The more challenging the market gets, the more you need to stand out from the crowd. And that comes down to your real estate brand and, specifically, what you’re doing on a daily basis to keep that brand in front of your audience.
Maybe marketing isn’t what you’d call your strong suit. That’s okay. No one starts out as a marketing expert. And one thing I love about being an agent in 2023 is the technology we can use to save us tons of time and energy with our branding and outreach.
But there are so many marketing tools to choose from now, how do you know which ones will actually make a difference? Which ones are worth the precious time it takes to learn how to use them?
Allow me to save you some time. I’ve got six favorite marketing tools to share with you today. Every single one of these has helped me get more marketing done in way less time.
The only question you’ll have when you get to the end of this list is, “Which one will I try first?”
#1—Sierra Interactive (CRM with IDX website)
Every real estate agent needs a reliable CRM with the features they need. And by that, I mean features you’ll actually use on a consistent basis.
I like Sierra Interactive because it comes with a great IDX website and lead generation ability.
One thing I love is how it tells me the time an email was opened or property was viewed, allowing me to follow up in real time.
I also like the single property website templates. Those are included, and they’re a great value to offer to your seller clients.
#2—CapCut (Video Editing)
CapCut is a free video editing app that’s easy to use and is a great way to add captions to your videos. I like how easy they make it to add a voice-over for video walk thrus—or any other content you want to narrate.
CapCut is a very user-friendly video editing tool and well worth the time it takes to learn how to use it.
#3—Canva (PhotoShop for dummies)
Canva may not have all the features you get with Adobe PhotoShop, but it doesn’t need to. It’s fun to use and makes it easy to design eye-catching visuals for your content, whether you’re creating thumbnails or branding your listing photos.
With its huge library of templates, Canva gives me plenty of options to use (and more than I’ll ever need) to make my online content look professional and immediately recognizable with its branding.
Also, if you’d rather outsource design to someone else—or slash the time you spend creating content for your social media accounts—you’ll love the next resource on the list.
#4—Coffee & Contracts (Social Media Templates & Canva Design)
Haley Ingram founded Coffee & Contracts in 2019 as a place to get content creation ideas and design inspiration. She and her team provide customizable Canva templates for a variety of Instagram posts, along with a community of real estate content creators.
#5—Mailchimp (Email Marketing)
There are plenty of email clients out there to choose from—some newer and flashier than Mailchimp. And some CRMs will take care of email marketing for you.
But your CRM likely does not have the ability a standalone mail server has. Mailchimp lets you run A/B tests to see what emails get better open rates and click-through rates. They also make it easy to customize your email design with their drag-and-drop editor.
#6—Hootsuite (Scheduling)
Use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite to get your social media posts on all the platforms your audience uses—at the times you want them posted. If you haven’t yet experienced how much time you can save by automating your social media posting, this tool is a must-have.
Hootsuite makes it easy to keep your content calendar full, track each post’s performance, and even respond to messages and manage conversations on multiple platforms all in one place.
That’s it for now. If more than one of these is new to you—or you haven’t yet tried more than one of these types of marketing tools—ask yourself what you need the most help with right now.
Pick the tool that speaks to that and try it out this week.
