If you’re worried about how to stand out in the competitive world of real estate one solution is strategic advertising.
To achieve this, however, you will need a plan to effectively place your ads to not only bolster your business, but also to establish your brand identity.
In this comprehensive “how-to” guide, we’ll delve into the significance of ads in brand establishment, offer tips for creating impactful ads, explore creative approaches, discuss optimal ad placement strategies, analyze the cost-benefit aspect, and introduce platforms for ad creation.
PLUS, we’ve provided 10 different ideas for ads to help you get started.
10 Ideas to Help You Create Impactful Ads
Exclusive Listings: The goal is to impress, but maintain ease of contact. Highlight exclusive properties with stunning visuals and limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency that caters to your audience.
- Neighborhood Expert: Showcase videos and images of you participating in neighborhood events and engaging with the community to help position yourself as a local expert by sharing your insights through the shared experience of community events.
- Virtual Tours: Take potential clients on a virtual tour of homes that you have listed. You can get creative with this type of video and warp them into several different spaces at a time with a poll of which house resonated with them.
- Testimonials: You can feature several of your previous clients through testimonials in myriad ways. In printed ads, with voice overs in videos, or simple quotes are effective accompanied with high-quality images.
- Open House Invitations: Create buzz around open houses with engaging invitations where you showcase the experience of what it’s like to attend one of your open houses that separates it from the rest.
- Market Updates: You want to be known as the expert in real estate to help establish credibility… lead this ad with surprising and valuable market insights with your opinion and advice included.
- First-Time Buyer Guides: Engaging this particular audience with education for first-time buyers with informative guides and resources is a great way to help them find comfort in their own decision making with you providing the guardrails. Use hooks like: 3 things to look out for when buying your first home, Ways to save for first-time buyers, Did you know the market favors first-time buyers…
- Luxury Living: Create a sense of luxury that targets your audience with images of elegant, lifestyle amenities… and walk them through a “typical day in the life”.
- Investment Opportunities: Target investors with lucrative investment opportunities and ROI projections by showcasing your knowledge in market trends and statistics to validate your projections.
- Home Sweet Home: Create “feel-good” ads that showcase heartwarming stories of families finding their dream homes. Use a carousel of wholesome images, happy faces, and messaging that celebrates being a part of memories that last a lifetime.
Why Targeted and Strategic Ads Are Crucial for Your Business
First and foremost, with your ads you are creating familiarity. Familiarity with your brand leads to trust, and ultimately a higher return on investment… with less effort, which saves you time.
There have been multiple studies over the years to back these theories, an article by stridecreative.com speaks to these:
“We can also draw upon research on cognitive fluency… As we make decisions about which tasks we’ll do throughout the day, those decisions are subconsciously guided by how easy or difficult we think those tasks will be… When we encounter familiar brands, they require less mental work and present less risk, so they feel easy to us — and we gravitate toward them.”
As such, your ads serve as a conduit for introducing your brand to potential clients, reinforcing your presence, and shaping perceptions.
Additionally, in the digital age, where attention spans are fleeting, well-crafted ads are indispensable for grabbing attention amidst the noise and leaving a lasting impression.
And now you know, consistent ad placement cultivates brand recognition and trust, crucial elements to help you establish long lasting relationships with your clients from the start!
Tips and Best Practices for Creating Ads
We’ve been throwing the words strategic and effectively around in this article, because you have to have a comprehensive plan for how you expect to appeal to potential clients before you start creating.
If you don’t, you’ll be wasting your time and money… so take a few minutes to read the key factors to consider when creating your plan and spend some time making decisions that will establish your brand and get your messaging across.
Here’s how to get started:
- Know Your Audience: Understanding your target market is paramount in crafting effective ads. As a real estate agent you need to tailor your messaging, imagery, and offers so that your ads resonate with the specific needs, preferences, and pain points of your audience.
- Ask yourself: What am I selling, what is my niche? A house in the suburbs? Penthouse suite? Cabin in the woods? Then, what features will my audience most likely be attracted to? What is the lifestyle they are looking for if they are interested in this area? The more specific, the better.
- By knowing your audience, you can create ads that speak directly to their desires, which increases the likelihood of engagement and conversion.
- Use Compelling Visuals: Real Estate is an industry full of visually-driven glitz and glam, compelling visuals are non-negotiable. High-quality images and videos help showcase your properties in their best light, capturing the attention of potential buyers and enticing them to learn more.
- Visually appealing ads not only grab attention but also convey professionalism and attention to detail, instilling confidence in your ability to find the right property for your clients.
- If you deliver high quality images time and time again you ensure your audience that you care about what you are selling and ensure that you have an elevated sense of how to handle business.
- Clear Messaging: Clear and concise messaging that is inline with your brand is essential for conveying your offer and compelling viewers to take action.
- First, determine your voice and the tone you want to set in your ads. Then, communicate key information such as property features, benefits, pricing, and contact details in a succinct and persuasive manner.
- Clarity in messaging helps eliminate confusion and ensures that your audience understands the offer and its relevance to them with you as the trusted source for specific, factual information.
- Call to Action (CTA): A strong call to action is the linchpin of any effective ad, but it can be hard to accomplish! To simplify your process, a good practice is to remember that your goal is to direct your audience to their next steps… that’s the foundation of a compelling CTA.
- But what is a good call to action? You want to focus on the value and benefits you’re offering with language that incorporates action (sign up, subscribe, book a consultation, schedule a viewing, etc.), and an added touch of urgency… without being pushy!
- You can invite viewers to schedule a viewing, contact you for more information or questions, visit a property website for more listings, and the list goes on!
By carefully considering these elements and crafting your style before you begin creating your ads you are more likely to achieve higher conversion rates. Not only will you be establishing familiarity, but have personalized, compelling ads that resonate with your audience.
Optimal Ad Placement Strategies
Where do I place my ads for a higher ROI? This is the age-old question that also requires knowing your audience/target market to make the best decisions for your budget when determining where you will get the most visibility.
Strategically placing ads across various channels helps to maximize your visibility and engagement, and over time you’ll have enough data to understand where your more promising leads are discovering your services.
Here’s a few places to consider for your ads:
- Social Media: leverage platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for targeted ad campaigns. Sites like Grizzly Leads, Broker Spot, and Agent Image can help you create ads specifically for social media.
- If you are in a larger market, this strategy will likely help you stand out a bit more, and is a bit of non-negotiable if you want to be taken seriously.
- Search Engines: if time is of the essence to get more visibility you can invest in search engine advertising to capture leads actively seeking real estate services.
- Paying Google, Yahoo, etc. to advertise your properties differs than relying on SEO to help your business. SEO can take some time to build up your click and conversion rates through organic growth, but you can increase the likelihood of visibility with paid ads faster.
- Popular Real Estate Sites: There has been a shift in the way that clients find agents. It is now more common for buyers to find agents through sites like Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, etc. when they see a property they like, rather than finding an agent first.
- Advertising through these well-known sites is key in expanding your reach to a broader audience searching from anywhere in the world.
- Local Publications: Placing ads in local is a great way to build familiarity in your local, niche market. This is more traditional, but equally as effective in my opinion especially if you are in smaller markets that place an emphasis on community and word of mouth.
- Advertise in local newspapers, magazines, or community newsletters highlighting elements of your expertise in the area that will establish you as a go-to agent for this neighborhood.
- Local Commercials: Investing in high-quality local advertising is a great way to incorporate all of the above elements and help you create an immediate sense of recognizable familiarity.
- You can showcase homes you have listed now, testimonials, and share your story of how you can help others find their next dream home with complete control of your brand and content.
How to Stand Out by Infusing Creativity Into Your Ads
This is where you get to have fun, and the sky’s the limit. You’ve done all of the background work now you get to decide how you want to best deliver your ads that will notably separate your expertise from other agents.
Here’s a few ways you can start to spark your creative juices in your ads:
- Storytelling: Don’t be shy with adding stories into your messaging. Adding personal experiences into your ads helps to connect with potential buyers on an emotional level to help properties come to life, and give them a sense of what it would be like working with you.
- You can craft stories that showcase the unique features, history, and lifestyle associated with a property to help your audience imagine themselves living at that property.
- You can highlight stories from previous owners, sharing anecdotes about memorable moments in the home that you hope to help cultivate for your clients by finding them their dream home.
- You can paint a vivid picture of the surrounding neighborhood full of activity, community that evokes a sense of belonging.
- Or… perhaps you have a personal draw to a property, share your connection and why this particular property and neighborhood captured your attention.
Effective storytelling creates a personal connection with potential buyers and helps them envision themselves living in the property, making your ads more memorable and compelling.
- Interactive Content: You can incorporate interactive features in your ads that will likely promote engagement with your audience with personalized participation that they get to decide.
- Creative quizzes to help your potential clients learn more about what they are looking for is a win-win. You can incorporate images to help determine property style or neighborhood preferences with questions that illicit preference for example.
- Polls help audiences feel like their opinion will make an impact and you get important feedback on specific properties that can help inform future ads by getting to know your audience better.
- Interactive virtual tours, allow viewers to explore the property from different angles and customize their viewing experience based on their interests… technology is making this easier and easier, but we’ll expand more on this in a minute.
If you incorporate interactive content in your ads, you are starting to engage with clients which can lead to a sense of comfortability, and a great conversation starter that’s more personal rather than transactional when you do connect about a property… making your ads more memorable.
- User-Generated Content: Likely you’ve helped quite a few clients who are happy with their new properties, which you can share to help build credibility and trust with potential clients. Plus, you’ll create a sense of relatability in the homebuying experience.
- You can use testimonials, reviews, or success stories to demonstrate the positive impact working with you had for your clients’ lives.
- Create a sense of reassurance with potential buyers, by sharing photos, videos, casual interviews, and 1st-hand experiences to validate what clients can expect when working with you.
- You can incorporate testimonials from local shops, restaurants, events, to help build a sense of community to support your messaging in your ads.
Ultimately, you are sharing proof that working with you is an enjoyable experience, and your professionalism is respected by those around you. All leading to your ability to build a client base that will trust you through their purchasing process.
- Immersive Experiences: Utilizing VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) is one of my favorite new trends in advertising new properties. While it can be pricey to create these experiences, they have the potential to create a powerful effect for your clients and offer an innovative way to showcase properties that go beyond traditional photos and videos.
- You can overlay digital information, such as property details, floor plans, or furniture arrangements, onto real-world environments, allowing potential buyers to visualize the space in a customizable way.
- Or you can allow your clients to explore properties in 3D, providing a realistic and immersive viewing experience from the comfort of their own home.
With technology and digital marketing ruling the business world right now incorporating these tools into your ads is a sure way to help you stay competitive, and impress your buyers by creating a truly memorable, immersive experience.
Cost and Return on Investment
Running ads can get pricey, but the return on your investment does make it worthwhile. If you are just getting started the cost can be a deterrent, but if you can budget wisely there are some self-starting ways to help promote your business with little to no cost.
Determining your budget before you get started can help you allocate your funds across multiple avenues. As a general guide, setting aside 10% of your annual commission for advertising is an advisable practice.
But for a little more insight from Merged Media:
“A Real Estate Webmasters study showed that, while 53% of agents spend less than $5,000 on marketing, top real estate agents spend much more. In fact, 52% of agents with real estate commissions higher than $300,000 have budgets of $20,000/year; 20% of these top performers budget over $80,000/year. Also, Deloitte reports that small businesses that actively market online see an increase of $350,000 or 20% increase in annual revenue.”
Now you have an idea of what to expect as your business grows, but again, if you’re just getting started don’t feel discouraged… There are several platforms that fit budgets of all sizes to help you reach broad audiences.
Summary
Now with this comprehensive guide to help you get started in the infinite world of digital advertising I hope you feel empowered to start developing your strategy.
If too much information is overwhelming, just start piece by piece. First with your brand and messaging, then start with social media, then contact an agency, then just keep the ball rolling.
The most important thing is that you don’t waste another second worrying about perfection, the time to start carving out your niche in the competitive real estate market is now!