New year, new decade, new plans. But how can you make the most of every opportunity and drive engagement without sacrificing a ridiculous amount of time you don’t have spare?
Take a step back, wave goodbye to the scattergun approach of the past and get your ducks in a row for the year ahead.
Success comes from developing and following a plan, and if you work hard to prepare that now, you’ll avoid headaches later in the year.
The usual story
Your latest campaign is a success and the leads start coming in. Suddenly you’re busy but with your time tied up, marketing takes a back seat. Once the initial activity ends, there isn’t much else in the pipeline, so you have to start from scratch and in the meantime, everything is at a standstill.
Sound familiar?
Consistency is key
A realistic, manageable plan will keep the marketing momentum going no matter what else is demanding your attention, and we’ve created a simple schedule-style template to get you started.
The plan helps you to pin down activities, objectives, messages, and deadlines, as well as assigning ownership – organising your thoughts into easily actionable tasks for the months ahead.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. For each activity in your marketing plan, consider who your specific audience is and how you can tailor your messages to them.
Who are you talking to?
Putting the time in to get to know your audience allows you to communicate with them better. By talking about the things they’re interested or that are relevant to their position on the property ladder, you make the content more relatable. The more relatable the message, the higher the chance of conversion.
Effective targeting
Once you’ve got your audience sussed, don’t forget about personalisation.
Use Marketing Toolkit to reach your audience with targeted direct mail campaigns, and access to pay-as-you-go address data with advanced profiling to help you narrow your audience down for greater success.
How you market your estate agency is a telling sign of how well you will market a vendors property. So that first impression really does count.
Create a strong brand
Mark Ross, Managing Director of Redbrik Estate Agents believes the success of his agency is down to having created a strong brand, backed up with innovative marketing to break through the status quo. We’re at the beginning of a new year and now is the best time to consider whether your agency could do with a brand refresh, bringing it in line with your marketing plan for the year ahead.
Quality marketing
An impactful, quality piece of print marketing speaks volumes about your agency and is a welcome change in today’s digitally-driven society. In fact, a study by Royal Mail found that receiving print marketing in the post makes 57% of people feel more valued, with its physical quality reflecting the care and effort that went into sending that message.
That same care and effort should shine through your property marketing. An in-house printed window card or property brochure no longer cuts it with today’s modern, informed (and often demanding) vendors. They expect more when you’re marketing their property.
Smarter marketing
With our smart web-to-print solutions, it takes less time and effort than you think to create and order high-quality marketing materials that make the right first impression, from direct mail to window cards and property brochures.
Attractive property photography
The appeal of a property largely comes down to how good it looks in the photos – it’s your chance to make a good first impression with prospective buyers. That said, photographs are the most important aspect of your property marketing, taking up to 70% of the advert space on portal apps and in your branch window display.
As potential buyers scroll through portal listings or walk past your branch, it’s the clear, bright photos with blue skies that will catch their eye. The fact that you edit and enhance the property photos you take can also be a real selling point for vendors, assuring them that you’re marketing their property in the best light.
And it isn’t expensive. Brightening an image and adding a blue sky using Photofixr costs just £2.95.
It’s no longer a case of print vs digital – an effective marketing strategy incorporates both.
Don’t be tempted to drop the old in favour of the new. Especially when print marketing is often the activation point for your audience to begin engaging with you online.
Cover all bases
When you’re working through your marketing plan, consider how you could convey the same message in both print and digital. That way, you’re covering all eventualities and increasing your chances of conversion.
Could you run an email campaign alongside a direct mail campaign? What about a few social media posts to reiterate your messages?
Today’s consumers want experiences, not just transactions.
For most people, selling their home is more than a business transaction, it’s a life-changing event, and there’s an opportunity to make it a positive experience they’ll remember.
It’s good to talk
Good communication throughout the moving process plays an important part in making your vendors feel as though you’re there to guide and support them. A phone call update rather than an email goes a long way in making people feel like they are getting a great service. Or you could consider sending them a copy of their own property’s brochure along with a hand-written note to make them feel more involved in the process.
But don’t drop the ball once you’ve handed over the keys.
Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool and post-sale marketing ideas such as ‘welcome to your new home’ greeting cards, are a great way to encourage referrals and get your vendors talking about you with friends and family.
If you’re ready to reset your marketing strategy, we’d love to show you some of the things we have going on at Ravensworth. They could make a real difference to the success of your marketing.
