But many real estate professionals brush it aside or put forth half effort because it can be time consuming, confusing and expensive.
Katie Lance, a real estate marketing consultant and CEO and owner of Katie Lance Consulting, recently took the stage at Inman Connect San Francisco to address that last point in a presentation entitled Zero-Cost Marketing Tactics with Big ROI.
Lance covered a variety of tools on topics such as content and video creation, email marketing, stock photo resources and social media tools that can help real estate agents and brokers attract leads instead of chasing them.
Not only are these tools free, but they can also help you systemize your marketing efforts.
“One of the most important things you can think of is your marketing strategy,” Lance said.
Here’s a breakdown of the tools she suggested:
Task Management Tools
- Trello
- Asana
- Google Docs
- Dropbox
While tools such as Trello and Asana can help delegate tasks and Google Docs and Dropbox are great for sharing documents, Lance reminded attendees that, while technology is great, there’s no such thing as an app that can replace you.
“If you were to have a big dinner party with your 10 most important clients, would you be there, or would you just send your assistant to manage the show?” Lane asked. “So often, even in 2018, I find so many agents and brokers who are still saying, ‘Can’t I just have someone do it for me?’
“Yes, there’s some great tools and apps and products that can help. But, at the end of the day, no one can replace you. No one can replace your knowledge or experience.”
Content Creation Tools
- Medium
- Headline Analyzer (Co-Schedule)
Medium is great to create thought leadership-type blogs, while LinkedIn has a built-in blog that allows you to share on its platform and others.
Headline Analyzer allows you to type in your headline and offers tips and suggestions on how to improve it.
Video Tools & Resources
- YouTubekatie
- IGTV (Instagram TV)
- Videorama
- Videolicous
IGTV is great for vertical videos. (So often we’re taught to shoot video horizontally, even though we’re spending more and more time on our mobile devices.) Videorama and Videolicous are simple video creation tools.
If you’re hesitant to get in front of a camera because you don’t like how you look or sound, Lance shared advice she once received: “That’s how you look, that’s how you sound. Get over it.”
Stock Photo Resources
- Death to Stock Photo
- Unsplash
- Pixabay
Email Marketing
- Mailchimp
- Hemingway App
- Grammarly
- Lists
- Messenger
- Pages Manager
- Insights
- TV
Lance said Facebook Lists are “one of the best available and underutilized” tools. It allows you to get away from your noisy newsfeed and instead sorts your clients separately, allowing you to only see and interact with them.
The Insights tool is great to monitor which posts are or aren’t working, while the Pages Manager allows you to schedule posts in advance. BeLive.TV does the same for Facebook Live videos.
- WordSwag
- Canva
- Boomerang
- Storeo
- LinkTree
Lance believes Instagram is the social media platform to watch in the coming year.
While Instagram Stories are limited to 15 seconds, Storeo allows you to take a longer video and automatically breaks it down into 15-second clips. LinkTr.ee allows you to add more links to your Instagram bio, which currently limits you to one.
Final Takeaway
“When it comes to marketing and content creation, the agents and brokers who are getting the most out of everything we’re talking about today are doing this: They’re leaning into who they are, and who they’re not,” Lance said. “I think so often we try to be really professional, we try to be all things to all people, and then we become very vanilla.
“If I can give you any big takeaway, (it’s) lean into who you are and who you’re not. Have an opinion. Because, let me tell you, what happens is you start to attract the people you want to work with. Instead of chasing leads, you’re attracting those folks.”
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