It’s an exciting moment for a new real estate to win their first listing and to start to put a marketing strategy in motion. If you’re a new agent during the “new normal” you may feel unprepared to market your listing. While most of your marketing efforts will remain the same, there is a shift towards virtual marketing. We’re going to show you exactly how to successfully market your first real estate listing virtually.
Here the steps to market your first listing in a virtual world:
Prepare the listing for professional photography
With over 90% of buyers, and even more now, viewing listings online first, it’s so important for your listing to stand out on the MLS and third-party listing sites. Your first step in your listing marketing strategy is to hire a professional real estate photographer to take listing images.
If you haven’t found your go-to photography provider yet, consider one that offers 24/7 online ordering and next-day delivery. You’ll want to select a real estate photographer that provides high-quality images that are consistent listing to listing.
Add additional marketing enhancements
For your first listing, you may also want to consider boosting your listing’s portfolio with additional marketing enhancements. Marketing enhancements can include a Matterport 3D Tour, 360-degree panoramas, aerial photography, twilight photography, virtual staging and more.
A Matterport 3D Tour will allow buyers to virtually walk through your listing without leaving their own home. Similarly, 360-degree panoramas help buyers feel as though they are actually in the room. Both are a completely immersive experience that buyers can see on their desktop or mobile device.
If you want to give buyers an idea of the neighborhood and property, aerial photography and videos are your best option. And if you want buyers to see what the home looks like at dusk, consider adding twilight photography. It’s a stunning marketing enhancement that can really help your listing stand out online.
Lastly, virtual staging is a nice enhancement for vacant listings. It can help buyers better visualize the space. If the layout of a room is funky, virtual staging can help buyers better understand how to utilize that room.
Host a virtual open house
After you schedule your listing photoshoot and receive the real estate images, begin planning your virtual open house. There are a number of ways to host a virtual open house. You’ll want to make sure you have a single listing website where all of your real estate photos and marketing enhancements are housed. That way, you can easily share a branded or non-branded link to your single listing website. Buyers can navigate the platform and tour your home using the different features (like the Matterport 3D Tour and 360-degree panos).
Another way to host a virtual open house is by using Facebook Live or a video conferencing platform, like Zoom. You can spend the week promoting your upcoming virtual open house on social media. For example, a Facebook Event will help you get the word out to your followers and sphere. You will want to make sure that you either go Facebook Live within the open house event group or you let users know to “like” your Facebook Business Page in order to get the notification that you’re on Facebook Live.
If you want to host your virtual open house on a video conferencing platform, you can create social media posts as well as an email drip campaign promoting your upcoming event. You’ll be able to share your video link within the post/email so the recipients can easily hop on the virtual showing.
Share your listing on social media
Now that you’ve completely prepared your listing for photography/marketing enhancements and hosted a virtual open house or a virtual video walk through, you’ll want to keep your momentum by sharing your listing on social media.
Here are a view ideas for sharing your listing on your social channels:
- Share a link to your single listing website on a post
- Create an image gallery on Facebook
- Post a 360-degree panorama of the kitchen, living room, and master bedroom
- Share the Matterport 3D Tour
- Create a blog post about the listing and share the link
- Post about specific home features
- Highlight neighborhood amenities like restaurants and parks
- Create a digital flyer using a social media listing template
By following the 4 steps above, you will be able to successfully market your first listing in a currently virtual world. Remember – use a professional photographer, add marketing enhancements, host a virtual open house, and overshare your listing on social media. Motivated buyers will show up and you’ll be able to use this first listing experience to grow your brand and your portfolio.
