Preparation starts now to make sure you have a great 2024 in your estate agency business.
It's that time of year again - New Year, New you. Fresh start. It is when we all begin to plan for the new year ahead and set goals for what we want to achieve.
Between organising your staff Christmas do and your end-of-year meetings to wrap things up, you'll start planning for the year ahead, setting goals, targets, plans, and strategies.
As we all know, the property market has changed considerably, and many estate agents are taking stock. After years of riding high with properties selling quickly and prices increasing, we've not had to worry, and the fees have rolled in. You've likely had some of your best years ever since the pandemic. It is easy to think that a slowdown is a cause for panic.
But, if you've been in the business for many years, you'll be able to cast your mind back and remember that your agency ran perfectly well before the dizzying heights of 2021 and 2022, and it will do so again.
So, what can you do to prepare for 2024? How can you ensure that you have a continual lead of new sellers to bring further instructions into your agency?
Estate agency as a business model is practically all based on a funnel. Awareness leads to contact, which leads to a valuation appointment, instructions, sales, completions and fees. In essence, if you can build the awareness of your brand to more potential customers, then this will trickle down through your funnel, resulting in sales.
And how can you make sure that you build awareness? First, you must consider the journey a homeowner will go on as they move house. The first contact with an agent is often a phone call to your office to arrange a valuation or book a viewing. For many years, we, as estate agents, have been taught to see the opportunities and not let that phone call end without a valuation appointment in the diary. This may be the first point of contact with you, but it is absolutely not the first step for the homeowner.
It's thought that the average homeowner will think about selling their home for up to a year before they ever call your office. This means many homeowners in your town are considering selling, but you don't even know who they are. So what do they do during this year of consideration, and how can you find them?
Competition is a huge issue for estate agents, particularly in a trickier market. You go into your valuation appointment aware that at least 3 or 4 other agents are going to the same address. With lower instruction figures, you're keen to win this instruction, so you consider how you can convince this seller to use you. Perhaps you go a little higher than you should on the valuation, or you cut your fees. The problem is you don't know what the other agents are saying - what if they've also dropped their fees? And so begins the downward spiral, a 'race to the bottom' as it's known.
But what if you've nurtured and helped a homeowner for years without knowing who they are or where they live. When the time comes for them to bite the bullet and book a valuation, who will they call? The agent they have been receiving helpful emails from for over a year or the faceless corporate agency they have never spoken to before?
So, I'm sure I don't need to tell you the answer here is content marketing. Regular emails, social media posts, and blogs on your website to help this homeowner throughout their research will ensure that your agency is at the forefront of their minds.
Instead of throwing money out of the door to leaflet drop, consider content marketing as the hook to attract homeowners who aren't ready to call you yet. Give them information that will help them understand the moving process, give them tips and tricks to have a smoother move and try to alleviate some of the concerns that almost all homeowners have about selling and moving.
Leaflets are a one-and-done option. You send out the leaflets, offering a fee deal, and most of those leaflets will likely end up in the recycling bin. That's it, done. No one will see those leaflets again unless they're at the recycling plant.
Content marketing is evergreen. You have a blog post hosted on your website, and it's emailed out to your mailing list. You post it on social media. Perhaps you can create some little graphics based on the blog and post those to Instagram. Maybe you even decide to record a video and use the content within a blog post as a script. Maybe you re-post this blog in a few months, and people visiting your website will read this same article; perhaps the article gets views every month for years.
Content marketing is highly valuable and comparatively cheap compared to other marketing methods. The cost of a blanket leaflet drop could run into the thousands, and once it is spent, that's it. Spend a few hundred pounds a month on your content, and it will still work for you for years.
And just like you are planning for your 2024, so are homeowners. Give them something useful to read to help them decide to move. Their trust in your company will grow as they spend time reading your content and browsing your website. Your valuer can walk into the appointment with a head start on the competitors. The likelihood of your valuation going well is much higher. More instructions lead to more sales, which leads to more fees.
The content is the catalyst to filling your funnel with many new homeowners - these new homeowners are not yet known to you or your competitors. There's no way to market to these people until they can reveal themselves as a potential seller. Content is like a secret way to speak to them before they are ready to contact you directly.
And if you are thinking, "This is great, but where am I going to find the time to write a load of blog posts?" don't worry - I have the solution.
