If you’re a team with a high sales volume, having a seamless, high-quality marketing plan is one of the most vital things you can do for your business. Marketing is absolutely crucial for teams when it comes to building relationships with prospects and existing clients. Content marketing is especially effective for agents looking to boost their engagement and foster new connections.
These days, the competition is fierce. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to put your expert-level marketing skills to good use — both online and offline. Do you know the tools you need to market a property in the absence of a photographer, or without being able to visit the property itself?
You need to learn how to market without sacrificing quality and speed. During tough times, we need to equip ourselves with the tools and knowledge that’ll allow us to streamline our work and become more efficient. We can keep what we’ve learned and use it in the future, in the event of more restrictions or closings.
That’s why, during the pandemic, I sat down with various experts to Mastermind. The goal was to support professionals in our industry and give them insight on optimizing their business, so they can stay focused and in control during these trying times.
For this week’s session, I invited marketing expert Peter Schravemade from BoxBrownie.com. As an online hub for all things digital, BoxBrownie offers a slew of professional editing, virtual staging and render services to everyone from real estate agents to developers.
Schravemade talked about what BoxBrownie.com does, and how agents can replicate and implement those services into their marketing strategies. Here are a few things we learned.
1. Good, high-quality imagery
There are plenty of powerful tools available to you, as an agent, that can help improve your marketing, especially during this time. Of course, using a professional photographer is ideal, but given the extenuating circumstances we’re in, there are times when you’ll have to do the job yourself.
Placing an emphasis on photo quality is important. This might mean downloading Adobe Photoshop and learning how to navigate it yourself, or hiring a service like BoxBrownie to do the work.
At the end of the day, you don’t want your photos to blurry, tilted or dark. Knowing the basics of proper photography and using professional editing software to fine-tune your images goes a long way. For listing and marketing purposes, you have to make sure your photos are in the best condition possible.
2. Well-written copy
People are still trying to live their lives right now, so in your listing posts, don’t flat out talk about COVID-19. Instead, give the usual rundown, and then proceed with offering a virtual showing that’s available now.
To a buyer, copy is the second most important aspect of a listing, but it’s quite often disregarded by agents. Your copy should include square footage of the house, the land size, number of bedrooms, bathrooms and garages, and anything else that’s absolutely important to that listing.
In the copy, you’ll want the first 10-15 words to be your most important, because they are the words everyone will see first as a preview when they look at your post or advertisement.
3. Floor plans
According to NAR’s 2020 report on homebuyer and seller trends, 52 percent of buyers ranked floor plans as “very useful” when it comes to the value of website features. What’s more, Schravemade said that, according to a lot of surveys, it’s one of the top three things buyers want to see.
A real estate floor plan allows homebuyers to get a bird’s-eye view of the property. It shows rooms and different spaces in the house, and how they relate to one another. What’s more, when a listing touts good floor plans, it boosts potential homebuyers’ engagement with the listing.
After looking at a floor plan, your buyers will start visualizing what the space might look like when they live there. It’ll help create a positive association with the listing in their minds.
4. Virtual tours and video footage
In looking at the circumstances that we’re in now, 360 and virtual tours might very well become the future of real estate. You could do a walk-through of the property, or have the seller take over that part.
Whichever way you decide to go about it, virtual tours allow homebuyers to maneuver around the house as if they’re really there in person. Buyers are able to experience the home without leaving their own. This saves both time and energy, while maximizing the number of homes viewed.
So, don’t miss out on these great tools by ignoring them. By using great imagery, detailed captions, showing floor plans and giving virtual tours, you’ll be able to put yourself in a better position for both buyers and sellers.
Kathleen Black is the CEO of Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Connect with her on Instagram at @kathleenblackcoaching or through her website ItTakesa.Team.
