Key Outbound Marketing Techniques for Real Estate Businesses

One of the top goals of real estate professionals is reaching potential clients and establishing trust in a crowded and competitive market. In today's digital age, you can easily rely solely on social media and email marketing to generate leads — essentially inbound marketing tactics.

However, this single source of insights creates stereotypes, posing a problem to the larger inbound vs outbound marketing picture. 

The problem here is that single-data marketing is incomplete. What does this mean? Solely depending on one marketing tactic can limit your ability to connect with a wider audience and ultimately hinder your success.

How do you strike balance? That's where outbound marketing strategies come in. Outbound marketing techniques are proactive approaches that involve contacting potential clients through various channels.

This article explores the top 10 outbound marketing strategies for real estate businesses. Using these techniques, you can effectively stand out from competitors.

Notable mentions include:

1. Start With Direct Mails

Direct mail campaigns are an effective outbound marketing example for a real estate brand. It leverages on its targeted and personal approach to attract prospects. As a real estate agent, you can target specific neighborhoods or demographics with direct mails, reaching the right people at the right time. 

Let's say you specialize in luxury homes. You can send direct mail pieces to affluent neighborhoods in your area to showcase your expertise. 

Also, direct mail campaigns let potential clients feel you’re addressing them intentionally when you send personalized messaging to each of them. That way, you’re more likely to grab their attention and engage them. A neat trick is including their name in the salutation or referencing specific details about their property or neighborhood. 

Everyone loves a little personalization in their mails, but your direct mails must go beyond that, at some point. Remember, direct mail pieces are physical, meaning they can leave a lasting impression on the recipient. You can use that to your advantage, especially in a digital age where most marketing happens online. 

How? By including a clear call-to-action in your direct mail campaigns. These CTAs could be about visiting your website, calling your office, or attending an open house you’re organizing or know about. That way, you'll generate leads and spur your business's growth.

2. Delve Into Email Marketing

Direct email marketing is specific, but you need to diversify as time goes on. General email marketing lets you communicate with potential clients and build relationships with them over time. 

The kicker to email marketing is providing real, valuable information. By issuing vital content such as market reports, tips for buying or selling a home, and local news, you gradually establish yourself as an expert in your field and stay top of mind with your target audience.

You’d also need to segment your email list based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. Doing this lets you create targeted messaging that resonates with each recipient. As you might expect, this move increases the likelihood of prospects opening and engaging with your emails, leading to higher conversion rates.

Furthermore, with email marketing, you can track open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to measure the success of your campaigns. As such, you can fine-tune your messaging and improve results over time.

Don't leave out the call-to-actions. By including calls-to-actions in your emails such as attending an open house, scheduling a consultation, or downloading a free guide, you can generate leads for your business and increase your chances of converting them into clients.

3. Advertise on Social Media

Cold emails and mailing list campaigns are effective, but can only take you so far by themselves. An excellent complement is social media advertisement. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram lets you target your ads to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. 

Using social media as a marketing route circles back to your core goal of reaching the right audience with the appropriate message. Upon closer look, social media advertising is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience with minimal investment. 

Unlike traditional advertising and marketing channels like print or TV, social media advertising lets you communicate with your audience at a fraction of the cost.

There’s also a visual perspective to real estate marketing. Real estate itself is a visual industry, and social media advertising allows you to showcase your properties with high-quality images and videos. You can grab the attention of potential clients and showcase your expertise with such use cases.

Another useful feature of social media advertising is that you can track metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions to measure campaign success. With the data, you can fine-tune your messaging and improve advert saturation over time.

When you include your calls-to-action in your social media ads such as scheduling a consultation, or downloading a free guide, you cover grounds on the lead generation front as well.

4. Print Advertisements

As a realtor, print advertising plays an important role in boosting your real estate business. Granted, digital advertising has become increasingly popular due to their high cost-to-impact ratio. However, print advertising remains an effective way to reach certain demographics and local audiences. 

By advertising your brand in local newspapers, magazines, and real estate publications, you can target potential clients in specific neighborhoods and communities. These adverts will come in handy when you specialize in a certain area or property type.

Furthermore, print advertising in well-known and respected publications can set you up as a credible realtor. Taking this route is important to attract potential clients who aren't familiar with your work or reputation on the internet.

Print advertising is also an excellent way to showcase your current listings to local audiences. By featuring high-quality photos and detailed descriptions, your search ads can capture the attention of potential buyers and generate more leads.

While younger generations are increasingly turning to digital media, older demographics still prefer print media. When you run a print media campaign, you'll reach potential clients who may not be active on social media or other such digital marketing platforms.

5. Run the Cold Calls

Many agents shimmy around the idea of cold calls. It comes off as crude and not everyone’s favorite. But there’s still gas left in the tank for this outbound marketing strategy. Cold calling lets you reach out to potential clients who haven't heard of you.

What happens when you try to balance inbound and outbound strategies with people interested in buying or selling a property? Easy lead generation and client base expansion.

What’s more? Cold calling lets you establish relationships with potential clients. You also get the chance to build rapport and establish trust. Thus, the likelihood of them choosing you as their realtor in the future increases.

Cold calling also allows you to provide personalized service to potential clients. By taking the time to understand their needs and preferences, you can tailor your services and recommendations to meet their specific requirements.

Follow-up is crucial with real estate marketing strategies. With cold calling, you can reconnect with leads and nurture relationships over time. By staying in touch with potential clients, you remain top-of-mind and increase the likelihood of them choosing you when they're ready to buy or sell a property.

If you need to expand your network, cold calling can help you with that. By contacting other real estate professionals, you can build relationships and collaborate on deals.

6. Open Houses

Ideally, open houses allow potential buyers to view properties in person and get a better sense of the space and features. By showcasing the property in a well-organized and visually appealing way, you can help potential buyers envision themselves living inside.

Furthermore, open houses provide an added opportunity of new lead generation and audience expansion. By collecting contact information from your open house attendees, you can follow up with them after the event and nurture relationships over time.

This connection creates a personal touch that'll take center stage throughout the home-buying process. By answering homebuyers’ questions, providing insights into the local market, and demonstrating your knowledge and expertise, you establish trust and credibility.

More importantly, open houses create a sense of urgency among potential buyers. By hosting an event with a specific time and date, the agent encourages attendees to take action and make an offer on the property. Also, open houses offer the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals in the industry, such as mortgage brokers and home inspectors.

7. Referral Marketing

Someone telling another person about your business translates to referrals. Referrals are powerful because they come from someone who has had a positive experience with your services. 

When your clients refer you to their network, they're essentially vouching for your credibility and trustworthiness. Referrals can help you build a strong reputation in the industry and increase your chances of attracting new clients.

When you think about it, referral marketing is a cost-effective way to generate new leads. It doesn't require expensive advertising or marketing campaigns, as satisfied clients will do the marketing for you. Positive Word of Mouth (WOM) frees up your marketing budget for other things.

What’s more? Referral leads have higher conversion rates than other lead types. Why? They come from someone who has already built a relationship with you and trusts your expertise. By extension, referral leads will most likely close a deal with you, helping you increase your sales and revenue.

From a bigger-picture perspective, referral marketing lets you personalize your marketing efforts. When you receive a referral, you can complement your inbound marketing strategy by contacting the potential client with a personalized message that acknowledges the referral source and speaks to their specific needs and interests.

8. Attend Network-Centric Events

Networking events provide an opportunity to meet people who may be interested in buying or selling a property. By attending these events, you can introduce yourself and your services to potential clients, and start building relationships that can lead to future business. These events are also a great place to meet other professionals who can help you grow your business. 

During these events, you might meet mortgage brokers, home inspectors, or other real estate agents who can refer clients to you or provide valuable insights and advice. Furthermore, attending networking retreats can also help you stay updated on the latest trends and developments in your local real estate market. You might also hear about new developments or opportunities, or learn about changes in zoning laws or other regulations that could impact your business.

Finally, attending networking events can help you build your personal brand and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. By sharing your expertise and insights with others, you can position yourself as a trusted advisor and increase your visibility in the local real estate community.

9. Video Marketing

With video, you can showcase your properties in a more dynamic way than you would've with photos alone. For context, virtual tours, walk-throughs, and other types of outbound marketing videos can help you give potential buyers a better sense of a property's layout, features, and overall feel. 

Video can also help you establish yourself as a trustworthy and knowledgeable real estate professional. By adding a visual element to the home-buying process, local market trends, or other topics of interest, you position yourself as an authority in your field and build trust with potential clients.

Additionally, video content is highly shareable and can help you reach a wider audience than traditional content marketing and methods. By sharing your videos on social media platforms, email newsletters, and other channels, you'll steadily attract new leads and expand your reach.

10. Billboard Advertising

Last, but not least, is billboard marketing. It's a highly effective outbound marketing strategy that lets you reach a wide audience with a single ad placement. You can leverage its high visibility in the short-burst sections of your marketing strategy. 

Billboards are typically located in high-traffic areas, such as major highways, intersections, and commercial districts. 

What does that mean for your messaging? Numerous people stuck in the traffic will see it.

Additionally, billboard marketing can help you target specific demographics or neighborhoods by choosing locations aligning with your ideal buyer profile. 

Do you deal in triple-net lease properties? Place a billboard in the neighborhoods or areas where related buyers are found.

You can also take advantage of billboard marketing by showcasing your properties in a visually appealing and attention-grabbing way. With high-quality images and compelling messages, you can create a memorable impression in potential buyers' minds, making them more likely to consider your properties when they're ready to buy.

Bottom Line

If you're in the real estate business, one thing's certain — you need a solid marketing strategy to thrive. For the most part, agents are content with an inbound marketing strategy that passively generates leads. But it helps when you consider outbound strategies as well. Associated techniques can give you the edge required in your niche.

But what outbound marketing strategies are available to you? We’ve highlighted the top ten alternatives in this article. And combining these techniques could have you driving the right real estate marketing results.   

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