Which Marketing and Lead Channels Should You Be Focusing On?

2025 and the return of home sales transactions might seem a long way off, but as I wrote in another post, all signals point to a big resurgence.

In fact, 2025/2026 could well be record years for transaction dollar volumes as more pricey homes get bought and sold. Read more on the specific boosters for year 2025 in particular.

How about you? How far have you come in the past 5 years? Are you happy with your sales outlook? If not, let’s discuss your 2025/2026 sales years ahead and what channels/approach is most realistic, actionable and affordable for you.

It takes a little time, money and talent to build a leading real estate marketing strategy. Too many Realtors balk at the expected cost of marketing and promotion. However, marketing in real estate is as important as it is in travel business, software market, and stock market. Those who commit to marketing own the future. Those who don’t disappear.

And on a practical basis, t’s vitally important to prove and demonstrate to your GenZ and Millennial prospects that you’re a capable marketing, promotion and sales leader.  This is all achievable for an affordable price. And your investment in it ensures your commitment to it. Because — we’re marketing you!

Buyer and seller clients will judge you based on your presentation, visibility, style, and more, so if you’re on top of these credibility factors, you keep yourself in the race to capture that lead.  And after all, your local Realtor competitors might be strong in marketing thus will grab your local market fully. You can be this strong too.

Where to Start, What to Do?

Right now, you’re wondering when to start, what to do, and who should be doing it for you.  It all comes back to creating helpful, interesting and engaging content and it all starts with your content strategy. It’s content done well to engage, spread online, and build your Realtor brand — your promise of satisfaction and value to buyers/sellers.

Most Effective Marketing/Promotional Channels for Realtors

Which are the most effective? That depends. Some would say email, however, email doesn’t generate reach and new leads. It’s an engagement channel for nurturing leads. Some might say video, because it introduces you and builds appeal, while others would say it’s your business website where they find comfort, trust and certainty about you and what you do.

The truth is it’s going to be all your channels acting as a team to reach, impact, engage, communicate and nurture leads.

Starting with zero traffic and visibility is your biggest challenge. But don’t let it paralyze you. It’s just the inertia of launching a new product — your marketing machine. Every successful Realtor starts at the beginning.

 1. Video Marketing

The success of YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok are tough to ignore. When it comes to their real estate dreams, buyers and sellers are slightly visual. And videos can be combined with links to persuasive blog posts or marketing pages, as is often the case. No one takes action on a video alone.

However, Realtors who leverage the video medium can showcase properties and themselves in a captivating way. Your video content would focus directly on their priorities and expectations. Your UVP matches their dream. You might create market updates, point out issues you can help them overcome, and of course give them a chance to see you in action, hear your voice, and establish your brand image with them.

Silicon Valley Realtor Carla Ng – Campbell shows how simple and easy a Realtor video can be. There are many local real estate videographers who can create these videos. Sometimes you would film the video yourself, send it to the videographer and they would weave together a beautiful presentation for you. You don’t have to go overboard as you see many do on Youtube, Instagram or Facebook. That’s a disgrace to your profession. Instead, one video alone done professionally, carries your “proof” of competence, integrity, and charm. This is the real message they’re looking for.

 2. Social Media Marketing

Organic social media is tough. Each of the social platforms has crushed visibility which then necessitates you having to conduct paid ad placement/boosting posts to gain visibility to the connections you have built. Social media marketing requires shared content, thoughtful insights, messages, and energizing comments and responses to other’s postings.

This is vital as prospects read your character and intent in your dialog with others.

Socializing this way is a significant skill, as people generally only like or support others who share the same views. It’s a club atmosphere, yet great content promoted expertly gains big visibility and is the match that starts the fire.

 3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Buyers and sellers are online constantly. They want to experience the market, learn about it, find out to get their price, and decide on their values in buying or selling. You might say all of them are undecided about their intentions because they’re still searching.

Expert level SEO can generate massive traffic, however you can lead a horse to water, but it might not drink. SEO fails when it gets too focused on keywords and forgets user intent and communicating serious value. Google often ignores keywords, instead reads content’s real meaning and purpose and whether it matches the buyer/sellers actual intent and interests. Having a true SEO pro with advanced content strategy skills working for you is a big advantage.

 4. Paid Advertising

Today, there is no way to avoid paying for leads. Every channel/publisher demands payment for the value they offer you. There’s no free meals now (including SEO).

PPC campaigns via Google Search, Google Adsense, Zillow, Facebook, Instagram etc. are essential for informing your free, organic strategy and perhaps producing leads directly. Display ads on YouTube, Instagram, along with remarketing campaigns help you build familiarity and trust with your desired audience, given targeting capabilities are strong.

Having a good analytics software is a priority, however, using Google’s tools and Facebook’s targeting capabilities, we can determine where the good leads are coming from, and how to tailor your ads and value prop for your audience.  Success comes from continuous, deeper discovery of your best audience.

 5. Email Marketing

email marketing is the culmination of all the other lead generation activities you undertake. Leads come in from social posts, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook and Instagram and it’s vital to capture their contact information. It’s a delicate issue with spam-weary visitors. Yet, having an active email campaign as you might know let’s you speak directly to prospects, notify them about listings and showings, and build a personal relationship with them.

Creating that Wow factor for segmented audiences, testing clickthrough/ROI success, and staying top of mind without creating unsubscribes are a few things I might be able to help you with.

What is My Message Then?

That building a foundation using all channels strategically utilizes your valuable funds better and generates more leads and ROI.

The best approach is to hire practically, someone who is versatile, who can help set up your marketing strategy cost-effectively. A dedicated real estate marketer with obvious expertise and experience provides more dedication and focus. I’ve worked with Canadian and US Realtors, have written books on content and SEO strategy, and I never stop learning.

Yesterday means nothing. It’s only what you do now that creates your real estate career and sales outcomes.

Call me, Gord at 416 998 6246 to discuss my real estate marketing services, and remember that pricing is always negotiable!

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