How to get involved and stay visible in your local area.
As a luxury real estate agent, you’re constantly building your brand. Real estate is an inherently personal business since our homes reflect so much of who we are. Your interactions with others have the power to propel your luxury real estate business. Whether you’re interacting online or in person, your engagement with your local community will play a large role in how much business you see and in the way others think of you.
Being an active participant in your community helps others to see you as someone who is present, reliable, and caring. You’ll learn more about your community, which will make you better equipped to serve it. Getting more engaged also helps establish and solidify your expertise in your area, while getting you in front of potential clients and real estate referrals for the future. Especially if you’re new to your current market area, trying these outreach strategies can help you make crucial connections for your business. To get started, try out these ideas!
Host an event
One of the best ways to make a positive impact in your community while promoting and growing your business is to host an event! Take a look at the holidays and themes coming up in the next few months. Is your local high school kicking off football season? Host a tailgate! Are the December holidays right around the corner? Throw a cookie decorating party! In the spring and summer, cookouts are a great way to connect. Depending on your budget, you might even consider supporting a local business by buying out a theater for a comedy show or other performance!
While they do take up-front work and planning, hosting events will keep you on the radar of your contacts and put you front and center as a friendly and trustworthy face! Larger events will also introduce you to new faces who might become your next source of great business. By bringing the community together, you give everyone a chance to network, reconnect, and strengthen the spirit of your local area.
Make the rounds
As odd as it may feel initially, stopping by past clients’ homes with small gifts or reminders can be a great way to stay connected and top of mind. Commonly called “pop-bys,” these quick visits usually involve dropping off a short note along with a themed gift. These could be as simple as a coupon or a pack of gum, or you could get creative! Pumpkin carving sets make a great fall pop-by gift, and hot cocoa kits are a fun winter gift.
These can be completed on a rolling basis as you visit each area of town for other meetings or errands, or you can carve out a route and take a few hours to get them done! Regardless of your approach, the time these take is beyond worth it. These kind gestures help you retain your spot as the go-to real estate professional, so when your past clients are ready to buy or sell again, or when their friends ask for a recommendation, it’s easy for them to think of you right away.
Call your contacts
Setting aside a few hours each month to call a few of your contacts and past clients can help keep your business thriving on returning clients and referrals. Determine a cadence that makes sense for you, and reach out to strengthen your relationships and learn what’s going on in the lives of your friends and contacts!
These calls can also become a great source for feedback and areas for growth. Closing on a home and completing the moving process can feel like a whirlwind, so you may not hear from some clients immediately after you wrap up your work with them. However, their perspective about your time together may be great material for your website, could serve as their reminder to write you a great review, or might give you constructive criticism to carry into your next relationships.
These relationship-building check-ins should feel casual and not too real estate-focused most of the time, but they set you apart as someone who really cares beyond the transaction. Every once in a while, you’ll make a call and discover your past client is ready to move again or knows someone trying to buy or sell their home! The small actions add up, and connection goes a long way.
Engage on social media
There are so many different options and styles for reaching out online, and your social media presence only costs as much as you want it to! Many realtors operate very successfully on organic social media strategy.
Your engagement style should feel authentic to your brand and your personality, and consistency is key. You may want to post publicly every day, or you might choose to show up to interact in others’ comments. Facebook and LinkedIn offer a “Groups” feature where you can engage with other users based on interest, location, occupation and more. No matter how you want to get the conversation started, showing up here can help you strengthen your relationships and create new connections.
Your professional pages on social media are great places to share insights, promote your other activities, and start conversations with your friends and followers. On Instagram, real estate marketing can take place in a variety of styles. Stories with polls, videos, and quick hits are a great way to relate on a personal and professional level with your community. Determine a cadence and strategy that feels authentic to you and doable in your schedule, then stick to it.
Sponsor a community competition
Many cities and even smaller towns host at least a few races, tournaments, or athletic events each year. You can get involved as a competitor, or you can engage on a larger scale! You might consider sponsoring a team, a booth at the event, or even a whole tournament, depending on the size of your town and the event.
This is a great way to get your name out on a broad scale while also interacting in person with active members of your community and any other businesses who also chose to sponsor. Events like these help people come together regardless of their other interests or hobbies, so it’s a great way to bust outside of your usual box.
Volunteer your time
Volunteering your time to improve your community not only helps others but also gives you a chance to make new connections and come to understand your area more deeply. Choose a cause that aligns with your interests and your brand, and get involved! Whether you begin walking dogs at a local shelter, organizing a local food pantry, ushering guests at the community theater, or preparing meals at a soup kitchen, your engagement will allow you to make new contacts outside of your usual sphere and help you gain a new perspective on the community you serve. In addition to being the right thing to do, these acts of service reflect well on your personality and thus on your brand as a realtor.
Join clubs
Joining a club or local team is an excellent way to deepen connections within your community, see new faces regularly, and engage with others who share your interests. From local newspapers to town websites to sites like Meetup, there’s no shortage of places to find out about clubs and teams getting together near you.
Many cities offer sports leagues ranging in levels of competitiveness and skill. For those who aren’t interested in group athletics, art classes, clubs for practicing a second language, book clubs, and game nights are all casual and friendly options for authentically connecting with other community members from a wide range of backgrounds. More tightly organized service clubs and organizations like Kiwanis, Rotary, or Junior League can help you connect with countless local members serious about networking and improving their community.
Send a newsletter
Keep people in the loop! Regularly reaching out via an online or mailed newsletter helps your contacts feel connected to you and gives you space to share helpful insights to solidify your expertise.
Real estate newsletters often include local updates, reflections about the housing market in your area, and information about upcoming events or news related to your business. Regardless of the other ways you choose to get involved in your community, a newsletter is an excellent complement to your other activities. A monthly newsletter will help get the word out about events you’re hosting or sponsoring, and help engage community members who might not have made it out to an event you participated in.
Regardless of the mix of activities you decide to dive into, engaging with your community in a way that feels authentic to your personality and aligned with your brand is a surefire way to see growth in your luxury real estate business.
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