Knowing how to market your properties to prospective buyers is an essential skill in real estate investing. However, in practice, many investors aren’t quite sure how to get their properties out to the public. With that in mind, below are the best real estate marketing strategies for investors. This list of the best marketing strategies according to your preferred method of investing will help you optimize your investments.
The best marketing strategies for fix-and-flip investors
As you know, following a fix-and-flip investment strategy involves buying a house for under market value, renovating it, and quickly selling it for a profit. To that end, you’re going to be looking for potential buyers interested in seeing the glamourous end result of the transformation. Here are a few marketing strategies you can use to reach them.
Become a real estate agent
The first marketing strategy we’ll mention is to become a real estate agent. While this may sound like unconventional advice, obtaining your real estate license will grant you access to a powerful marketing tool: your local multiple listing service (MLS) system. Put simply, when you use the MLS as part of your real estate marketing strategy, you’re all but guaranteed to connect with buyers serious about making a move. In this case, the MLS takes a lot of the guesswork out of finding a qualified buyer for your flipped property.
Try content marketing
If HGTV has taught us anything, it’s that there’s a big target audience for real estate transformations. Content marketing efforts can help you find prospective buyers for your property before you’re even done your renovation. Consider blogging about the process as part of your marketing campaign. Over time, if you’re consistent about creating engaging content, you’ll also be able to build brand awareness and can start to think about adding email campaigns to your real estate marketing plan as well.
Consider real estate video marketing
If anyone should consider doing real estate marketing videos, it’s fix-and-flip investors. When done right, flips are eye-catching, and a video that documents the process will be sure to draw in the right homebuyer. If you’re considering this marketing idea, make sure the video contains footage of the property from before and after the renovation so prospective buyers can see just how big of a transformation took place.
The best marketing strategies for buy-and-hold investors
A real estate investor who follows a buy-and-hold strategy will be taking on a traditional landlord-tenant relationship. If you’ve chosen this type of real estate investing strategy, you can use the following marketing ideas to ensure you find a tenant who is the right match for your rental property.
Hire a real estate professional
While you don’t have to have your real estate license to be a landlord, it may be worth it to hire a property manager or real estate broker. Working with a real estate professional means they will likely take care of marketing the property for you. Plus, your property will be given exposure on powerful real estate marketing tools like your local MLS system.
Hire a marketing agency
If you have a specialty property like a luxury estate, consider hiring a real estate marketing agency to do the hard work of marketing for you. A marketing agency will employ a wealth of print and digital marketing strategies to help you find the perfect tenant for your rental. As the client, you just need to be prepared for the bill that comes along with working with a team of professional marketers.
Put ads or posts on your favorite social media platform
Alternatively, if you’re working on a tight budget, you could simply consider posting about your rental property on a social media platform like Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) or Twitter (NYSE: TWTR). While this may not be the most original real estate marketing idea, it’s an effective way to get the news about your rental out to your network. In this instance, just be sure to include plenty of pictures in your posts, along with all the relevant information about the property.
The best marketing strategies for short-term rental investors
For their part, short-term rental investors need to take another tactic altogether. Since these investors need to consistently attract multiple clients for the property, their marketing strategies need to stand the test of time. With that in mind, here are a few marketing efforts you can try.
Build a real estate website
First and foremost, you should try to build a real estate website for the property itself. The website should contain gorgeous photos and information about any amenities or additional services you offer, as well as glowing reviews. Try to make your property sound as appealing as possible so a potential client will be moved to choose it over other options when booking their getaway.
Rely on social media
In addition to creating a website, you can rely on social media to get the word out about your rental. However, in this case, rather than using your personal Facebook or Twitter, you’ll want to check out websites like VRBO and Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB). They can help you market your property to potential clients who fall outside your own network.
Launch ad campaigns on search engines
Lastly, considering launching ad campaigns on search engines like Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) or Bing. This marketing strategy will work particularly well if your rental is located in a heavily searched vacation destination. With this strategy, whenever someone searches for a phrase like “Hotel in [Your City],” they’ll be given an option to click on an ad for your rental.
The best marketing strategies for real estate wholesalers
Finally, there’s real estate wholesaling. A wholesaler buys an investment property for below market value and then turns around and quickly sells it for a profit without doing any renovations first. Since this strategy relies mainly on being able to find distressed properties and potential end buyers, the two biggest marketing strategies here include the following.
Network with those in the real estate industry
Truthfully, wholesaling is all about tapping your network. You’ll want to make connections in the real estate industry. Consider joining groups for those interested in real estate investing to see if you can get to know some professionals. Then, be sure to keep in touch. You never know when a real estate agent might have a few real estate clients who would be the perfect end buyers for a property in your portfolio.
Use real estate marketing tools for lead generation
The other half of real estate wholesaling is finding distressed properties to add to your portfolio. Fortunately, there are plenty of real estate marketing tools that can help connect you with people looking to sell in a hurry. Most of these tools use public records data, but if you’re considering subscribing to a service, be sure to do your research into how it works before you put any money out.
The Millionacres bottom line
Real estate investing and marketing strategies often go hand in hand. This guide is meant to give you some suggestions to help you get started building your client base. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to try a variety of marketing ideas for your real estate business. Ultimately, it’s only through trial and error that you’ll end up finding the strategies that work best for you.
