It’s time to reflect on the real estate marketing ideas that worked — and what we can do better.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the best real estate marketing ideas for 2022. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that real estate has changed a lot within the last few months, let alone the last few years.
But, at its core, real estate marketing is always going to be about people.
So, give yourself some kudos for surviving 2021 and brace yourself. 2022 is going to bring some incredible challenges with it. But it’s also going to bring some amazing opportunities.
Build a website. Create active social media accounts. Pay for ads. There’s a lot of marketing content out there and it’s fairly generic. I’m going to walk you through 22 real estate marketing ideas that are simple, actionable, and direct
If you follow this advice, you will increase the number of leads you get. From there, you just have to be the one to translate it into revenue.
1. Put a chatbot on your real estate website.
Chatbots are a great way to engage a potential client even when you aren’t available. Real estate chatbots, live answering services, triggered email responses, and even automated Facebook messages can all collect more information about your clients.
You’re one person. But with the right tools, you can operate like a multi-person team. Chatbots and automated services are a great way to do it. Ideally, no one who ever wants to contact you should be unable to do so. They should always be able to get a response.
Even if that response is a digitally generated one.
2. Check out NextDoor for real estate leads.
NextDoor is a kind of weird place. It’s a social media site, but most people don’t really think about it because it’s a geo-targeted social media site. You can only communicate with the surrounding neighborhoods.
Here’s the thing though; NextDoor just released its app for real estate professionals. A real estate professional can become a trusted agent on NextDoor and advertise directly to people who are interested in and committed to their neighborhoods. With more people online than ever, it’s a solid marketing strategy.
And because it’s a brand new venue, it’s also one that’s not likely to be overrun yet. Many established agents have already grabbed up good zip codes in a lot of online venues. Always be looking for new opportunities and new features like this.
3. Start marketing to “unconventional” buyers.
What do I mean by unconventional buyers? More people are buying homes with friends these days than ever before. In the country, families are combining into large super-groups to buy big homesteads. In the city, young professionals are combining finances to afford a home.
This presents some great opportunities for a 2022 real estate marketing plan. And it’s why people are going to need to change up their real estate marketing strategy.
A lot of agents are used to marketing to the nuclear family. But it’s not the 1950’s anymore. In 2022, you’re going to see more multi-generational homes, multi-family properties, and cooperatives.
4. Run contests, polls, and Q&As on Instagram.
If your long-running Facebook ad isn’t getting traction anymore, it may be time to switch up your social media marketing. Instagram is a great venue to build up followers within the real estate market, even if it’s a less targeted venue.
Use Instagram and Facebook to build engagement through contests, polls, and Q&As. Your audience is increasingly online. You don’t need to create TikTok videos for each listing, but having a widely-admired Instagram account is a great way to build a brand.
You can also use these strategies to gather more information about your audience. Polls, for instance, can tell you what type of housing stock people are looking for. Are you in an area where, perhaps, more people want to see townhomes than single-family homes? It’s becoming common in high-priced markets.
As markets shift faster and faster, it’s even more important to have your finger on the pulse of your audience. Social media is a great way not only to get a following of potential customers, but also to conduct direct market research.
5. Create a video marketing account.
If you’ve been putting off your video marketing account, it’s time.
You can start your account by creating videos for each of your listings. This is a directly profitable method of online marketing; you’re going to sell listings faster with video.
But from there, you should turn your marketing efforts toward brand awareness. Video is the most compelling type of content. Talk to your local audience, update them on the market, and speak to their needs.
Over time, you’ll get a feel for what content performs best for you. Look at your metrics. See which videos are getting the most views, but also which are getting the most commitments. Your most viral videos may get a lot of traffic, but not a lot of serious buyers. There’s still value in that, but a well-rounded campaign needs both.
6. Make a “niche” Facebook group page.
You’re probably already seeing a lot of Facebook groups promoted to you. This Old House, Great Mansions Under $150,000, Nordic Houses, etc. The real estate industry has discovered that this is a great way to build engagement.
There’s even a “Goth Houses” page… for houses that are just, well, black.
You can target this better to prospective buyers. Consider a page that focuses on your niche in your area. You’ll get a lot of people following you who will eventually be home buyers. you never know when someone is going to see that “perfect home” and want to snag it.
This is one of those long-term strategies that takes time. Tip: create a bunch of posts every week and then schedule them out over the course of the week, rather than curating your feed every day. The more you can schedule and automate, the more you’ll find yourself able to do.
7. Consider live streaming.
Live streaming is a way to garner face-to-face engagement through the net. With people still hesitant to go out and meet people in person, it can be a way to get that valuable face time.
When you live stream, you can interact with your audience directly. A home buyer might ask questions about getting into the market. A home seller might want to know if it’s really the right time to sell a home. You become an expert, you build your brand, and you develop relationships.
You can live stream today on a lot of platforms. Facebook is a popular one, but there’s also Twitch and even Reddit. Go where your audience is. For most real estate agents, that will be Facebook or YouTube.
8. Get something published on Forbes, Business Insider, or local magazines.
Your target audience is reading things online a lot. And when they look up a real estate professional, they Google them first. If you want to be the agent everyone turns to, consider building up credibility.
It takes some time to get into Forbes, Business Insider, and other similar magazines. But you just need a unique take and expertise.
Take some time every month to write an opinion piece for a local magazine or a large publication. It’ll build your brand across something that’s even more reputable than a social media platform.
Some agents have even been able to get clients by running a monthly column in their local paper.
9. Update your “Google My Business” page.
Here’s the thing about Google. It’s really not a search engine anymore. It’s a suggestion engine. A suggestion engine tries to answer someone’s questions, not just return pages.
When people look up “agents near me,” Google tries to return businesses that are in the real estate market. So, the search engine’s going to look at its version of the yellow pages (Google Business) to see which local business is close.
Keep your Google My Business page updated or you could lose a potential customer to an entirely automated system, regardless of your best marketing efforts.
In addition to Google Business, you should also make sure all your information has been updated in Facebook. Facebook Business Pages get a lot of traction not just through social media, but also through SEO.
10. Team up with agents in other states.
People are going to be moving a lot more in 2022. A lot of them got remote jobs and want to move to cheaper locations. Some people even got remote jobs that were only temporarily remote; now they have to move to the job.
You should update your prospects to match these trends. Work with other agents to create a network of referrals. You might have a buyer who wants to move to Arizona; they might have a buyer who wants to move to California. Referrals can be a great way to make extra money today and all you need is a great book of contact information.
Today, there are a lot of nationwide exchanges that you can sign up to deliver referrals. But the best referrals remain personal, as you can speak with confidence as to the ability of the agent, and vice versa.
11. Talk to influencers in your area.
We can’t ignore influencers anymore. A real estate investor certainly isn’t. There are a lot of influencers who have invested a lot of time into developing their real estate brand. Often, they have more clout than an entire real estate agency.
What really is an influencer? They’re people with a large social media following, sure. But a good influencer isn’t just someone who is popular. They’re someone who really knows their network of followers, knows what they’re interested in, and knows how to mobilize them.
Most influencers today actually aren’t selling anything except advice or entertainment. They can be worked with and partnered with. Look for influencers who would be genuinely interested in working with you and to who you can provide value; you can start in your local area.
12. Use virtual staging software.
Virtual staging software can be used to create a picturesque and perfect staging photo… even if the property itself was a little less than perfect. Rather than stressing out about physically staging each listing, consider investing in either staging software or a staging service.
People today are actually getting more used to seeing automatically generated images. Before, they would find it suspicious. Today, you can use virtually staged images in all your listings and most people aren’t going to bat an eye. It’s just the deep fake of the real estate world.
You can also use virtually staged images to show off potential renovations to a property that you know would work well. For instance, how would a difficult listing look with an open floor plan? How would it look with a new fireplace or a renovated home office?
13. Get leads through Zillow (for now).
Zillow shouldn’t be your major marketing plan. It’s going through a lot of “growing pains,” radically changing its marketing strategies, and even getting into investing on its own.
But in terms of finding real estate clients, it isn’t a terrible idea. Realistically, many buyers are going through Zillow or Trulia before they ever contact an agent. A lot of agents are getting leads through these major websites.
You need to pay for each lead and they may not be well-qualified. But it’s better than never securing that lead at all because if someone is going to one of these sites, they are likely contacting agents eventually.
14. Make sure your website works on mobile.
Here’s a technical SEO issue that a lot of people haven’t taken the time to resolve. If your website doesn’t load properly on mobile, you’re losing half your audience already.
It used to be that mobile wasn’t that important. And because of that, a lot of real estate agents designed their websites around desktop computers. Mobile was already increasing over the last decade, but the pandemic really accelerated it.
In fact, you might even want to consider making your own app. A Progressive Web App doesn’t take a lot to make, runs on both browsers and mobile devices, and can be one of the most startlingly effective real estate marketing ideas — because it lives on the user’s device as a constant reminder of your services.
15. Buy a drone for overhead and fly-through videography.
Does this sound a bit extra? In 2022, you can buy a pretty good drone for real estate for just a few hundred dollars.
2022’s audience expects multi-media presentations. Fly-through videography is not only a great way to find buyers, but it’s also a great way to find prospects.
Potential clients will see the care and attention you put into your listings and think “I want that.” And it’s not as hard as it seems; it’s worth the time to improve the listing.
Drones are one of those real estate marketing ideas that really emerged through 2021 and are gaining traction now. Some agents feel like it’s just too imposing and intimidating, but most drones today more-or-less fly themselves.
And if you don’t want to do it yourself, you can always just invest in a service that does flyovers.
16. Consider giving “virtual home tours.”
Virtual home tours became really popular during the pandemic. But it’s likely that prospects are still going to want them.
First, today they can step into a real estate agency and “walk through” 10 homes. That’s something people are going to come to expect, vs. trying to visit each property on their own.
Second, people are going to be moving across the nation. Most of them can’t fly in to see every property. They’re going to start using virtual home tours as the “first step” of a process.
Investing at least a little in virtual home tours for your most important properties will put you a step ahead.
17. Look for opportunities in rental areas.
Renters are, of course, just buyers who haven’t bought. A lot of renters are looking to buy right now, but they’re waiting for the right time. They think the market is going to cool down, they worry about the market moving too fast, they don’t think they’re ready.
If you want a prospective client in the future, start working with renters today. It’s a good long-term strategy in a world where more renters are starting to make the leap, even using more creative strategies (like co-buying houses) to do so.
But you can also just do something like send out flyers to an area you know is high in renters. You know that some of them, eventually, are going to want to make the leap.
18. Automate as much of your marketing as possible.
I just walked you through 17 marketing ideas. At this point, you’re probably thinking: Where do I find the time?
Automate your real estate marketing plan. A lot of this can be done in a “set-and-forget” way.
Don’t start with 20 ideas. Start with one new marketing idea, wait until that one really sets, and then further invest in your marketing strategies. Eventually, all of these things become a habit.
19. Start a podcast.
Everyone’s going to tell you to get into content marketing. I’m going to tell you to get into content marketing. Content marketing is a great way to get people into your funnel rather than having to chase them down.
But most people don’t have hours a day to create content for their site. They need a break. Starting a podcast is a good way to get a step into content marketing without having to devote all your time to it.
Just a weekly podcast can get people invested — and it doesn’t have to be long. When people hear your voice, they relate better to you. And it doesn’t require the production values of video marketing.
Just one word of caution. Make sure to differentiate yourself, in all the content you make. The world doesn’t need another generic “how to buy a home” podcast; they need actual, actionable information. Provide something of value — or someone else will.
20. Cater to the work-from-home crowd.
A lot of people started working from home in 2021. Now, a year later, they hate their home.
Their offices aren’t set up properly. Maybe they’re working out in their living room. Some of them are even working in their bedroom.
If they have a spouse who is also working from home, they’re probably stepping on each other’s feet, barging in on each other’s meetings, and just generally getting in each other’s way.
This is a great market. Consider tilting some of your local SEO or content marketing to building better home offices. Write a blog post about the benefits of buying a home that has a little more space. People are listening.
21. Invest a little in AI.
AI-powered marketing solutions are infiltrating all industries, not just real estate. And it doesn’t have to be a big deal. AI-written ads, for instance, perform remarkably well. They use the keywords that you have in your existing copy and they generate meta tags, meta descriptions, and Google Ads that match.
AI tools are a good way to do intensive research without having to spend a lot of time on it. The more practiced you get with AI, the better results you’ll get. And ultimately, the more time you’ll save.
22. Rethink your brand.
Finally, as we get started with 2022 it may be time to rethink your brand and your strategies. Consider that we’re now investing in a brand new market. Millennials are buying houses in droves. GenZ is getting into condos.
Is it time for a brand update?
Even Wal-Mart recently updated its brand to something that’s slick and modern. Consider whether your brand still resonates with the people that you’re working with. If you attended a local event today, would people see your brand and think “That’s for me”? Or would they think it was outdated?
Start Your 2022 Real Estate Marketing Campaign Today
Strategies change. The fun (and perhaps sometimes frustrating) thing about real estate is that it changes very fast. You can’t take anything for granted.
Ultimately, you get back what you put into it. The more energy you put out there as a real estate agent — whether through social media, email marketing, or digital marketing — the better your returns will be.
Here are the things that you can’t change.
It’s an increasingly digital world. People are going online first. Your marketing strategy is going to have to adjust to the fact that most people are spending almost all their time online.
Your potential buyer isn’t calling around for leads or looking through their neighborhood for signs. They’re looking at Google ads.
Additionally, there’s more competition. Both buyers and sellers want to “do it on their own.” If they do want help, they still want to understand the process. But if you recognize this and are willing to work with them, you can chart an easier path forward.
We don’t know how the real estate market is going to change in 2022. Some people are poised for a crash that never seems to actually come. Others are seeing the market absolutely explode with no end in sight.
Remaining agile, trying out a lot of strategies, and ensuring that you put energy toward the strategies that work for you — these things are essential.
I can give you advice based on what I know works. But because real estate is so hyper-local, there’s not always a good answer.
You could be in a market where everything is done through Twitter — it’s possible. You could be in a market absolutely dominated by a single Facebook page. Or you could be in a testbed for Zillow purchasing where everything was bought up early in 2021.
As a real estate agent, you need to be open to and willing to look for new opportunities as they emerge, and that isn’t always easy. But by testing out the strategies that I’ve listed above, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t.
FAQs
What are the 4 P’s of marketing real estate?
The 4 P’s never change, regardless of what year it is. This is Property, Place, Price, and Promotion. When you’re updating your marketing strategies, keep the 4 P’s in mind. These need to be considered with each individual listing. But your own personal marketing strategy, for your own real estate business? That may be where you need to innovate.
What are some examples of marketing strategies in real estate?
Creating a website, running a blog, developing email marketing techniques, and paying for advertising on Google Ads are all known marketing strategies in both residential and commercial real estate. But 2022 is going to change the way a lot of these tactics are being used. Now more than ever, a real estate business is about who you connect with. And your real estate marketing plan has to be able to connect you with people digitally.
What is the best real estate marketing tool?
When it comes to real estate marketing tools, consider a Customer Relationship Management suite, a website that integrates with the MLS system, automated email marketing services, and chatbots. Anything that can streamline and automate your client connections is a good thing.
