Steal these real estate ad ideas to get more leads

If your goal is to build brand awareness that drives hot seller leads your way you’ll need clever campaigns for your real estate agency that capture the attention of your target audience even before they start to plan their next move. However, not all real estate ads are created equal. It's crucial to tailor your messaging to the different stages of your customer's journey to get them engaged.

In this article, we explore three types of real estate advertising that can make the most impact on your audience and help you drive hot seller leads your way. The first type is general awareness, which aims to get your brand noticed and establish your presence in the local market. The second type is social proof, which leverages testimonials, case studies, and reviews to boost your credibility and trust. Finally, specific value-add ads highlight the unique benefits of working with you and encourage potential clients to contact you.

1. General awareness ads

Awareness ads should be designed to get your agency noticed. It’s all about getting your brand name and core message in front of the right audience so that they remember you.

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

Here are some real estate ad ideas to use in your agency’s general awareness campaigns:

• A competition:
  Run a competition to win something. It could be tickets to the latest stage show or footy final. Or you could run a ‘Win a Back-to-School pack’ competition in the final weeks of school holidays. What you choose to give away is up to you, but it needs to be enticing enough to get the entries flowing in.

• 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!”.
  Infographics are a particularly eye-catching way of conveying interesting information such as the number of buyers per property in your area or, the average time on the 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 real estate ad ideas to use in your social proof campaigns:

• Show your expertise
  Win an award? Grab the award seal and stick it on your real estate 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 communityThis 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”.

• 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 real estate ad 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 that you have a clear understanding of the different campaign strategies we covered and an abundance of real estate ad ideas to get you started, it's time to put your plans into action. If you're looking for an easy and effective way to set up and launch your real estate ad campaigns, look no further than Rex Reach. Our real estate advertising solution is designed to simplify the process of creating and executing powerful real estate campaigns, giving you more time to focus on growing your business. With Rex Reach, you can reach your target audience quickly and easily, and start generating hot leads in no time. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to start creating real estate ads that get results!