The 6 Unbeatable Real Estate Marketing Tools for 2024
If you don’t get your marketing right – chances are, you’re going to have a tough time selling real estate. But let’s face it, as a busy agent, marketing oftentimes falls by the wayside. But, long gone are the days of doing it all on your own, new tools can take marketing off your plate.
Marketing tools can help streamline the way you conduct business. You can reach a wider audience, nurture leads that convert into lifelong customers, and grow your presence without lifting a finger. And, with a solid marketing strategy, your business will grow.
Here are the six essential real estate marketing tools you can’t live without.
- Best Real Estate Lead Generation Companies
- Real Estate CRMs
- Real Estate Website Builders
- Email Marketing Tools
- Automated Communication Tools
- Real Estate Social Media Tools
Marketing tools every real estate agent should have in their toolbelt
1. Real Estate Lead Generation Tools
Leads are the lifeblood of every real estate business and are likely the most valuable resource you’ve got. Without a steady flow of leads coming in, you can kiss revenue and growth goodbye.
That’s why successful agents and brokerages use third-party platforms to provide them with consistent lead flow to work from. The more leads you have coming in, the greater potential you have for closing.
Lead generation tools are more than this, though; you can grow your business in a short amount of time when these tools are used properly. Expanding your lead sources boosts productivity, and they can save you a lot of time—time you can spend perfecting your follow-up process or closing sales. Boosting sales activity and conversion rates is a one-way street to increased revenue, as long as you’re carefully considering your needs.
So, how can you choose the right lead generation tool for you?
First off, you’ll want a lead generation tool that provides the right kind of leads—you don’t want to choose a tool that specializes in seller leads if you focus your time and energy on buyers. You should always look for features that are geared towards finding leads you want to work with. For example, I like to use software that has a home valuation feature on my website so I can attract seller leads.
Next, you should make sure you’re getting quality leads. You don’t want to invest in duds, sure, but this also means leads are ready to do business and that the deals are worth your effort. Any service that pre-qualifies their leads is a good start, whether through ISAs or automation. Some tools even use predictive analytics to find you leads most likely to sell in the near future. If all else fails, look at reviews that other agents leave.
Exclusivity matters, so you should figure out whether you’re getting exclusive leads from your service provider. Non-exclusive services may be cheaper, but these leads are of lesser quality. In some cases, you can pay extra for exclusive leads, and they are oftentimes well worth the investment. Speed-to-lead is a very important concept, so you should seek to be the first in the door.
In the same vein, you don’t want to lose out on leads with an uncoordinated follow-up strategy, so you’ll want to look for a service that nurtures your leads through drip campaigns and keeps them warm. It’s good to receive records of automated conversations and be notified (preferably through text) when the lead is ready for you to enter the conversation.
Any lead generation service with a clear dashboard that allows you to manage your pipeline is nice. Some might have their own CRM, but you should make sure they allow integrations if it’s not better than your current one—more on that next.
Our top choice for lead generation: Zurple
Our favorite features:
- A comprehensive CRM with lead scoring and routing
- Bold Leads offers location-based, done-for-you Facebook campaigns
- Automated marketing and text concierge keeps leads warm
2. Real Estate CRM
You’ve probably heard the term “CRM” before, but why are they so important?
One reason: efficiency. You want to interact with your customers in the most efficient way possible. This ultimately boils down to organization and automation.
You need to be able to pull up lead profiles easily, and you want to focus your attention on the leads and conversations that matter. That’s what a CRM offers, and it can turn a real estate business into a revenue machine.
What makes a good CRM? That’s a trickier question to answer.
There are many out there with various interfaces and features, but your choice will come down to personal preference. However, there are a few features that I pay attention to when selecting the one that is right for me.
Let’s start with the essentials. No one has the time to play around with and learn a complicated system. It pretty much takes the convenience out of investing in the tool in the first place. Look for something that lets you hit the ground running.
Realtors also need direct messaging features; being able to email, text, or call right from your dashboard is a huge time saver, and it makes it easy to reference lead information during a conversation. Also, it should be easy to pull up conversation history so you can keep the ball rolling with those lifelong clients of yours.
Next, organization. Whether you like a simple dashboard or the NASA control room, there’s a CRM out there that looks exactly how you want. Some narrow down information, only showing you what’s most valuable, which aids productivity. What you really want, though, is to be able to customize your CRM to your exact preferences, as every real estate business is unique.
Any basic task that can be taken care of by the CRM saves you time, so consider what you need. Automating tasks like lead routing and assigning statuses saves you the trouble of going in and updating each lead yourself. Automated communication is especially helpful, usually, this comes in the form of email or text autoresponders.
A CRM should also help you create pipelines. It should show where each lead is in the sales cycle, and some even send you reminders to follow up with certain leads.
Our top choice for CRMs: CINC
Our favorite features:
- Customizable dashboard with advanced search
- Automated email drip system and autoresponders
- Integrates seamlessly with powerful IDX website
3. A Real Estate Website Builder
Every agent needs a website. It’s the heart of your online presence and where all leads should be directed to find more information about your business. There are plenty of website builders created specifically for real estate agents, and I’d suggest looking through those before using a service like Duda or Squarespace (though those are perfectly fine, especially if you value customization).
If you’re anything like me, you’re no coding wizard. Luckily, real estate website builders understand this, typically building the backend (all of the coding) of the website for you while providing a drag-and-drop editor and templates to take care of the front end (the design of the website).
Real estate websites must be IDX-enabled, meaning there’s a home search function that’s integrated with your MLS. IDX keeps your website current and detailed. Some website builders require you to add IDX yourself, but industry website builders usually include IDX by default. Not all IDX tools are built the same. Some have advanced search features and others include extra information for home search, like data about local communities.
If you’re a team or brokerage, some website builders even offer subdomains or microsites for individual agents.
Most real estate websites are lead capture sites. Some use forced registration that requires a sign-in to view listings, while others opt for a more passive approach using pop-up capture forms or landing pages. If your website is fully integrated with your CRM, you should be provided with an extensive lead profile that includes what website visitors most engaged with and how long they spent on your site.
Speaking of which, you’ll also want a website that integrates with your preferred CRM.
Top choice for website builders: AgentFire
Our favorite features:
- Highly customizable WordPress website that you own
- Home Junction feature provides hyperlocal data
- Uses leading IDX plug-in Showcase IDX
4. Real Estate Email Marketing Tools
Even though text and social media marketing are becoming increasingly popular, research shows that email is still the best channel to reach out to people. Email is arguably one of the most efficient real estate marketing strategies because of its low-cost, low-effort method for client nurturing and increasing brand awareness. According to eMarketer, the median ROI for email marketing is 122%!
However, there’s no way that you can keep up with sending emails out consistently to hundreds of past, present, and future clients on your own. You need a tool that automates and streamlines your email marketing efforts. And, because email marketing has remained important for so long, there are plenty of email marketing tools available.
Now, most CRMs offer some form of email automation to assist you with sending follow-up emails and drip campaigns, so you may see no point in investing in an extra tool. You may want to rethink this. Tools that specialize in email marketing are uniquely geared to send out awesome nurture campaigns that attract customers new and old to your business.
Chances are you don’t have the time to create masterful email content. Many services provide email templates that quicken the process, but that may even be too much of a time commitment. If so, leave it to email marketing specialists. They know how to create the right drip campaign, sending emails to the right people at the right time. Some even create newsletters for you to provide clients with important updates in the industry.
Email automation is great and all, but if it sounds too robotic, it’s sure to annoy clients and may even land you in the spam folder. To keep engagement high and spam complaints low, you must ensure that emails sound authentic. Good email marketing services prioritize personalization and your voice coming through messages.
Top choice for email marketing tools: Happy Grasshopper
Our favorite features:
- Automated email marketing system, text services, ringless voicemail drop
- Personalized emails that infuse your voice and brand
- Integrates with whatever tools you’re already using
5. Automated Real Estate Communication Tools
Lastly, let’s talk more about specific automated communication tools—chatbots, text concierges, and even AI can keep leads warm for you. I’ve briefly mentioned these kinds of tools throughout, but it’s worth explaining how extremely valuable they can be.
You’ve probably been to a website and had a chatbot pop-up to help you. Having a chatbot on your website and/or social media is very helpful in getting prospects the information they need right away. Rather than waiting on your response, they can get relevant details immediately from your virtual assistant in the corner of the screen.
Like cold calling, prospecting site visitors can be a huge time sink, which is why you should have a text concierge do it for you! A real person (or very convincing AI) will work your leads the minute they respond to text funnels, qualifying them and leading them to an appointment with you. Often, these services upload conversations will to your CRM, which is when you will receive a notification about an available lead.
The power of intelligent real estate tools is no joke. Data is a goldmine, and the more data points you have, the more effective your follow-up and marketing strategies will be. Any service that provides predictive analytics is worth considering, as it can help you stay vigilant and approach sellers first. Plus, many tools offer smart suggestions to improve follow-up and client interactions.
There are plenty of ways to automate communication, but these are valuable tools to have at your disposal. The right tool is sure to get you a considerable ROI.
Top choice for automated communication: Real Geeks
Our favorite features:
- Predictive CRM software with automated campaigns
- Success Assurance concierge service from real people
- Opportunity Wall suggests when to reach out to contacts
6. Real Estate Social Media Tools
According to NAR, 77% of real estate agents use social media. If you’re in the 23% that haven’t taken the hint that social media is a powerful tool for your business, it’s time to get on this train!
The easiest way for folks to refer you to their friends and neighbors is by sharing your information online. If you’ve taken the time to boost your social media presence, it’ll make it a lot easier to find you, making it more likely to get referrals and find new clients.
Improving social media presence is something many agents are prioritizing. Social media marketing, though, is not as simple as it may seem, especially because we don’t all have the time or expertise to post consistent, engaging content to multiple platforms. I personally find it a lot easier to lean on tools that can help me manage it all.
Many platforms offer paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads have become the modern lead-generation tactic for many agencies. The ad budget for these is relatively inexpensive when you compare it to the revenue and exposure you gain from them. Plus, many of these companies take care of content and scheduling for you, saving you loads of time doing it yourself.
Your social presence is important, and you should have authority over what’s being posted in your name. For this reason, you’ll want a social media tool with some transparency. If you want to have more control over what you’re posting, many social media tools provide sleek templates to add your own content.
Social media tools that integrate MLS with your ads are essential, but having new listings appear in ads automatically is golden. You don’t want to promote listings that are no longer relevant, and you want the process of updating your ads to be seamless.
Top choice for social media integrated tools: Facebook
Our favorite features:
- Facebook ads with MLS to look up listings right from the platform
- Listing Rocket updates ads to promote new listings automatically
- Mission Control provides full transparency over ad spends
Find the right tools for your needs
Building your marketing toolkit is essential for growing your brand. These six tools are a great start to elevating your marketing approach. Expanding your online presence, growing a consistent lead pipeline, communicating with prime efficiency, and staying top-of-mind with clients all lead to increased commissions.
