The real estate game has changed more in the past year than at any other time in recent history. To become (and remain) a top producer in today’s evolving landscape, you need an ironclad real estate marketing plan. This plan is the foundation of your marketing: a comprehensive document detailing your audience, strategy, budget, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
We’ve carefully honed our marketing strategies while helping the more than 45,000 real estate professionals we’re proud to call current clients navigate these choppy waters. We’re sharing our expert tactics so that you can build an effective real estate marketing plan of your own — the first step for every subsequent leap forward in your career.
What is a real estate marketing plan?
A real estate marketing plan details your overall business strategy — the information that you need in order to create your unique selling point (USP) and build your brand. It contains key market data, audience demographics, KPIs, and your budget.
When hunting for new business, many agents rely on legacy tactics like cold calls, newspaper ads, and door-knocking. These prospecting activities can be effective, but they just aren’t as powerful as they once were.
In today’s real estate world, 97% of homebuyers search for listings online, which is also where most of them do their due diligence research on agents and their reputations. In the eight years we’ve been helping transform agents into top producers, the number one mistake we see is not having a clear, unified real estate marketing plan that reflects the current dominance of digital marketing.
Remember, while your brand is who you are, what you do, and your value to your community, your marketing is how you reach your audience and the vehicle you use to communicate that brand identity.
8 steps to create your real estate marketing plan
1. Identify a profitable target audience
You can’t design a marketing plan without knowing your ideal potential client. While this may sound like a simple concept, agents often underestimate this step.
It’s not enough to jot down “first-time homebuyers in New York” and cross this step off your list. You need to consider many factors: age, gender, income, pain points, desires, and buying habits—it’s all consequential.
When leading our clients through building a real estate marketing plan, we use the PFDD framework, which helps them identify their target market’s pain, fears, dreams, and desires. The more detail you add, the easier it is to create hyper-relevant offers and marketing that drives conversions.
2. Gather intelligence on your competition
Understanding your competition is key to establishing your niche in the local real estate market. It’s important to evaluate their successes and reverse-engineer them to benefit your business. Below, we’ve outlined three simple tactics you can use to gather competitor insights for your real estate marketing plan.
Identify and research your competition
Make a list of your direct competitors—ideally those offering similar services in your immediate area. Then assess their online presence to understand who their potential customers are. Reading your competitors’ online advertising will reveal the offers they use and the place they want to occupy in the market. Both are vital to finding missed opportunities. Keyword research helps you uncover the terms your competitors rank for and the marketing messages they’re using to target clients.
Complete a 4 Ps analysis
You can use the proven framework of the 4 Ps of Marketing (aka the marketing mix) to assess each competitor on your list. Do a deep analysis of how your competition is conducting their marketing efforts related to the 4 Ps so that you can differentiate your brand, use what works, and learn from what doesn’t. Here’s an example of how a 4 Ps analysis of a competitor might look:
- Product: Our competitor offers a diverse range of properties, including residential, commercial, and industrial spaces. They focus on providing properties with unique features and amenities to cater to various market segments. Their portfolio includes luxury homes, affordable housing options, and well-equipped commercial spaces, ensuring they meet the diverse needs and preferences of potential buyers or tenants.
- Price: Our competitor employs a dynamic pricing strategy, considering factors such as market demand, property value, and location attractiveness. They adjust their prices strategically to remain competitive while maximizing profitability. By offering competitive prices and flexible payment options, they aim to appeal to a broad range of customers and capitalize on market opportunities.
- Place: Our competitor strategically selects properties in prime locations, leveraging high-demand areas and emerging markets. They utilize a multi-channel distribution approach, including online platforms, real estate agents, social media, and physical marketing materials. This ensures maximum visibility and accessibility for potential buyers or tenants, facilitating easier property discovery and engagement.
- Promotion: Our competitor invests in comprehensive promotional campaigns to create awareness and generate interest in their properties. They utilize a mix of digital marketing strategies, such as targeted advertising, email marketing, and SEO, to reach their target audiences. Additionally, they organize open houses, networking events, and collaborations with influencers to showcase their properties and build credibility in the market.
Run a SWOT exercise
Running the data you gathered in the last step through the SWOT framework enables you to discern competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Strengths: These are internal factors that give a real estate business an advantage over others. For example, a strong brand reputation, an experienced team, and high-quality properties are all advantages a company can leverage to attract more customers.
- Weaknesses: These are internal factors that may hinder a real estate company’s success. Examples might include a limited marketing budget, lack of technological infrastructure, or limited geographical reach.
- Opportunities: These are external factors that a strong marketing strategy could exploit to its advantage, such as growing market demand, emerging technology, or regulatory changes.
- Threats: These external factors pose challenges to success, such as an economic downturn, increased competition, or other issues beyond one’s control.
It is also beneficial to conduct a SWOT analysis of your own business, identifying opportunities for growth and protections for potential threats. While a SWOT analysis is commonly used when developing a business plan, it can also add a level of nuance to your real estate marketing plan.
3. Uncover your brand’s differentiator
Your unique selling proposition (USP) amplifies what makes you special and uses it to fuel the growth of your real estate business. Not having a USP is a key reason why some real estate agents cannot attract their ideal clients and are outclassed by competitors. If you lack a clear understanding of your unique qualities, your target audience will, too.
Below, we’ve outlined our proven process for developing a powerful USP that’ll resonate with potential customers:
- Make a detailed list of the benefits you provide.
- Identify your prospects’ major pain points.
- Define exactly how you solve the problems of your target audience.
Remember, markets constantly evolve, and so should your messaging. Revisiting your USP will ensure you stay relevant to your target audience.
4. Clarify your marketing message
Developing consistent messages that resonate with your clients at an emotional level across all marketing channels ensures your target audience not only understands your brand, but trusts it.
Next, formulate messaging according to this general template, keeping your PFDD in mind:
- Connect with pain: Use the insights you gained to highlight your audience’s struggles and demonstrate you understand their experiences.
- Sell the benefits: Explain why choosing you will improve their lives.
- Tell your story: Sharing your background and values provides your potential clients with the information they need to connect with you and your real estate business.
- Make it visual: Adding visuals, like video, images, and infographics to your messaging, is a powerful way to enhance the impact it has on your potential client and increase your results.
- Build trust: People put a lot of faith into the positive experiences of others. Using client testimonials is one of the easiest ways to enhance trust.
Now that you understand these messaging best practices, you can build persuasive marketing materials for your real estate business that’ll turn prospects into clients.
5. Establish your marketing budget
The general rule is to spend 10% of your commission income on marketing. Of course, you may need more or less depending on certain factors. Those in hyper-competitive markets or who market luxury properties will probably need to increase their budgets.
Before you invest a single dollar, we recommend carefully assessing each channel based on its likelihood of delivering results—our guide to managing real estate marketing expenses will help you get started.
6. Choose the right marketing channels
Today, if you want to scale your real estate business, you’ve got to prioritize proven marketing strategies such as content, social, and email marketing. This is the bait that lures your target prospects to your website and real estate listings to be converted into clients. Below are the most reliable marketing channels for generating real estate leads in 2024:
A mobile-optimized real estate website
A website is the centerpiece of your entire real estate marketing plan. Investing in world-class design from an expert team will play a major role in your success. We recommend adding IDX functionality and optimizing it for lead generation, capture, and conversion.
Email marketing
As long as you have a strong database, email marketing delivers exceptional performance for your dollar. For real estate agents with lead generation in place, it’s a powerful tool for turning an audience into revenue.
Content marketing
Content marketing involves creating and sharing valuable materials designed to attract and convert a specific audience. Both time-consuming and challenging to master, most agents seek the help of an experienced professional.
Social media channels
In a world where social media is a key influence in purchasing decisions, developing at least two social media profiles to represent your brand is a must.
Updated real estate listings
Property listings are a foundational sales tool, so it’s crucial to get this right. Be sure to use professional copy, photos, videos, and reviews to maximize your results.
7. Track your real estate marketing metrics
In the world of real estate agent marketing, measurement is key. If you don’t know your KPIs and track your progress toward them, you might as well be sailing the open sea without a compass.
As for what metrics to focus on, this varies from agent to agent. Generally speaking, the most important metrics are:
- Website traffic
- Conversion rate
- Response rate
- Cost per lead
- Cost per client
- Customer value
- Referral rates
While not an exhaustive list, these should help you cut through the noise and determine which marketing efforts are meeting the KPIs of your real estate marketing plan.
8. Adapt your real estate marketing plan
Marketing your real estate business is like a game of chess. Every move you make must be in accordance with your real estate marketing plan. And before each move, you must carefully assess changes in the environment to discern whether your strategy needs to be altered.
For example, if you are running ad campaigns and are no longer hitting your sales goals, this is usually a sign you need to refresh your images, copy, and maybe even your chosen advertising platform.
Remember, developing a sound real estate marketing plan is a process of constant evolution. But with the right guidance, anyone can do it.
Your real estate marketing plan + Luxury Presence
Harnessing the power of digital marketing for your real estate business is practically a guaranteed path to growth — if done correctly.
If you’re looking to fast-track your results and have every facet of your marketing — including your real estate marketing plan — handled by an award-winning team of professionals, book a demo with Luxury Presence today!
