3 Things Every Agent Needs in Their 2020 Marketing Arsenal

It's amazing how many companies are vying for the real estate agent's dollar. From trying to sell you leads to showing off the latest shiny object guaranteed to boost your marketing power, it seems like everyone wants to stick their fingers into your pocketbook.

What good do these wonder tools do, though, if you lack the systems to put them to work? What is the benefit of marketing to attract new clients if the chances are really good that they'll fall through a crack in your system?

If you don't have the basics of your arsenal in place, it's time to concentrate on doing so.

1. A cleaned-up, organized CRM

New agents often ask what tools they'll need when they first hit the ground in the real estate world. Aside from a smart phone and a mentor, a robust customer relationship management system (CRM) is a must.

Established agents understand the value of a CRM but many allow theirs to become cluttered, disorganized and, very often, ineffective.

"Garbage in, garbage out" is what they end up with.

Take the time to thoroughly clean up your CRM. This includes:

• Categorizing the entries in a way that makes sense to you. This may be something as simple as categorizing each entry by their location within the sales funnel (lead, prospect or client) and whether the lead or prospect is cold, warm or hot. Sellers and buyers should be segmented as well.
• Checking for duplicate entries and then merging or deleting them.
• Removing contacts that are impossible to contact. These are the ones who submitted a phony email address or phone number, have been in your database for some time and there is no hope of ever contacting them.
• Ensuring that every contact is on an appropriate touch campaign.

2. A powerful, lead-generating website

While the NAR doesn't tell us how many of their members own a website, they do let on that 51 percent have had a website for at least five years.

That's a rather paltry number, considering that a website should be one of the main tools in an agent's marketing arsenal.

A real estate website can be a giant lead magnet, if done right. By blogging consistently and promoting your posts on social media, you drive traffic back to your site where you can employ additional magnets to capture those leads.

But there are other bonuses offered by an agent website:

• A website offers a place to showcase your testimonials.
• It helps build awareness of your brand.
• A website provides a place for potential clients to get to know and trust you.
• It offers a spot for you to demonstrate authority.
• Agent websites offer value by providing information that real estate consumers are seeking.
• Your website can be a tool to help build a targeted mailing list to stay in touch with your sphere of influence.

3. In-depth knowledge of your target market

If your target market is "likely buyers and sellers," we feel for you. "Everyone" isn't a target audience and appealing to "everyone" is almost impossible.

For marketing to be successful, you simply must know who you are trying to reach. And this determination must be the result of a carefully thought-out process.

There are many ways to choose a target market. The easiest is to target the type of client you've most enjoyed working with over the past year or two. Are they members of the military or landlords looking to sell? Maybe they were the first-time homebuyers or downsizing baby boomers.

Add to your knowledge of this group of real estate consumers. What is the market like for them right now? Look for pain points that you can address and solve. Where do they hang out online? These are advertising mediums that present an ideal way to reach your audience.

Even if you choose only one of the three aforementioned tips, you'll be ahead of your marketing game in 2020.