It’s no secret that in real estate, an arsenal of relevant and strategic marketing materials is essential to stay ahead of the competition. At the same time, poor marketing can drive away potential clients and damage your reputation.
With marketing, there’s a fine line between encouraging people to utilize your services and turning them away. Knowing how to reach your target audience and nurture leads is a critical skill that may take some trial and error to master. As you fine-tune your marketing strategy, there are a few pitfalls that you should always avoid.
Here are five marketing mistakes to stay far away from in 2023:
Always being in sales mode
It goes without saying that your brokerage needs to generate leads and make sales. However, agents that are constantly in sales mode might come across as aggressive or fake. Instead of fixating on quick results, try to build a rapport with your audience over time by providing valuable and original content.
When you consistently share informative and engaging materials, you’ll gain the trust of potential clients. Once you’ve established that trust, targeted sales strategies become much more effective.
Ignoring client feedback
If someone takes the time to write a positive review for your business, answer them and express your sincere thanks. This simple act shows that you are listening. It could also encourage others to share their own feedback. If you don’t respond, you run the risk of looking like you’re ungrateful or simply can’t be bothered to connect with clients.
How you handle negative online reviews can also impact your reputation. Agents with prompt response times — less than 24 hours — demonstrate to prospective clients that they are readily available and willing to address customer concerns.
Going for quantity over quality
There’s such a thing as too much content. You don’t need to post on social media every day to maintain a strong connection with your audience. In fact, you risk overwhelming them if you do. Instead, take your time ensuring that all your posts are high-quality rather than churning out a deluge of mediocre content.
Everything from your Instagram captions to your listing descriptions should be carefully checked for spelling and grammatical errors. Sloppy mistakes can undermine your credibility, so don’t rush.
Forgetting to focus on your audience
The purpose of content marketing is to provide your target audience with valuable, relevant information. If you’re regularly distributing content that doesn’t resonate with your customer base, you could drive people away.
Create marketing content that is audience-centric rather than company-centric. Consider what matters most to your audience and what obstacles they might be facing. By keeping clients at the center of your marketing strategy, you’ll ensure that they feel connected to your brand.
Lackluster listings
Now more than ever, buyers are beginning their home search online. Therefore, it’s imperative that your listing descriptions are compelling enough to drive prospective clients to take action. Be as detailed as possible and highlight any unique features within your property. If your description is poorly written — or doesn’t give buyers a sense of the property — they’re not likely to tour in-person.
Similarly, listings that lack 3D virtual tours or quality photos that are either staged or virtually staged won’t stand out against the competition. You want to make sure that you’re presenting the property in the best possible light.
Remember that marketing can work for you or against you. Developing and employing a marketing strategy takes a lot of effort, so make sure yours isn’t doing more harm than good. Inundating your audience with irrelevant, mediocre or unprofessional content can do severe and lasting damage to your business’s reputation.
By avoiding the common mistakes mentioned here, you can build a rapport with prospective clients that translates into sales and establishes your brand as a trusted expert in the field.
Rainy Hake Austin is president at The Agency.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of RealTrends’ editorial department and its owners.
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Rainy Hake Austin click here.
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Tracey Velt at tracey@hwmedia.com
