Steal these ad ideas to get more real estate leads

This is part 2 of our blog series on real estate branding campaigns. In part 1, we explained how the modern real estate marketing funnel works. Now it’s time to come up with ads that will help you achieve your goal of brand awareness that drives hot seller leads your way.

To do that, you have to select subject matter that’s going to have the biggest impact on your audience at each stage of their journey. The ads that will have the most impact (i.e. get you the most enquiries) fall into three categories:

• General awareness, to get your brand noticed
• Social proof, to boost visibility and credibility
• Specific value add, to get them clicking the ‘Contact Me’ button!

1. General awareness ads

The first type of subject matter is simply designed to get you noticed. It’s all about splashing your brand colour and key messages in the right places to make it easy for those people to remember you.

Don’t think you need to stick to ‘real estate’ ad content; your ads themselves can be quite broad. Spoke’s audience targeting technology is already making sure the right people (those showing signals that they might be interested in selling in future) see them.

Here are some ideas to use in your general awareness campaigns:

• A competition:
  Run a competition to win something. What you choose to give away is up to you, but it needs to be enticing enough to get the entries flowing in. For example, in the last week of school holidays you could run a ‘Win a Back To School pack’ competition. Kids love Smiggle — all that colourful plastic most of us would rather not spend money on. Use that to your advantage!
  Or, step it up a notch. Competitions are especially effective when the prize is something both valuable and current — like tickets to the latest stage show or footy final. It all depends on what demographic you’re targeting.

• Get your logo out there, but make it interesting:
  You can capture attention by turning you logo into a gif, or tweaking it slightly. For example, you could make it timely by popping a Santa hat on it, or have the easter bunny holding the logo in a basket.
• Use simple graphics or imagery:
  This is the sort of stuff that helps people remember you! For example, you could use an image of a sheet of cookies alongside copy like, “No, you’re not imagining it — we really do bake cookies before you arrive at an open home!” Fun facts about your market, little-known home making tips and other tastefully-funny facts about the industry all work.
  Infographics are a particularly eye-catching way of conveying interesting information such as the number of buyers per property in your area or, average time on market. This type of surface level information is interesting to all homeowners, even those in the ‘dreaming’ stage of selling. Try making one with a free tool like Canva!
• Sponsor a local event and advertise it:
  This shows your audience that you care about the local community. We all love a local hero. Remember, the point is to generate awareness of your brand, not the event — so keep the creative focussed on you. If there is event collateral with your brand on it, use that!
• Align yourself with local brands you believe in:
  This is along the same lines. Support local businesses and become a brand advocate for them. Snap a photo of yourself with a local chef, your favourite hairdresser — whatever is important to you. The point is to be genuine.
• Your face!
  When you put a proverbial face to your brand name, consumers can trust easier. Brand awareness efforts give your brand a personality and outlet to be sincere, receive feedback, and tell a story. This is how we humans build trust with one another, and the human/brand relationship isn’t any different.

2. Social proof ads

Once you’ve generated some awareness, it’s time to leverage social proof to build trust in your brand.

Brand trust is everything. Once a homeowner trusts you, they’re more likely to use your services and recommend you to their family and friends with little to no forethought. The easiest way to build brand trust? Testimonials.

People conform their thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and actions to match the thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and actions of those around them. It’s human; we all do it. So having someone else sing your praises for you is a hugely powerful marketing tactic.

Here are some ideas to use in your social proof campaigns:

• Show your expertise
  Win an award? Grab the award seal and stick it on your ad creatives.
  Expertise is a powerful motivator. Having an expert, panel or organisation back you as a trusted and knowledgeable real estate agent/agency makes a strong statement in favour of your agents/agency.
• Engage with your community
  This one isn’t a campaign itself. It’s about boosting your profile by spending a little time every day chiming in on social, like contributing to a conversation. Liking, commenting, following and reposting content from other users with proper attribution is the fastest way to grow your following.This shows people you are active and present.
• Testimonials
  Trustworthy, unbiased testimonials are gold. “Social proof” in this sense = ‘if I follow the crowd, I’ll be on the right track”. Get more testimonials by following Siteloft’s step 1 & 2 here.

• A property you’ve “Just Sold!”
  Sold your latest listing after 3 days on market, above list price? That’s great! You should (humble-) brag about it with a Spoke campaign! This proves to your audience that you’ve got the skills to secure a great result, and gives them confidence you could do the same for them.

3. Specific value add

This is where you position yourself as a helpful and knowledgeable resource, so you become the agent they need. Essentially, it’s time to give information or advice, or solve a problem.

Here are some ideas to use in your specific value add campaigns:

• Suburb information
  If there’s a new public transport route or little-known development going on, talk about it! Or, you could create a guide for new locals in the area, telling them where to wine, dine and get the best coffee. This is helpful for buyers, but it also shows vendors that you’re able to sell the lifestyle of the area.
• Resource download
  Potential vendors have a lot of questions. What do I do with my pet during an open home? What are the different ways I could sell my property? Should I paint the house before putting it up for sale? How about the bathroom, will that investment be reflected in the sale price?
  You can answer these questions in a number of downloadable formats: checklists, long form articles, video tutorials, infographics and more.

• Quick market update
  What’s the average time on market in your area? Average rent? Average sale price for a 3 bedroom home? General market feedback? Share your knowledge!
  This information is highly valuable to homeowners thinking about selling. Provide them with recent sales and listings in their area so they can compare their own home and get them thinking about listing their property for sale.

• A free home evaluation
  This one’s sure to get the leads rolling in, no explanation necessary.

Now you have a good understanding of the types of campaigns that will bring hot seller leads to your door (or inbox, you get the gist), it’s time to start creating your ads. There’s plenty ideas above to keep you busy!

Get ready for part 3 of this blog series, where you’ll learn our top tips for running successful branding campaigns that leave a long-term impression in the minds of your audience.