Real Estate Marketing can be the easiest way of starting a lucrative real estate business if you know how to go about it.
I said “if you know how to go about it” because I know many people who call themselves real estate marketers, estate agents or even realtors, yet they know nothing about the business, hence they are achieving little or no success.
If you are interested in real estate marketing, you must first understand that it is a business, see it as one and treat it as one.
In fact, real estate marketing is one of the little known but common businesses that anyone can do to make money on demand, create a sustainable passive income and achieve financial freedom.
And talking about making money on demand and achieving financial freedom; this is what I discussed in my eBook “The Money Tree Businesses (7 Simple But Highly Profitable Businesses You Can Start to Make Money On Demand”. You can download the book here for half the price it’s selling on Amazon.
Now let’s move on.
Real Estate Marketing, What’s It?
It is simply what it is: Marketing Real Estates Properties.
You are not buying, constructing or building houses. You simply sell real estate properties on behalf of developers and real estate companies and earn commissions.
What type of properties can you sell?
There are a variety of them: lands, homes, shopping malls, office complexes, condos and warehouses, amongst others.
Real Estate Marketing will continue to thrive because real estate and construction will continue to be a booming sector due to growing world population.
Consider this: The UNDP estimates that by 2025 the world population will be 8 billion and that by 2050, it would have increased to 10 billion people.
That’s 10 billion human beings that will need where to sleep, work, shop, and play.
What industry will provide the shelters, factories, malls, recreation centers and the school buildings for this 10 billion people?
Real Estate and Construction Industry, of course!
And who will connect buyers with the sellers of these properties?
The Realtors! That’s you, the real estate marketer.
You get the picture?
I am not talking about estate agents here. Those people that put house to let signs on street corners. No! I am talking about Real Estate Marketing. This one involves the deployment of marketing strategies and tools to connect buyers with sellers of real estate properties.
Call it Real Estates Consultancy or Real Estates Affiliate Marketing, you will not be wrong. As matter of fact, the business works on the affiliate marketing model because, your job really is to refer prospects to real estates properties of the merchants.
Once the prospect you refer closes a deal, you grab your commission.
How It Works
Now, this is how it works.
Real Estate Firms and property developers are always on the lookout for independent marketers for two reasons:
- To save cost and
- To complement their own in-house marketing structure
Except for companies that are big or have very large platforms, getting in front of the right audience takes time and cost a lot of money. Many firms find it a more efficient strategy to engage independent marketers to create markets for their real estate portfolios.
So the first step is to sign up with a real estate company or property developer that has a proven and solid system … training, compensation, tracking and reputation.
Then get trained and understand their systems. And because you are an Independent Marketer, you can sign up with as many real estate firms as you like.
You are also allowed to refer people to sign up with the firms and for each person you referred, you earn a referrer commission on the business generated by that person.
The next step is to sell, refer other marketers and earn your commissions. Some firms pay as much as 5%. Now imagine you facilitated a sale of a property worth NGN50 million, that’s a commission of N2,500,000. Just on one sale.
How much you make depends largely on your marketing strategy and network. In this business social capital is very important, develop it.
Set It Up as A Proper Business
I have said earlier that real estate marketing is a business, so set it up properly. Setting up your real estate marketing business properly will mean that you:
- Register your business – a business name registration will serve your purpose very well
- Get an office – this will be your contact place where your customers can come for meetings. Real estate marketing can actually be done from home if it is convenient.
- Design your marketing tools
- Watch out for regulation, if any and register with a relevant association. For instance you may need to register with the Association of Real Estate Agents in Nigeria.
Marketing Tips
Here are what you need to do to make it big in real estate marketing.
#1. Create a Website – the internet is the first place many people will go to when they are looking for something to buy, real estate property inclusive. Use your website to build trust by providing useful information on what potential real estate buyers will need.
This will help you cultivate loyal audience that you can sell to.
#2. Exploit the Power of Social Media – Create and run pages for your business on the major social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snap Chat, amongst others. Share engaging articles, educate your audience and become a go to expert for most of them.
Post pictures and promote the properties you market around the stories you share. People tend to believe more on products sold this way more than when you emphasize on the sale itself.
#3. Exploit the power of email marketing – Email marketing is a powerful tool for direct marketing. Use your website or blog to capture prospects emails. You achieve this by creating lead magnets on your website which requires people with interest on what you offer to opt in to receive further correspondences.
Your lead magnet can be a free report on how to buy property in Lagos free from Omonile wahala or a free book on how to get mortgage loans to buy any property you want in Nigeria.
When visitors to your website indicate interest to download the free report, you ask for their email addresses to send it directly to them. Those emails captured become powerful prospects to sell your properties to.
#4. Publish a Newsletter – Newsletters can be powerful tools for marketing. You send periodic newsletter to your list loaded with relevant information on development in the real estate market.
If you do this well and your monthly newsletter become popular and large number of subscribers you can take it further by receiving adverts from real estate firms.
#5. Develop a Network of Independent Marketers – This will form your pool of residual income as you will earn commission from the activity of each marketer on your network.
Recruiting a network of independent marketers will not be difficult if you know how to use internet marketing tools such as highlighted above.
Once you understand the company you represent and the properties that are on for sale, post this on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Or send to your email list or post on your blog. Your goal is to introduce the business to fellow Realtors and as soon as you are able to get them to join the company as Independent marketers, using your referrer code, you have effectively launched your business.
Finally
Real Estate Marketing is a profitable business if you know how to go about it and have the patience and maturity to grow it. Like everything marketing, you must learn how to deal with rejections.
But if you follow the tips highlighted here, you will get to the point where you become a rallying point for both property buyers and sellers.
Getting real estate firms to work with wouldn’t be a problem. Do a Google search, check local directories and then visit the website of real estate bodies.
There are many ways to do it. Approach them with business proposals. They will be glad to have you work with them after all, they are not paying you. You only take a tiny percentage of what you sell and you only get paid when you sell.
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Buchi creates content and leads the Team at Kobotalk Management Services; a business development and investment consultancy firm. He provides strategic advisory to help SME's, small business owners and HNI's grow profitable business and make informed investing decisions.
