Marketing for New Real Estate Agents: Lay the Foundation for Success in Your First Year

When you work with a first-time home buyer, you know they’re probably a little nervous and uncertain. After all, they’ve never purchased a property before. So, chances are, you would work with them to lay the foundation of success.

In most cases, that would mean advising them to get their down payment together and arrange for pre-approved financing, as well as helping them determine which neighbourhoods and homes best fit their needs, wants and price range.

If you’re in your first year as a real estate agent, you may also be a little nervous and uncertain, just like that first-time buyer. You want the year to go well!

So, when it comes to marketing for new real estate agents, how do you lay the foundation for your lasting success?

There are three important things you need to focus on in your first year.

• Build out your contact database.

As you may have noticed already, top performers get most of their business through geographic farming leads, repeat business, and clients referrals. In other words, through contacts they’ve nurtured.

In your first year, you may not have many contacts, yet. So, you need to focus on expanding your contact database.

Those contacts can include prospects (real estate leads) you’re working, new clients, and business contacts, such as movers, contractors, lawyers, mortgage advisors and others who could potentially give you real estate referrals.

Start the process now, if you haven’t already. Commit to adding new contacts to your database each week. (Use a good real estate CRM.)

• Stay in touch and build those relationships.

Having leads, clients and other contacts in your database isn’t enough. You need to stay in touch with those people and build those relationships.

Did you know that the average client gets an opportunity to recommend an agent two or three times a year?

Did you know that an industry colleague, such as a real estate lawyer, can potentially give you dozens of leads each year?

Did you know that geographic farming residents will often call the agent who is top-of-mind and seen as the go-to agent in their community?

These are all potential goldmines of real estate leads, but you won’t get them unless you build those relationships.

How? See bullet 3:

• Use the right marketing tools.

Just as a first-time home buyer will struggle if they don’t have a pre-approved mortgage, when it comes to marketing for new real estate agents, you’ll struggle without the right tools.

What tools do you need?

To build relationships with clients — so you get future moves from them, as well as on-going referrals — you need a good real estate marketing system. Ideally, one that features a real estate newsletter, mailed monthly.

If you’re working a geographic farm, a proven geographic farming newsletter that builds your brand in that area is also crucial. Without it, the chances of getting any leads from that farm during your first year are low.

Bottom line: If you’ve been wondering about marketing for new real estate agents, and want to lay the foundation of success, keep those three elements in mind: build out your contacts, stay in touch, and use the right real estate marketing systems.