When you’re choosing an agent, you’ll want to find out how much they’re going to charge for advertising, and what’s specifically included in your real estate agent’s advertising strategy. The right strategy will depend on a range of factors including your location, your property itself and the current market. If you’d like to negotiate advertising costs, chatting to a real estate agent allows you to ask specific questions about what’s included in their proposed strategy, and whether each of these marketing methods are necessary for you to achieve your desired selling price.
Here’s what to talk to your real estate agent about when it comes to preparing a successful advertising strategy:
Photography and Videography
You’ll want to find a real estate agent with an experienced photographer who can take photos that can be used across your entire campaign. A good real estate agent will use the same set of photos across their entire campaign. It’s important that your real estate agent organises to have photography taken at the beginning of the selling process. This way, the photos can be used for listings, database emails, newspaper and magazine advertisements, brochures and signboards. Having aligned photography will make your property more memorable to prospective buyers. The choice of video content in the advertising strategy will depend on what they intend to do with it. For example, are they going to use it for online listing material? Are they going to post it across social media? Or both. It’s up to you to ask your real estate agent whether they intend to use video and what for. If you’re selling a farm, larger property, or a coastal beach house, your real estate agent might recommend using drone photography and videography. This way, you can promote the size and features surrounding your property.
Online listings
The most common way to market your property is via online listing portals, such as realestate.com.au and Domain. A good real estate agent will include the following in your property listing:
- Basic details such as number of bedrooms, bathrooms, car parks etc.
- A detailed description of the property
- High resolution photography
- Video content
- Up to date floor plan
Social media activity to promote the property
A good real estate agent will have a strong social media presence. They may even use paid advertising to promote your property. It’s a good idea to ask your real estate agent whether or not they’re including paid advertising in your marketing strategy. Or, if they plan to simply share posts on their page. Paid social media advertising such as Facebook ads will reach a wider, more relevant audience of prospective buyers if they use the right targeting methods.
Print advertising
A traditional advertising method is print advertising. This includes paid ads in your local newspaper or magazines. Newspapers are still very popular in regional areas as well as amongst older generations. So, depending on where you live and the types of buyers you’re targeting, print advertising could be the right approach. It’s a good idea to ask your real estate agent whether they’ve had more success with print versus digital marketing in your local area, and make a joint decision of whether you think it’s necessary to advertise both ways.
Flyers and/or brochures
Creating flyers and brochures are other traditional methods of advertising used both at inspection time and also to drop in letterboxes and cafes around your local neighbourhood.
A signboard
A signboard is a good thing to include in your marketing campaign if you live in an area where you get lots of traffic passing by. This can be on foot or drive by. If you’re selling a rural property, it might be worth removing the signboard from your advertising strategy if little to no one is going to drive past it.
Email Marketing
Agents who have had years of experience in the industry have large email databases from looking after past clients. A good real estate agent will make use of this database by sending emails that include their current listings.