As a real estate agent, you’re probably doing a lot of different things to generate leads, get new business, and help more people discover you; after all, that’s all part of your overall marketing strategy, and it’s a key part of building your real estate business.
But, coming up with and launching a marketing campaign is something different and outside of that. So, what’s the difference?
Your marketing strategy is your overall, comprehensive plan of how you market your business. A marketing campaign, on the other hand, is an individual campaign that you’d launch to generate a specific result around a specific event or idea.
Basically, your marketing campaign has an expiry date, your overall marketing strategy does not.
For example, maybe you’ve consistently been sending out general postcards to an area for a long time; there’s nothing wrong with that, and you should certainly continue to do that (as that’s part of your overall marketing strategy).
But, if with the upcoming Fall or Spring market, (whichever is the next, traditionally busy market that’s coming up) you might want to add on an entirely different marketing campaign with the goal of getting more leads specifically for the that market (which is a marketing campaign).
★ Want to learn more about lead generation? Have a look at these posts and resources:
- What To Do If You Have a Real Estate Lead Generation Problem
- Building a Lead Generation Strategy Through Education
Whatever your marketing campaign is about, it should run independently. There are a few key steps to plan it to make sure you get the results you want:
Step 1: Set the Goal of Your Campaign
First things first: decide what you want to accomplish in your marketing campaign.
This could take multiple forms; start by asking yourself the following about your goals:
- Do you want to generate buyer or seller leads?
- Do you want to raise brand awareness?
- Do you want to build your email marketing database?
- Do you want to get people to attend an event that you’re hosting?
- Do you want to get more followers on your social media accounts?
- Do you want to drive more traffic to the new listing on your website?
Having a specific goal for your campaign is key. The more specific your goal, the better you can plan out the success of your campaign.
While your goals may shift or change throughout the course of your campaign, there should always be an overarching goal that you want to accomplish. While it can be general or vague, it must exist. Otherwise, your campaign will have no real direction.
Step 2: Plan Your Campaign
How will you get someone to take action? It starts with a plan.
If the goal of your campaign is to get more seller leads for the Fall market, how will you reach those people and where will you send them to make them take the action you want?
Depending on what your campaign is about, your plans may change. It’s all about the “ask” that you’re making along the way. Are you looking for a large level of commitment, or do you simply want someone to stay within your “marketing stratosphere”?
Perhaps this means pushing people to a lead page on your site for them to convert immediately. Or, to a registration page to get them interested in an event. Maybe you simply want them to follow you on Instagram, like your latest post, and tag a friend.
Without a definitive action for your target audience to take, your marketing campaign has no purpose. That’s why you need to plan an action that speaks back to your goals and is relevant to your target consumer.
★ Want to learn more about building or improving your marketing plan? Have a look at these posts:
- The Strategy of Effective Digital Touchpoints
- Building an Inbound Marketing Strategy to Get Higher Quality Leads
- Understanding Your Lifecycle Marketing Strategy
- Why Your Real Estate Marketing Strategy Should Lead with Authenticity
Step 3: Choose Your Platforms Wisely
Based on the marketing campaign, where are the best places for you to launch your campaign?
Your campaign could include physical postcards that are mailed out, a Facebook advertising campaign, an email newsletter campaign, a paid search campaign, a strategically placed billboard, or all of the above.
The key here is that it’s not just one platform, it’s a mix of them. The more nuanced you are able to make the execution of your marketing campaign, the more likely you are to gain a specific response from your target audience.
Think of it like a trail of breadcrumbs. If you want someone to bounce from your Facebook ad to your site, and then from your site to your newsletter, you’d want that pathway to be clearly defined.
At this stage, it’s also key to think about where you think your ideal audience that you want to take action is most likely to see your campaign and respond to it.
★ Want to plan your digital marketing strategy on your own, and set your business up for success? Download our Digital Marketing Planning Workbook.
Step 4: Craft Your Message
How you deliver your message is an extremely important part of seeing success.
To get someone to do something, you need to be convincing and you need to offer them something of value, and a big part of making that happen is how you deliver your messaging.
Everything that makes up the overall look and feel of the campaign is part of your messaging, including the words you use and the way your campaign material is being presented.
At Artifakt, we focus primarily on the merits of storytelling in the real estate marketing lifecycle. We don’t think users want to be “sold to” or “spoken at,” they want to be engaged with and motivated to act. A big part of this is your messaging, and how your messaging loops back to your personal brand.
After all, the most nuanced marketing system can’t save you if your message is unclear, ineffective, or lacking in enthusiasm. Your goal is to get people excited to work with or engage with your brand, and your message plays a central role in that narrative.
★ Want to learn more about messaging? Have a look at these posts:
- Building a Real Estate Solutions-Based Marketing Messaging Strategy
- Optimizing Your Content for Humans (And Not Just for Search Engines)
- What it Takes to Build a Solid Content Marketing Strategy
- How to Write Real Estate Content that Attracts and Engages
Step 5: Launch Your Campaign
Once you have everything ready to go, it’s time to mail out your postcards, launch your social media ads, get your billboard up, and whatever other materials are part of your campaign.
Step 6: Measure Your Results
When your campaign is finished (because remember, a marketing campaign should have an expiry date), you’ll want to spend some time reviewing the analytics and data that you have available to determine what worked, what didn’t work, and why.
★ Want to learn more about measuring your success? Have a look at these posts:
- Metrics to Measure the Success of Your Content Marketing Strategy
- Getting A Basic Understanding of Your Real Estate Website’s Analytics
- Measuring the Success of Your Content Marketing Strategy in Google Analytics 4
Once you know a bit more about that, you can start to make the necessary changes to launch a new marketing campaign that improves on your mistakes, without repeating them, while capitalizing on your successes.
With up to date marketing trends relevant to today’s market, our report is a selection of curated content, information, and data that will give you an outline of what’s working right now in real estate marketing.
