Real estate growth hacking is known as specific tools and “hacks” to help generate more business. While standard marketing procedures may still play a big part in growing your real estate business, growth hacks are different. We believe you can benefit and thrive even more with some of the most effective growth hacks.
However, before we dive deep into offering you some of the best growth hacks in (in our opinion) it’s important for you to know exactly what a real estate growth hack is. Ira Chopovska at Agent Drive says, “Basically, it’s an idea of experimenting across various marketing channels in order to find the best way to speed up lead generation and conversion. Typically, you can achieve this with a laser-targeted campaign via less traditional channels like mobile apps, email or social media.”
In other words, growth hacks are more ways for agents or brokerages to engage with their audiences even more than they normally do.
1. A Captivating Website
As a real estate agent having an effective website for your real estate business is no longer a matter of choice, but a necessity. Your website may very well be your first impression of you as a real estate agent, so it’s important that it’s captivating and attractive for potential clients.
There are many things potential buyers expect your website to have such as the latest property listings to community information. Your site must be informative and fascinate people the moment they land on it, so you need to make sure you have updated your online listings, offer lots of photos, ensure easy navigation on the computer and mobile devices and pay attention to your SEO rankings.
In fact, according to Ira Chopovska at Agent Drive, “Google searches related to real estate have grown 253% over the past 4 years and 98% of people start their home search online. Marketing your properties without your own website is extremely difficult as you simply can’t get enough exposure online.”
2. Start Using Property Portal Software
Another great real estate growth hacking technique is to start using property portal software.It’s very simple, more exposure means more people joining your SOI. This means, you should be sharing your listings to major real estate portals and by doing so you will generate more leads because your listings will be everywhere. We like this growth hack because not only are your listings in more places, but you can still control them from one central platform.
3. Create Neighborhood Landing Pages
When potential buyers want to buy a home, one of the first things they will ask about is the neighborhood and surrounding areas. So, we’re here to tell you that just listings are not enough. People want to know everything from the facilities in the area, schools, jobs, crime rate and fun spots. By having a neighborhood landing page, you can not only save yourself a bunch of time if they ask, but it is a very powerful lead generation tool to have.
4. Utilize Your CRM
You’d be surprised at how much your CRM can do for you. Which is why you should utilize everything it has to offer. A real estate CRM makes your life a lot easier, and helps you get work done more efficiently. To be specific, a CRM can help stay on top of:
- contacts
- properties
- projects
- property proposals
- referrals
- transactions
- emails and communication
- documentation
- Commissions
David Smith at Small Biz Club says, “Brokerages that make use of CRM realize a 41 percent rise in sales productivity per agent.” We’re not sure about you, but that’s a pretty good percentage to convince us.
5. Collaborate With Others in the Industry
Real estate is all about building relationships and personal connections. You always want to have your “people” you can go to in the industry which is why you should consider collaborating with fellow agents, developers, brokers or contractors. By building these relationships it can help generate business for everyone…and, it’s just nice to have your group of people you can trust!
6. Consider Retargeting Your Audience
This is always something you should consider, especially if the current audience you have just isn’t giving you as many leads as you’d like. Luckily, digital marketing can help you reach huge amounts of people from anywhere in the world, not just in your area. According to Ira Chopovska at Agent Drive, “Only 2 percent of your website visitors convert on the first visit? In other words, you build a great website, fill it in with interesting content your target audience will love and get yourself ready for an influx of leads…. only to discover your site visitors are bouncing off.”
This is where the awesome real estate growth hack retargeting comes in, and what’s great is that not many agents use it, so you have a better advantage of having it work for you.
7. Stay Active on Social Media
There’s no doubt social media marketing has become a modern marketing tool for a real estate agent. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and even Snapchat have become essential components of digital marketing for real estate. Whether you’re posting beautiful photos, sharing resourceful content, engaging with others or running campaigns, social media has become an essential growth hack that can really drive your real estate business through the roof. In fact, here’s a few facts we gathered from Andrew Carr at Medium.
- 69% of the American public uses at least one social media platform regularly.
- People under 50 are well above this average, with 86% of those 18–29 using social media, and 80% of 30–49 year olds are using it, too.
- 34% of those 65 and up have an active social account.
So as you can see, almost everyone uses social media in some way. What makes you think potential buyers don’t? If you want to be successful, stay active on your social media accounts.
8. Create a Newsletter
Another real estate growth hack is a way to keep your potential, current and past clients up to date with a monthly or quarterly newsletter. Not only should you include any of your current listings, but also fascinating and resourceful information that can help people. It should be something that sticks out to people and something they look forward to each month. Potential buyers will find the newsletter useful and relevant to their current situation.
9. Keep an Eye Out for the Competition
If you’re quick to pick up on digital marketing, you will come to find that it’s easy to figure out what tools and strategies your competition is using. All of this is good information to know and to compare with your own strategies. Additionally, you should look at certain things your competition isn’t doing yet so you can get ahead of the game.
10. Focus on the User Experience
Put yourself in your client’s shoes. When visiting your website is it easy to contact you? Is your social media content relevant to them? Is your sales process smooth sailing? One of the most important real estate growth hacks is to always make sure the customer is happy. By making their life easier is definitely a way to do so.
So what comes next? Consider giving some of the everyday real estate growth hacks a try! You will be surprised that once you start these, they will always come as second nature to you and your daily work routine.