As part of your marketing strategy, you should always be trying to build your marketing database. Doing so is an important part of building a group of people you can establish a connection with, and continually remind them that you, your brand, and your business exist, so they’ll reach out to you when they want to buy or sell a home.
But building a marketing database with the contact information of real, engaged people is anything but easy, especially in real estate.
Nowadays, people are only willing to give out their contact information for 2 main reasons:
- They really, really, really like your brand, or
- They’re getting something valuable in return.
As a real estate agent, getting someone to like your brand enough that they’re willing to give you their contact information is difficult, and for some agents, maybe even impossible.
Ever asked someone to sign up for your generic real estate newsletter, just because? Chances are, very few people have or will (unless they already know you and like your brand).
To get someone to sign up for your real estate newsletter, you have to clearly define the reasons they’d want to and what they’ll get out of it (in other words, you have to define your offering), because the only tried-and-true way to get someone’s contact information in your database, is to offer them something of value that they’re willing to trade for it.
★ Want to learn more about building your marketing database? Have a look at these posts:
- Choosing a CRM for Your Real Estate Business, the Right Way
- How the Quality of Your CRM Affects the Quality of Your Real Estate Business
- Why You Should Never Stop Building Your Email Marketing Database
While there’s a lot of valuable things you can offer someone to get them to give you their contact information, one of the more effective ones is by providing downloadable resources, that preferably that they can’t get elsewhere.
If you have downloadable resources that someone sees as valuable, they’re a lot more likely to give you their email address and contact information in exchange for get access to it.
What is a downloadable resource that someone would see as valuable? As a real estate agent, you have a lot of options. For example, you could:
- Create a beautifully designed PDF that outlines all of the hyperlocal historical market information for multiple types of properties in a specific neighborhood that you focus on.
- Create a step-by-step guide to everything someone would need to know about downsizing and selling their family home after a parent’s death.
- Create a detailed guide outlining real estate related Q and As that help someone when they’re thinking about separating from their partner.
- Create an in-depth guide that helps first time homebuyers navigate the specifics of buying a home, right now, in this specific real estate market.
There are a lot of different options around what you can create as a downloadable resource, but the key to see success with it in your marketing strategy is to make sure that the information is valuable and specific.
Providing valuable downloadable resources also serves a secondary purpose: it allows you to build on establishing your expertise and authority with a defined market. For example, if you were to create multiple downloadable resources specially meant to help someone navigate what to do when they’re facing a difficult real estate decision, like going through a divorce, those people will look at you as an expert in those types of transaction, and they’re lot more likely to reach out to you when they need help.
★ Once you have their information, you’re ready too market to them; and one of the best ways to do that is through your email marketing strategy. Want to learn more about email marketing? Have a look at these posts:
- Email Marketing Best Practices for Real Estate Agents
- How Real Estate Agents Can Improve Their Email Marketing Open Rate
- Building an Effective Email Newsletter Strategy
If you’re sending people to your website, and you’re not offering them anything of value that they can’t get anywhere else, they’re not likely to give you their contact information.
But by building useful, downloadable resources into your marketing strategy, you’ll have a much better chance of getting their information and building a solid marketing database with engaged, real people. The two go hand-in-hand.
Want to improve your overall lead generation plan? Download our Lead Management Workbook. It’s a self-guided, interactive workbook where you answer questions about your current lead generation plan, outline what’s working and what isn’t working, and put together a plan to improve it. And, it’s free to download.
