So far in 2014, we’ve seen many local real estate markets across the country continue to gather steam. At the same time, however, competition between real estate agents for those valuable buyer and seller leads continues to increase. And so, while incomes for agents are generally rising, so too are marketing costs. To keep your head above water and ultimately thrive in today’s real estate marketing environment, your marketing efforts need to be affordable, effective, sustainable, and scalable.  

In this post, I’ll present you with 9 real estate marketing ideas you can adopt today to set yourself up for success in 2014 and beyond.

Generating Seller Leads

Online marketing isn’t a new or novel concept. And it’s certainly not something that’s lost on the majority of real estate agents in today’s market. However, it has taken significantly longer for online marketing to have a BIG impact in real estate than it has in many other industries. Rest assured, the time has come. And the message to realtors who may still be reliant upon increasingly costly and ineffective ‘traditional’ marketing practices is clear: online marketing is now king.

“Sixty-eight percent of buyers Googled their agent, the highest percentage since the survey started tracking this statistic in 2007.” – California Association of Realtors, 2013 Home Buyer Survey

The recently released 2013 California Association of Realtors buyers and sellers reports are chalk full of highly relevant data and trends for real estate agents. But the statistic above is perhaps most piercing to those agents who don’t prioritize real estate branding. If you’re like many of our most successful customers, the focus has traditionally been on direct marketing, lead generation, or referral-based systems. Many see ‘branding’ as wasted marketing dollars with poor ROI. 

In the age of Yelp, Angie’s List, and a plethora of other consumer information and review sites, simply having a nice website, or being a nice person for that matter, just won’t cut it for your business. For real estate agents in particular, this is where having authentic, credible testimonials to help set you apart comes into play.