It’s that time of year to start thinking about your future. No, not what your New Year’s resolution is going to be but how you are going to market your real estate business in the coming year. First off, it’s essential to understand that the real estate landscape has drastically changed over the last several years. Gone are the days of the three day close and $75,000 over asking price just by placing a for-sale sign in the front yard. In these market conditions, it’s the quality and intelligence of your marketing efforts that will pay huge dividends now and in the future.

A number of brokerages and agents are still holding on to the belief that “traditional” marketing efforts will work, especially in this downtrodden real estate market. But they must realize that people search, receive and process real estate information in an entirely different way than say five or ten years ago. And the simple fact is that they are not going back to the “traditional” ways now or in the future. This means agents and brokerage need to market themselves, the product and their services in the way consumers need and want.

Brokerages and agents need to really evaluate their marketing efforts, especially if they are exclusively utilizing marketing outlets that have been proven to be ineffective. These marketing channels such as newspaper, magazine and direct mail still gobble up a lion’s share of the marketing spend but are impacting the bottom line less and less. This is especially critical as the masses become more and more comfortable with obtaining their real estate information online.

While consistency is important in your marketing efforts, it’s also essential to make sure you’re diversifying in order to reach the largest target market. So don’t be afraid to evaluate marketing channels that are accommodating today’s new real estate consumer. Start a local or regional blog using a free Blogger account, utilize social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook to connect to potential clients and use pay-per-click outlets such as Roost to send highly qualified traffic to your website.

Testing these “new” marketing resources might be a little scary right now but just think how far ahead of the curve you will be when the entire industry realizes how to effectively market to real estate consumers.

Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
derek.overbey@roost.com
Twitter - @doverbey