an easy way to contact you if they are interested, so make sure this process is as easy and as transparent as possible. A client may have several properties they are interested in, but if they are wasting their time fumbling through web pages and directories trying to find a way to get in touch, they are likely going to just forget you and focus on the other properties on their list.
To avoid this, make sure your site and other marketing material you may have includes easily noticeable contact methods. Don’t just include a telephone number; many people may be inclined to email you as a first step rather than sit through a telephone call.
Don’t stop there either. Make sure your site pages have links to get in touch with someone in your office or download a document that can provide more information. When a client wants to know more, making it as painless for them as possible is vital.
Your Audience Is Key
Finally, while you may have an idea of your target audience, do you really know enough to ensure you’re actually reaching the right people?
Say for example you send out 1000 emails to potential clients, how do you ensure you get the best response rate from them? The answer is to segment your audience into even smaller groups who you can then specifically target to ensure greater chances of a response.
Remember, relevant emails need to be aimed at the relevant people, or they will likely just be put into the junk folder among many other marketing emails.
You more than anyone want your marketing plan to succeed, so make sure to bear these tips in mind to ensure all your hard-earned time and money doesn’t go to waste.