The Top 17 Real Estate Marketing Mistakes Holding Agents Back

If you’re looking to make your next twelve months in real estate better than your last, I’m sure you agree there needs to be some changes.

And if we all have the same twenty-four hours a day, why is it some agents always have a steady pipeline of new listings and sales while others never reach their full potential?

If you guessed marketing, you’d be correct!

Whether you’re a rookie agent in your first year or a seasoned pro planning to boost your market share, real estate top agents, the agents who consistently outperform eighty percent of agents in their area, are simply better at marketing.

We live in a time where consumers are bombarded with messages every day. This means competition for consumer attention is at an all time high.

In the last year, we’ve taken a deep dive into the marketing ideas and strategies that make good agents great. 

Here’s what we discovered are the top 17 real estate marketing mistakes holding agents back:

1. A poorly performing listing presentation and pre-listing strategy

Even if today is your first day in real estate, a great listing presentation and dynamic digital and physical pre-listing kit is one of the most important marketing tools you will ever possess. Make it a priority.

At any time, you’re going to find yourself in front of a seller asking them to list their property for sale with you. This is your make or break moment. If you win the listing, chances are you’ll make the sale and earn your fee plus the chance to list and sell other properties in the area because of the ‘buzz’ you’ve created around the original listing. 

But if you miss the listing, you not only miss the chance to earn your fee for service but the extra business that goes with it.

Almost everything you’re doing in real estate comes down to making sure you win the listing. The better you are at delivering your presentation and convincing your seller to list with you, the more listings you will win.

2. Failing to understand an effective real estate funnel doesn’t stop after the lead is attracted.

A real estate funnel is the entire process from a seller lead through to making the sale.

There are three stages or phases to a solid and reliable real estate funnel: Attracting leads, nurturing those leads with great marketing and converting them to listings and sales.

Many agents focus only on attracting leads in the hope of finding immediate sellers while neglecting the nurture and conversion stages of the process or funnel.

Look at it this way: The lead you attract tomorrow may not be selling for a month or a year or even five years …so it’s how you nurture this lead that will determine whether they list with you or even refer other sellers your way.

A good nurture plan is all about marketing and once you have a potential seller’s contact details, you can build on the relationship using email, social media, regular mail, postcards and the good old telephone. 

In fact, real estate’s best agents know and understand the nurture process is where the heavy lifting is done which is why it’s so important when it comes to building and maintaining a solid pipeline of future listings and sales.

Reaching out to a contact with the best nurture strategies includes regular value contact with relevant information that will help keep you top-of-mind when it comes time for them to sell.

3. Not using a mix of online and offline marketing

According to statistic.com the daily time spent on social media platforms worldwide is 145 minutes, so you want to make sure your consistent branding and relevant messages are reaching your audience via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

However, you will want to make sure you’re reaching your maximum target audience with offline marketing in the form of flyers, cards, letters and follow up phone calls.

You don’t need to do everything, you just need a healthy mix of both and it’s wise to make sure you can measure what marketing is producing the best results.

Jigglar is a dedicated real estate marketing design tool so you can access thousands of templates for social media land your flyers and cards.

4. Not harnessing the power of your community

The problem with continually posting real estate related content like recent sales, average prices, the volume of property sold and listings is that there are only ever 5% of people in your area looking to buy or sell real estate at any one time.

This means that if your content is always about real estate, you’re failing to engage 95% of people in your community. 

If you’re serious about really connecting with your people, we’re seeing an increasing number of top agents engaging local property owners with more and more non-real estate content.

These agents are becoming local influencers by posting content about local businesses, local leaders and other relevant points of interest like events, community causes and issues that pertain specifically to their area.

This kind of content marketing positions the local agent as a community-minded contributor rather than someone always posting real estate content.

Look for ways to position yourself as the digital mayor with interesting local stories and local interest topics and ideas. People love that!

(JB Image here like BEST WALKS social post below)

5. No email marketing strategy and failing to follow the essential rules of effective email

According to mailchimp.com, the average email sent by real estate agents has an open rate of just 19.17% with a click rate of 1.77% making it one of the lowest performing industries on their list.

An open rate of less than 20% means only one in five people are actually open the agent’s email and less than 2 in 100 people are clicking on anything.

Why are these figures so low? The main reason is because the subject line stinks.

Your email open rate will totally depend on the effectiveness or curiosity factor of your subject line.

For example, a subject line like RECENT TORONTO NEWS would have a lower open rate than something like GUESS WHICH TORONTO BUSINESS IS WINNING AWARDS

Many agents either don’t send regular email messages to their contacts or do so sporadically.

There’s no need for fancy HTML style email templates with corporate colours and logos. In fact, people often avoid that type of message as they know it’s just advertising.

Remember, your mission is to get noticed and get opened, so just send an email that looks like an email from a friend.

I regularly subscribe to receive emails from marketing people I like and collect their subject line ideas and adapt to real estate.

Also, don’t worry about people unsubscribing from your email list. That’s going to happen.

6. Using the wrong social media strategies and marketing

When Facebook started back in 2004, little did we know that a brand new form of advertising was born.

These days, platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are some of the biggest and most influential marketing options available.

They are also perfect for your real estate business IF you get it right.

But there’s a problem.

Navigating Facebook’s Ads Manager is a nightmare for the inexperienced. Knowing which box to tick or which function to enable or disable presents an ever-changing minefield of potentially expensive mistakes.

Knowing how to target the best audience is critical to your success so my advice is make sure you hire an experienced professional with a track-record for results.

Every month, agents blow millions of dollars on social media marketing with little or no success because they got it wrong.

The best idea is to connect with a professional and start slowly. As you build results, you’ll not only discover what works in your area, you will probably be able to reduce your monthly marketing budget as you go.

7. Not using a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)

So let’s head back to your real estate funnel for a moment.

When you attract a fresh lead, where does it go? How quickly can you access the lead and what information can you get?

Can you send a bulk email to hundreds or thousands of contacts and customize each one to use their first name?

Will it allow you to send bulk customized text messages as well?

Can you set up so leads you attract to be automatically sent to your CRM?

A solid and user-friendly Customer Relationship Management system or CRM is a critical part of your marketing success. Your growth will be a lot faster if you use one.

8. Not using client reviews and testimonials

A good collection of client reviews will do much of your marketing for you because a review offers social proof or evidence of your success.

If you’re pitching for the listing with the seller at a presentation, you’ll no doubt, be sharing just how good an agent you are. But when this comes from one of your former clients, it’s way more powerful.

Make sure you use “talking or quotation marks” for each review and keep them short because people tend to shy away from lots of copy and switch off. 

And please be sure to use the person’s full name at the end of the quoted comment. If you use initials or worse, nothing, people will be more likely to assume you just made it up.

9. Not knowing what you stand for and regularly switching marketing tag lines in the search to find something you like.

Many agents search for a branding slogan or tag line to help them stand out and win more business. It’s a cool idea but I can’t really think of too many that cut through the white noise and leave an impression. 

If you’re going to use a tag line, the most important thing is to stick with it and use it everywhere.

I remember speaking with a marketing expert about this and his advice was make your tag line something simple and focus on what you want to be known for.

In other words, let your slogan or tag line help people quickly identify what it is you do. 

The real estate marketing extension of this is that, if it’s good, you can use it everywhere from a website domain name to your social media posts.

I was recently discussing this idea with Mike Cranstoun from Dunedin in New Zealand. 

Mike had recently changed brands and was looking to give his marketing some impact and share a relevant marketing message people in Dunedin would remember.

So I asked him the marketing question “What do you want to be known for?” 

He thought for a moment and said I simply want to be known as the guy who sells real real estate in Dunedin and Mike’s brand and tag line was born: Mike Sells Dunedin.

I like it because it says who he is, what he does and where he does it.

Instead of just a photo of Mike we set him up with a flattering caricature to set him apart from every other agent in town.

Check out what we did at https://www.facebook.com/MikeSellsDunedin 

10. Not having a fully responsive and fast-loading website 

Your website needs to look amazing and load quickly on all devices and browsers. That means it’s ‘fully responsive’

There’s every chance a new contact or potential seller will want to learn more about you from their mobile device so make sure you regularly test your personal and company website on your mobile.

According to online marketing and SEO expert Neil Patel, you’ll lose 40% of your website traffic if they have to wait more than 3 seconds for your site to load. 

People expect almost instant results and you’ll be judged by your online performance.

11. Being invisible when a potential seller does an online search for real estate services in your area.

If a seller searched ‘real estate + your area’ right now, would you and your contact info come up on page one or two?

Your online search presence can be influenced by everything from the key words you use in a blog article on your website to social media posts and even YouTube videos.

And the really good news is that once you post a lot of this content, it’s there to stay and will work for you around the clock.

12. Failing to ‘own’ a dynamic and compelling point-of-difference or Unique Selling Proposition

There are hundreds of real estate agents competing for business in any one area.

A recent statistic from US says that the average property owner knows 12 agents …so why are they going to hire you?

What does your marketing say about you and why are you different to every other agent in town?

Owning a dynamic and compelling USP is something that will help people remember you when it comes time to list their property for sale.

13. Failing to use professional images and too many images of empty rooms

My wife and I are currently shopping for a property and I’m amazed how many listings carry terrible images.

As a general rule, listings with poor quality images take longer to sell and usually sell for a lower than average price.

But the real damage is done when a potential seller sees these terrible images because they justifiably assume that’s how you will be marketing their property.

Make sure you go to the trouble of getting great professional images. There a plenty of online post-production companies that can balance the light in all your shots and even digitally furnish an empty room.

Remember there’s no second chance at a first impression.

14. Poorly designed marketing pieces that confuse your target audience

When it comes to marketing, a confused mind always says no.

Usually a consumer’s mind is confused because the ad, flyer or post is giving them too many options.

Have you ever sat down at a restaurant and tried to select your order from a menu with too many choices? Same thing. Too many options.

All effective marketing whether online or offline follows specific marketing rules to increase the chance of the reader reaching out to make contact or take action.

Don’t be afraid of white space and give your target audience one simple call-to-action, not five. It works much better this way.

15. Allowing perfect to get in the way of great

Have you ever wondered how much doesn’t get done in the world because of procrastination?

There’s nothing wrong with striving for perfection but at what cost?

Getting your marketing idea up and out there is critical to a successful mission and your results totally rely on your ability to pull the trigger on your ideas to get in front of more sellers.

Continually ‘tweaking’ your marketing flyer or social media ad is burning valuable daylight. If you’re not totally sold on your idea, why not do a limited run and see what happens …but get it done and move on. And if it works, do it again.

16. Reinventing the wheel each time you want to create a marketing template or report

The saying ‘time is money’ was made for real estate agents.

Every time you have to start something from scratch is important daylight hours lost when you could be focussing on dollar productive activities, so look for ways to build your library of customized real estate marketing templates, reports, social media designs, flyers and forms and you’ll save many hours with unnecessary editing.

For example, ‘My Jiggles’ is your private library of awesome marketing ideas where everything lives in your Jigglar account.

Your colors, images, logo and even your fonts are retained in each template you edit and save. When the time comes to get another, you simply clone it from an existing template and quickly make the changes required.

A Jigglar trial with all the bells and whistles is complementary. Just go to jigglar.com and get started.

17. Failing to use a uniform and consistent branding look

I’m sure you’ve noticed just how much real estate marketing is going on in your area. The real estate selling public is constantly inundated with all kinds of agent offers designed to motivate a seller to contact that agent when time comes to sell.

The advertising space in your area is busy enough without changing the way your marketing looks every time. All this does is confuse people.

I’m not necessarily talking about your logo, it’s more about your branding. 

Is there a consistent look to your online and offline marketing? Do you constantly use the same font, marketing layout, color and style? Is there a static appeal to the look and feel of everything you produce and post, distribute or mail?

Setting up a suite of well designed templates for all your marketing will not only save you time and money, but send a solid message of consistency and reliability to sellers in your area. They should be able to tell it comes from you even before they see your name or logo.

About Ray Wood

Ray is a real estate trainer, coach, marketing specialist, best-selling author, speaker, podcaster and entrepreneur.

His area of expertise is working with real estate professionals to boost results and grow their personal brand via proven real estate funnels that attract, nuture and convert new contacts to listings and sales.

He’s the founder at Bestagents Inc. a real estate training and marketing group.
Co-Founder at LockedOn.com (state-of-the-art real estate software).
Co-Founder at Jigglar.com (a creative marketing platform for agents)
and host and presenter at TopAgentsPlaybook.com (a Podcast for real estate agents)

Ray is a 4th generation real estate agent and auctioneer from Melbourne Australia living in Toronto since 2008 and the best selling author of ‘How To Sell Your Home For More’  (more than 400,000 copies sold)

The Jigglar Story

In 2017, real estate agents Ray Wood and Aaron Shiner teamed up with John Banitsiotis, a graphic designer and Josh Kohlbach a web developer to create a marketing platform just for agents.

Ray and Aaron had worked together in the real estate coaching space and noticed how difficult it was for agents to access low cost marketing graphics, designs and templates that could quickly an easily be customized and downloaded.

Getting any kind of design work, report or presentation could cost thousands and was simply not cost effective for the vast majority of agents looking to boost their profiles on social media and beyond.

Teaming up with John, the graphic artist, and Josh the developer made solved this problem and within a year, Jigglar was born.

As the months rolled by, the team created more and more designs for Jigglar agents to edit and use with their marketing. Today Jigglar is the favourite marketing tool for agents in more than one hundred countries looking to set themselves apart from the competition.

We know how real estate works and understand the importance of building your funnel to attract new clients, win the listing and stand out in your market. 

When you sign up for a free trial account, we invite your input and ideas and are proud to welcome you as part of the Jigglar story.

Fast track your Jigglar experience

Sign up here for a free Jigglar trial. You won’t need your credit card and you’ll have 30 days to access all our templates and features.

Whether you want to generate your own unique QR code or customize your own listing presentation, you’ll find a video for every question at our Youtube channel

Need support? Our awesome support team welcome any questions at support@jigglar.com

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Sources for statistics

https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide

https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/

https://neilpatel.com/blog/loading-time/