In the digital age that we live in, there is more to being a real estate agent in Alabama than listing houses and showing homes to potential buyers. Digital marketing is crucial in promoting any business, even real estate. People no longer have to wait to see home listings in the newspaper; they’re easily accessible online. While people still want to keep an agent involved, many buyers are drawn to an open house or a listing because they first saw it online.
What is the Most Effective Tool for Marketing as a Real Estate Agent?
With an array of real estate marketing tools to choose from, where do you begin? As with many things, using marketing tools for real estate is more about quality and less about quantity. Success doesn’t come from how many tools you use; it comes from choosing the right marketing tools and using them adequately.
To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of four categories of the most efficient real estate marketing tools.
Customer Relationship Management Tools
All of your marketing tools are integral to your marketing strategy. But tracking what you’re posting and sending can be challenging if you manage several accounts. CRMs combine email, social media, sales documents, and workflows into one easy-to-use platform.
FollowUp Boss
FollowUp Boss is one of real estate agents’ most widely used CRMs. FollowUp Boss allows you to respond faster to leads. One of the key features of FollowUp Boss is smart lists, where you can prioritize your contacts and leads by specific guidelines. This system also integrates well with the most popular real estate lead-generation tools.
DocuSign
DocuSign is an essential tool for realtors because you can handle paperwork anywhere. Suppose a client needs your signature, but you have a dentist appointment. You could meet up with them afterward, but it might be too late. Or they could bring the paperwork to you, which would be inconvenient for them. That’s where DocuSign comes in. With this tool, you can manage contacts and paperwork from literally anywhere. One of the perks of DocuSign is the ability to schedule and send reminder emails to clients who need to sign paperwork.
Task and Project Management Tools
Trello
Trello is the most popular project management tool for real estate agents and professionals. You can easily track tasks on this board-style platform. You can also share projects with others and access your tasks anywhere using the Trello app.
Lead Generation Tools
Most of your marketing tools should generate leads in some form, but some tools are designed just to draw in leads, and they integrate well with other real estate marketing tools.
MailChimp
MailChimp is one of the most widely used email marketing systems. It can send out a monthly newsletter or communicate to contacts about upcoming events. MailChimp has four packages to choose from free, essentials, standard, and premium. With the free program, you can send up to 12,000 emails monthly to up to 2,000 contacts, which is perfect for a smaller real estate business. As your subscriber list grows, you can upgrade your plan if needed. The following features are included with all plans: email scheduling, list segmentation, reporting, email templates, and a landing page builder.
Zillow Premier Agent
Zillow is the largest online real estate platform, and the Zillow Premier Agent tool allows agents to make connections and generate leads in their area. Zillow Premier Agent is designed to connect agents with buyers and sellers and help them build a following and develop lasting clients.
Social Media Tools
Billions of people use social media. Almost everyone has at least one type of social media account. Using Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok as marketing tools is practical. But trying to post across various platforms can consume much of your time. The following social media tools allow you to create and publish content across multiple platforms simultaneously, saving you time and helping you reach a broader audience.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a digital dashboard in which you can manage several social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. Features include post scheduling, unlimited posts, the ability to monitor all messages from all social media accounts in one inbox, and streams to keep track of mentions, post likes, and retweets. Hootsuite offers four paid plans, but you can try it free for 30 days.
Buffer
Buffer is similar to Hootsuite and compatible with Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. Buffer offers a free plan in which you can manage three social accounts and schedule up to ten posts per channel. The free plan also includes a landing page and basic publishing tools. Other plans are available at a per-channel rate.
Canva
Canva doesn’t help manage social media, but it is a helpful tool for social media marketing. Canva is a user-friendly graphics design tool that allows users to create brochures, newsletters, presentations, social media graphics, and more in one location.
Which Tool is Most Effective?
Again, it’s not about how many tools you use but using the best ones effectively. But even with a shorter list, it’s still hard to narrow it down to a single tool. The best thing to do would be to pick a tool from each category. For example, you can use DocuSign to keep up with all your important paperwork, Trello to manage and delegate tasks, MailChimp to organize newsletters and generate leads, and Hootsuite to manage your social media accounts.
Clarion Title Is Here For You
Once you get the hang of marketing your business and start closing deals, you might need a hand with additional real estate tasks like title searches. The dedicated professionals at Clarion Title are just a click away and ready to help you!