Are you ready to be a neighbourhood expert?

Becoming the go-to real estate agent in your area takes commitment and some smart marketing moves. We take a look at how you can do this with a few tips and tricks.


The power of the brand

Work on your personal brand - not just as a real estate agent but also as a part of the community. Share events or sponsorships that you are a part of. Not only will it get your name out there, you will also develop a brand as a neighbourhood expert.

All of your marketing and communication will be branded a certain way to help your target audience distinguish you from your competitors. A solid brand will help you establish memorability and keep you at the front of your target audience’s mind. That is, a brand is your presence. And a good place to start is by having the following: logo, professional photography, a color palette, messaging and a certain style.

A WRITTEN marketing strategy

You might think you have it all mapped out, but if it’s in your head, it is quite possible that you are lacking accountability. You’ve likely heard the quote from Jeff Richards: “Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising.” You can have the most amazing marketing materials, but if there is no long-term strategy you won’t own the neighbourhood.

 The neighbourhood stats

You may have done your due diligence but you need to know everything about the area. This means knowing all about the style of the homes and their average value, the history of the neighbourhood, the schools in the area, the demographics, community activities, etc. Make sure you keep abreast of everything that is happening in that neighborhood, as well as in the surrounding area.

Are you familiar with the competition?

It is a very good idea to find out which other real estate agents are active in the community. A quick search on Google will be a good start. If you live in the neighbourhood, you’ll benefit from seeing any direct mail they are sending.You’ll have to keep your eye out for their online presence and local publications.

Does your website discuss the neighbourhood?

Once you understand the competition and because you are an expert in the neighborhood, you’ll know exactly what messages you’d like to convey to those looking to sell their home, and those looking to buy a home. The area page on your real estate website should contain keywords that people are searching, but should also have information on the available listings, community info, and some statistics. You can even have a spot for people to leave an email address and get regular emailed updates.

Online communities

Online communities offer a great way to get an insight into the neighbourhood’s residents. Facebook groups are a great place to start, perform some research online and find out where the residents are hanging out. Just make sure that you aren't using the groups to sell your services, but instead to make a genuine connection with people in the community. It is important that you establish yourself as a friendly neighbourhood expert, who truly wants to help, versus a sales person. When creating online accounts, make sure they are consistently branded, which will help your target identify you quickly.

Are the materials promoting you in the neighborhood?

You may want to have brochures readily available that you can leave at houses within the neighbourhood. Make sure you are well stocked with business cards and brochures, at the minimum. Promotional materials are also great tools if there is room in your budget.

Popular posts from this blog

Easily link Base with external CRM systems

Image
What is the Base Zapier integration? The Entegral Base system was recently improved with a native Zapier app integration . This allows estate agents to exchange data and create automated workflows with over 2000+ popular apps, including all the leading CRM specific apps.  Why even link a CRM system? Although Base has contact management, contact categories, automatic lead import, and other great CRM features , users sometimes require very specific CRM functions that we don't (yet) cater to. With our Zapier integration , we allow agents to link any popular app with Base. Once linked with your app, you can for instance automatically synchronise your contacts from Base to the external app or vice versa.  The added benefit is that you can create automated workflows and link more apps (e.g. insert contact details into a Mailchimp drip email campaign  and ZOHO CRM at the same time). This makes the Zapier fee irreverent compared to the derived benefits.  Automated portal l...
Read more

Property24 acquires Private Property, what do estate agents think?

Image
Property24.com, South Africa’s largest property portal owned by Naspers, has bought rival Private Property . The deal is likely to come under the close scrutiny of competition authorities as it involves the two biggest property portals in the country. Due to the impact of such an acquisition on the industry, Entegral was interested to find out what the perceived advantages and disadvantages of such a deal would be, both through the eyes of the consumer and the estate agent.   Here are the results from around 250 responses received on a survey done over a 2 day period , mostly from agents and agency owners. While the survey presents a small portion of the market (a ccording to the EAAB's latest annual report there are 19,424 registered agents and agency owners, excluding intern estate agents, in South Africa) , f eedback has been received from well-respected agency owners and agents, and we believe this gives a good indication of the current view of agents. The fear from estate ...
Read more

New Flex integrated tenant application module launched

Image
Tenant applications can take up a considerable amount of admin time. This includes getting the application, managing it somewhere centrally, and keeping it safe for further access. We had a look at how we could not only streamline and optimise this process but also develop an integrated tenant application module. The result of this is our newly launched optional tenant application for your Flex website (available in standard and premium packages). Integrated  Tenant Application wizard for Flex Once enabled, an integrated tenant application link will show on all your rental listings like this: You can see it in action on this sample rental property on our Flex Bold demo site. It takes you through a wizard where all application details including personal contact, bank, and supporting documents are captured. Since Flex is responsive, the application is seamlessly integrated and will work on any device. With 100% uptime and SSL security as standard, tenants can capture in confidence....
Read more