The $10/Day Marketing Plan
Click to Learn More
Independent real estate agents are constantly looking for an edge to help compete with the Big Players in their market. I’ve written previously about how you can leverage the difference between Branding & Positioning to inexpensively remodel your business on YOUR terms. Here I want to show you specifically how to use Listings to position your business for maximum effectiveness.
BONUS: This is a strategy that works even if you don’t have ANY listings! Read on…
Listings are a Key Positioning Tool
Lead Generation Marketing on a tight budget is much easier when you get very specific about the type of people you want to attract. Advertising aimed at highly-targeted prospects is cheaper to run because it doesn’t have to be everywhere – just in those places where those prospects are likely to see it. It also generates higher-quality leads because your specific message can speak directly to their needs, desires and interests.
As we’ve seen, POSITIONING is one of the best ways to achieve this specificity.
A great way to do this is to position yourself as a Specialist in particular types of Listings. By declaring yourself the local purchase and sale expert for a specific type of home, you instantly become more attractive to people looking for or selling those homes.
Two good types to start with are Condos and First-Time Buyer Homes in a certain price range. These are great for fast cash since first-timers don’t have a home to sell.
Geography also works well for positioning. You can declare yourself the expert for one or more highly-popular neighborhoods. It doesn’t take much to compile the recent sale prices, school info, and other data for a neighborhood, and an info package like this makes for a great lead generation offer.
Some of our Success members also use Financing as a positioning tool, often alongside specific home types. First-Time Buyers having difficulty saving for a down-payment might want to talk to the “$2K Down Homes Expert”. You can even stack MULTIPLE positions together in this way.
Expanding Your Position
Speaking of multiples, you don’t have to limit your business to just one position. It’s easy to establish more than one using multiple landing pages or even completely separate websites. (Each site could have a different benefit-rich domain name that describes your position).
You can get as specific as you want with this. Family Homes in the best school district. Starter Homes on the East Side. Downtown Luxury Condos. Distress Sales Uptown in the $200-400k range. Golf Course Homes within 20 minutes of Downtown. Pool Homes with 3+ bedrooms.
Take a look at the homes in your area and see if you can define unique groupings by type, neighborhood, price, geography and other features. By specializing in these “niche” markets your advertising can be highly targeted to Buyers and Sellers with specific criteria.
The $10/Day Marketing Plan
Click to Learn More
How to Leverage Your Listings – and Everyone Else’s – for Lead Generation
Positioning yourself as a Local Listings Expert works because it provides much-valued specificity to people drowning in a sea of general information.
Many agents offer tools for searching the MLS, but this puts all the work in the hands of the prospect. Often people don’t know what they want until they see it, and it can take a lot of fiddling with an MLS Search for them to find homes that are relevant. They may also miss real bargains, or homes that could bring you a much higher commission on the sale (the ones you really want them to see!)
Compare this with an offer for a ready-made list of “Best First-Time Buyer Homes in Neighborhood-X”. If I’m currently renting and looking for a place in Neighborhood-X, do you think I might be interested in seeing a list of the Best First-Time Buyer Homes for me in that area? You bet I would!
The same process attracts Sellers. As the expert in First-Time Buyer Homes, you can offer a list of recent sales, targeting prospects who are looking to trade up to something larger. You can then double-up on this lead generation by offering a second list of Best Move Up Buyer homes!
This is a fantastic strategy for any agent whose current Listings inventory is low. All it takes is access to your local MLS data feed. Once you have a way to source listings and sales info, you can offer any number of pre-defined lists of homes based on any criteria, and even mark more attractive (or higher-commission homes) as FEATURED on your list. Prospects don’t care if you’re the Listing Agent — they just want the information.
And you, the Local Expert, are providing it for them. That’s a relationship you can build upon until the lead is ready to buy.
Setting Up a Listings Marketing Campaign
Online is definitely the place to set up a Listings campaign. Essentially, 100% of buyers (and sellers) will spend a portion of their time searching for homes information online.
Of course, this is easier said than done for Independent Agents with no marketing or technical people on staff. If you really want to position yourself as the Local Expert in your market and start competing with the Big Players, we have the solution… Click the button below!
⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓
