There's a seldom used technique to give your real estate business high exposure and make you and your realty a brand name in your local market. And the best thing about this technique is that it is the lowest cost advertising that you can have for your business. In fact, it's free!
What's this realtor marketing technique? "Using the local newspaper and press to get your name around and make your real estate business the agency people go to when they think of buying and selling housing." Press releases to market your real estate business are an effective way to get brand recognition and bring in new clients.
Press releases and getting them published in your local newspapers is the most effective means to give yourself and your agency credibility and trust. People will believe newspaper articles before they will any type of advertising you do. If done right, articles about your real estate business will bring in more new clients because it creates trust in you. If you only gain one new client per press release, just think, that could lead to thousands of dollars in commissions.
You will become the "go to" agent when people have questions about buying or selling homes and property because your name will be on their minds when they look for realtor's phone numbers in the Yellow Pages. Press releases are cost effective and will cost you time to write them and the postage to mail them to the newspaper. It's a win-win situation.
Press releases are usually tied in with major stories dealing with the real estate market so your article appearing in the newspaper will tie you to events that are in home owners' minds. This gives even more credibility to you and makes you a local authority when it comes to housing.
What do you put in your press releases? Don't make the mistake that many real estate agencies do. They put a blurb in about "so and so just joined the ABC Realty" or "Agent X just outsold any agent in town this year". You don't want to brag or give agent details that only interest the real estate community.
Your real estate press releases should be informative so the potential clients want to come to you for more information. You want to stand out for the run of the mill agent in your area. Try to tie you press release into local events, seasonal happenings, and solid tips. For instance, if your school district just re-drew the boundaries between schools in the area, you could write a news release on how to choose the right schools in the area and tie it into the real estate market in each district.
You can write seasonal press releases such as tying in the holiday seasons to what the market is doing and then give tips on how to sell or buy homes in a sluggish market. Or how to "perk up" a home to stand out from the competition and sell faster.
Always give your companies name and website address in a press release as newspaper editors frown on phone numbers. If you have a sign-up form for a monthly real estate newsletter, make the URL of the website go directly to that page and now the homepage. You'll get more leads that way.
If you have more than one newspaper in your locale, you'll find that the biggest and most read papers are not always the most effective. Weekly newspapers and those with a more targeted audience will gain you more leads and clients.
If you don't think you're up to or good enough a writer to write a press release, you can always hire someone to do this task. You can find good writers at a resonable price at CraigsList.org or locally by advertising for them.
Don't write one press release and call it quits. Regularly submit press releases. Over time, your name spreads and you will become the real estate expert in your market. That go-to agent that we would all like to become. That agent isn't made by selling houses, it's built on marketing your name and business. When you market yourself as the agent most people come to for real estate information, the selling of housing just happens naturally.
