Jacqueline Kyo Thomas
2020 was a difficult year. There’s no getting around that. But the good news is that we’re now in a new year and can focus on making it the best one yet. In this post, we’ll explore how to get more clients by implementing the top 2021 real estate marketing trends. Let’s get started!
Go Virtual
What do you do when you can’t meet with a real estate client in person? Meet virtually.
Now that social distancing is part of our everyday reality, more people have embraced virtual technology. From Zoom listing presentations to live Facebook property tours, almost everything that you could do in-person is now available online. Provided that you and your audience are able to connect to the Internet, you’ll be able to connect with each other.
Instead of pining for the time when you could meet with clients like you did in pre-COVID days, embrace what is happening now, and sign up for a free account with Zoom or another video calling app. Of course, it doesn’t just stop at Zoom. There are all sorts of tools available to help you meet with your clients virtually, like Google Meet or Skype.
Here’s the bottom line: Expand your services to include offerings such as virtual tours and virtual open houses.
Include High Quality Images of Your Properties
Once upon a time, people would drive to a property and tour it in person. It didn’t even need to be a property that they loved, just one that they were marginally curious about. But that’s slowed down considerably. These days, people will only tour the properties that make it onto their short list. So, you’ll need to do everything you can to ensure that your property is that short list.
One of the ways to do that is by focusing on the quality of your listing images. Sure, photos have always been important. But photos have never been more important than they are now. Give them a reason to say, “I’ve got to see this place in person!”
Invest in a quality photographer to highlight the best features of your property. It’s amazing what a wide-angle camera can do in the hands of a professional.
But don’t just stop there. Images aren’t limited to photos. This also includes 3D renderings, which is another hot trend for real estate this year.
You can use a service like Render3DQuick.com or Cedreo to create professional beautiful 3D renderings of your property's floor plan. You can even get architectural 3D renderings on Fiverr for as low as, you guessed it, $5. Because it's such an inexpensive upgrade, it would be insane not to try it. You can then share these images on Zillow, your website, and your social media pages.
Stage Virtually, Too
Guess what else you can get on Fiverr? Virtual staging. Virtual staging is another hot trend for 2021.
A staged home sells quicker and for more money than an un-staged home. The reason is simple: An empty room is uninspiring for many buyers. They may look at an empty room and not know how to style it. This is why staging is magical. It gives the room a purpose and helps the buyer understand what to do with it.
But staging costs money. And it’s hard to justify paying for staging services when you don’t have as much foot traffic in the property.
This is why virtual staging makes perfect sense.
When you virtually stage, it’s a one-time fee. You don’t have to pay a monthly fee for each staged room.
It’s also easier to get a sense of space when the room is staged with furniture to size.
You can save money by selecting the most important rooms to virtually stage. There’s no need to stage kitchens, bathrooms, or closets. Focus on living rooms and bedrooms so that buyers understand the space.
You can also stage the same room in multiple ways to show alternatives. For example, a secondary bedroom can be staged as a home office, nursery, exercise room, or craft room. That’s an added benefit to virtual staging that you can’t do with traditional staging.
In addition to Fiverr, you can use the following services to virtually stage a home:
Use Drones
2021 will witness the continued rise of drones. That sounds pretty futuristic, but it’s true. Drone photography is already growing in popularity, and it will continue to grow this year. You should definitely invest in either buying your own drone or hiring a drone photographer.
Sure, using drones for real estate is not exactly new, but it is becoming more mainstream. And aerial photography isn't just limited to luxury properties these days. You can use an aerial perspective for any listing to set it apart from the rest.
Aerial views provide a unique perspective of the property. And just because you're using a drone, you're not obligated to capture an image from directly overhead. You have the flexibility to move the camera just slightly above human eye-level, which can totally change the way that a property looks to the buyer.
Drones aren't just limited to residential photography. If you're marketing a neighborhood guide (and you should), you can create a short video that includes an aerial tour of the neighborhood. Such immersive videos will quickly separate you from your competition. Just be sure to follow the FAA's rules when you're making your video!
Try out Clubhouse
Clubhouse is a new audio-only social network that is quickly growing in popularity. Since it's so new, it is a unique opportunity to get in early on a new social network that already counts many influential and famous people among its users.
Clubhouse is sort of an odd fit for real estate since it is an audio-only social network, which means that you can't easily share listings on it. But that's not really what Clubhouse is for. Like Twitter, Clubhouse creates a space to have conversations with people that you would never meet in real life. Consider joining clubhouse and hosting or joining rooms related to real estate. You never know who you might speak with, and what it might lead to!
Create Webinars for Your Target Audience
Just because you can’t meet like you once did, it doesn’t mean that you can’t meet at all. If you want to raise awareness for your business, consider hosting your own webinar.
Combining the words “web” and “seminar,” a webinar is an online event. It could be a presentation or a workshop.
Here are a few of benefits to hosting your own webinar:
- Increased awareness for the list of services that you provide.
- A ton of new leads generated for your real estate business.
- You can position yourself as an expert in your chosen real estate niche.
- It provides value to your audience. The main focus of a webinar should be to teach.
You can create a webinar on any real estate-related topic, including:
- The importance of staging
- The ins and outs of mortgage loans
- How to buy your first investment property
Here’s another benefit of hosting your own webinar: You can record your webinar and use the same presentation over and over again. Share it with your email subscribers, post it on YouTube, chop it up and add it to your Instagram stories or blog posts.
Even if you’re not actively selling homes these days, you can still use webinars to grow your real estate business.
Final Thoughts
This year, you’ll build awareness for your real estate business by going virtual. Use the above strategies to market your business and get more clients.
Before you go, check out these related posts: