A detailed marketing plan based on our experience working with celebrity agents, Billion-Dollar teams & top-producing brokers.
Selling a billion dollars in real estate is an accolade that very few agents in the world can claim. At Luxury Presence, our thousands of hours executing marketing campaigns for clients has led to well over $30 Billion in combined sales. Out of those clients, more than 20 have made the WSJ Top 100 real estate agents.
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How does that help you?
We’ve developed this blueprint around our The Presence Method based on countless experiments, world-class creative, and tireless innovation to teach you strategies we’ve learned from working with some of the world’s top agents.
The Presence Method is centered around audience, brand, and conversion. These three elements make up our marketing system, which we have developed specifically for luxury real estate agents and teams. However, it is still highly effective for every real estate marketing scenario – after all, almost every person looks for the trust communicated by a strong luxury brand.
Marketing is about focus and consistency. That’s why this blueprint contains our five real estate marketing types and a recommended marketing plan for each. Knowing your profile will guide your personalized marketing strategy. Your marketing type plan is designed to help you succeed.
Here’s how to use this marketing blueprint:
- Select one of the five marketing profiles below
- Read our guide for each of the recommended marketing strategies in your plan
- Develop an action plan to implement the strategies (in-house or outsourced)
Part I: What’s your marketing type?
Use the criteria and your goals to find the type and plan that best fits you.
Step 1: Audit your business
Look at both the criteria and the goals to compare them to your business and personal goals. You can then determine which marketing type aligns most with your business. You may not identify with one type completely, but it is possible to mix plans to create a fully individualized plan that fits your business and goals.
Step 2: Review your marketing plan
Review the different strategies contained in your recommended marketing plan. Part II of this blueprint includes a detailed description and how-to’s for each marketing strategy.
Step 3: Take action
Develop an action plan for implementing your new marketing framework. Most importantly, you need to realistically assess which of the strategies in your plan can be done yourself, which can be done by your team in-house, and which you’ll need to outsource.
We’ve included a difficulty rating, in case you plan to handle a strategy yourself or in-house. In the case you decide to outsource any of the strategies, we have included a list of recommended vendors.
Full disclosure: Some of our partners are recommended vendors. Our list of partners has evolved over time and only includes vendors who meet our client’s high standards for reliability, functionality, and customer service.
Type 1: The Top Producer
The Top Producer is well established and is selling 10+ luxury homes every year. She generates her business mostly through repeat clients and referrals. The goal of her marketing plan is to establish a strong online presence by combining content marketing, SEO, and great conversion tools to maximize listing exposure and generate high-end leads.
Minimum Criteria
- Strong sales record as one of the top-producing agents in your market
- Email list of 1000+ qualified contacts
- High-end listings with high-quality photography assets
- Frequent press and media features
Your Goals
- Generate high-quality leads of luxury buyers and sellers
- Communicate your brand and experience online in a compelling way
- Activate your existing network to solicit more referrals
- Build a network of global referral partners
Important: The white tiles make up your personal marketing plan.
Type 2: The Influencer
The Influencer is comfortable sharing his life on social media, interacting with followers on a daily basis, and has an entertaining personality. He thrives on interaction with his audience. His clients include entrepreneurs, young families, and everything in between. He has seen his business increase recently and wants to build momentum. The goal of his marketing plan is to grow a large audience on social media and leverage website conversion tools to turn that audience into clients.
Minimum Criteria
- Energetic, entertaining with an extroverted personality
- Comfortable using Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat
- Ideally already has a few listings that photograph and film well
- Willingness to spend time creating content and engaging with followers
Your Goals
- Become a lifestyle influencer and/or celebrity
- Win more listings by having a strong following as a key differentiator
- Generate leads on social media and drive traffic to your website
- Reach new audiences through viral content
Important: The white tiles make up your personal marketing plan.
Type 3: The Powerhouse
The Powerhouse sells dozens of listings every year. She has a small team of 2-10 agents and is always looking to improve efficiency while increasing the inflow of online leads. The goal of this marketing plan is to generate more leads, using Facebook Ads and SEO while also improving the quality of leads through strong brand building.
Minimum Criteria
- Single-agent or small team with the capability to do a high volume of transactions
- Ability to handle follow-up efficiently (designated person)
- Advertising budget in place
Your Goals
- Generate a high volume of leads while increasing lead quality
- Build a reliable and scalable pipeline of leads
- Develop robust mechanisms for follow-up and conversion
- Solid reporting and analytics to understand and improve ROI
Important: The white tiles make up your personal marketing plan.
Type 4: The Newcomer
The Newcomer is going through their first 2-3 years in the real estate business. They have closed a few transactions and is looking to build a consistent pipeline of clients while also establishing a personal brand that will give them credibility at listing appointments.
Minimum Criteria
- Willingness to create content and engage with leads
- Ideally, a few sold listings
- Good market knowledge and willingness to start as a “buyer’s agent”
Your Goals
- Generate a steady inflow of leads online
- Stay within a reasonable budget
- Build an online presence to establish credibility with potential clients
Important: The white tiles make up your personal marketing plan.
Type 5: The Specialist
The Specialist is a seasoned professional, often with a past career in law or business. The Specialist focuses on a particular sector, for example, development projects or high-end spec homes. The goal of his marketing plan is to expand his trusted personal brand, activate his existing network, and create a strong referral network.
Minimum Criteria
- Existing trusted personal brand
- Email list with 1000+ contacts
- Strong market knowledge and relationships relating to a particular sector
Your Goals
- Expand your business within your sector
- Maximize the potential of your existing network by generating leads
- Build an online presence that clearly communicates your experience
Important: The white tiles make up your personal marketing plan.
Part II: Marketing Strategies
Following is our guide for each of the marketing strategies listed in the blueprint.
Creating a website that converts
No matter what marketing type you are or what strategies you choose, at the core of any good marketing plan is your website. Your website is integral to all elements of your marketing plan. For example for any SEO strategy, it is important that your website is fully optimized. And for your Facebook ads, you need landing pages or content on your website to send your traffic to.
Objectives
- Highlight your experience, knowledge, and differentiation
- Establish a credible and trusted brand
- Showcase your current and sold listings with property websites
- Capture leads
- Provide neighborhood information
- Show interesting content and relevant articles on your blog
- Highlight achievements through press & media or testimonial pages
- Showcase property videos and virtual tours
Essential Features
- Video background opening
- Clear CTAs (Call To Action)
- Lead capture tools such as a newsletter signup, home valuation tool, and account signup
- High-quality IDX search with map search and listing notifications
- Fully responsive and mobile-friendly design
- High-resolution photo sliders for property pages
- Video and virtual tour embedding on property pages
- Admin panel to update listings
- Email notifications for leads and inquiries
- Neighborhood and other support pages
- SEO optimization tools
Difficulty Rating: 7.5/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to view our design portfolio
Reach Your Audience Effectively
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), has become something of a buzzword in real estate marketing. Yet, most realtors do not have a firm understanding of this discipline and often end up disappointed with the results SEO firms provide them. The most important thing any realtor needs to understand about SEO is that it is an all-or-nothing, long-term strategy.
What does that mean? Unless your website shows up on the first page, your SEO work is a wasted effort since virtually no visitors click past the first. It is a long-term strategy because building trust with Google takes a long time (6-12 months) and climbing the rankings does not happen overnight. Plus, maintaining your rankings is just as important as your initial climb.
However, the benefits can be exceedingly positive for your business as the top search results deliver consistent targeted traffic to your website, instill a high level of trust with prospective clients, and lead to higher CTRs (click-through rates) and better conversion rates.
Click-through rates for the top three SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) breaks down like this:
#1 = 31.74%
#2 = 24.71%
#3 = 18.59%
Numbers 1-3 total 75.04% of all traffic to a given keyword. And numbers 7-10 are essentially the same hovering between 2.5-3% with negligible differences in traffic to your website from each.
Note: Google isn’t the only search engine, but it is the largest, capturing 91.88% of market share worldwide.
Therefore, we recommend SEO if:
- Your website is not showing up for branded terms like your name or business name.
- You want to make a long-term investment to dominate the organic search rankings.
- Capitalize on searches in your local market with local SEO.
Objectives
- Rank your website for branded keywords (search terms) such as your name
- Rank your website for non-branded keywords such as your market (“Beverly Hills real estate agent”)
- Drive high-quality traffic from organic rankings for years to come
Essential Features
Google takes into account hundreds of factors when ranking a website. Some of the most important ones are the following:
- Number and authority of other websites linking to your website
- Website quality (content quality, speed, responsiveness)
- On-page optimization (meta titles, schema markup, image descriptions)
- Local optimization (map embedding, geo-optimization, Google My Business optimization)
- Social media optimization (social signals, fully optimized social profiles)
- User behavior (bounce rate, average time on site, CTR)
- And many, many more
We do not recommend doing SEO on your own, unless you have researched the subject thoroughly and have the ability to continuously stay on top of algorithm changes.
Difficulty Rating: 9/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to see how we help clients rank #1
PPC
PPC stands for “Pay Per Click” and typically refers to advertising on Google using the Google Ads platform. This strategy allows you to display ads for specific keywords, for example anytime someone searches “New York real estate agent.”
Objectives
- Drive targeted traffic to your website
- Generate buyer leads
Essential Features
- Extensive keyword research and A/B testing
- Continuous optimization to shift ad spending to the highest performing ads
- IDX home search tool on your website to capture the traffic from buyers looking at properties
Difficulty Rating: 5/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to see the full scope of our ad services
Display Ads / Retargeting
Display ads show up in many places while browsing the internet, for example, in the sidebar of CNN, ESPN, or another 3rd party website that collects ad revenue from the platform.
Ever wondered why after you visit Nike.com, ads with the specific pair of shoes you looked at follow you around on other websites? These ads are display ads and the strategy Nike uses is called retargeting. It means showing ads to people who have engaged with your content. For example, visiting your property website for an active listing.
Objectives
- Re-engage people who have shown an interest in your brand
- Convert traffic that turns into leads
Essential Features
- Other extensive ad campaigns (on Facebook or Google) to combine this strategy with
- Keyword research and continuous optimization to maximize ROI
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to see the full scope of our ad services
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are an important and effective advertising channel for real estate agents. In contrast to PPC ads, Facebook ads allow you to target people by income, behavior, location (geofencing), and many other factors that indicate their propensity to buy or sell property. For example, Facebook allows you to target people who recently moved, had a child within the last year, or recently got divorced.
Objectives
- Drive highly targeted, low-cost traffic to your website
- Generate leads within Facebook to feed directly into your CRM and newsletter
Essential Features
- Extensive A/B testing
- Great creative and copywriting
- CRM system for lead follow-up and nurturing
- Website with IDX search, home valuation tool, lead magnets, and lead capture
Difficulty Rating: 5/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to see the full scope of our ad services
Email List
Your email list is one of the most important pieces to nurturing your audience because email provides high engagement rates when compared to many other marketing channels. Your email list should be synced with an appropriate CRM and newsletter tool and segmented according to the needs of your audience (for example: past clients, buyers, sellers, leads, service providers).
As a channel, email returns $36 for every $1 spent, making it one of the best investments in your marketing mix, if you can provide your contacts with the value they’re seeking.
Objectives
- Build an engaged audience to use for newsletters and for your advertising campaigns (you can target people on an email list with Facebook ads or create “lookalike audiences” to target people similar to those on your email list)
Essential Features
- Reliable and secure CRM system
- Ability to segment lists and send personal emails or newsletters
Difficulty Rating: 2/10
Recommended: Mailchimp and/or Contactually
With over 2 Billion active monthly users, Instagram is one of the most important social media platforms (with TikTok quickly growing in its shadow). In contrast to Facebook (which is now almost exclusively “pay for play,” meaning in order to reach an audience you need to advertise), Instagram still allows for tremendous organic growth which means you can build a large and engaged following.
Objectives
- Build a large and engaged following
- Convert the following into leads (via Direct Message or by driving traffic to your website)
Essential Features
- Curated and highly aesthetic viral and personal content posted daily
- “Shoutouts” (features) on large, engaged accounts (10K+ followers) to drive traffic
- Ideally frequent use of Instagram stories to show interesting content (e.g. home tours)
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to see what are social media experts can do for your business
Twitter has lost relevance in recent years, but real estate agents can leverage the platform to further their thought leadership by documenting their processes, successes, and failures.
One major drawback is the preference to text rather than visual assets. However, it can be a great tool for those who are creative and willing to engage with their audience on a daily basis. Twitter is the place to hone your brand voice and scale it to your other channels.
Objectives
- Build a large following of targeted followers
- Engage followers daily to create an expert reputation
Essential Features
- Daily posting of funny, valuable, or unique content
- Continuous engagement with followers (commenting on others’ posts)
Difficulty Rating: 3/10
Recommended: The best way to market on Twitter is by doing it yourself or in-house
LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with business professionals providing a lot of value for real estate agents looking to broaden their network. The goal of a LinkedIn strategy is to build valuable connections through direct outreach and posting high-value content.
Objectives
- Build a network of your target audience
- Connect with potential clients by offering value through articles and content
- Drive traffic to your website
Essential Features
- High-value long-form content, hosted on your website and repurpose it to start a thought-provoking conversation on LinkedIn
- Understanding of LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build lists of people in specific industries
- System for converting audience into followers and ultimately email list subscribers
Difficulty Rating: 8/10
Recommended: In-House Marketer
Snapchat & TikTok
Snapchat and TikTok are relevant for reaching Millennial and Gen Z buyers. While Snapchat is more of a closed platform, content on TikTok is open to all users, but can be subject to strict guidelines.
Specific goals such as reaching young tech entrepreneurs in Los Angeles and for using creative approaches like educating your audience on a niche, market, or practice are the best way to leverage these platforms. Think of them as your own TV show and produce entertaining content to captivate your audience.
Objectives
- Build a following and engage the following with daily stories
- Showcase high-end homes in stories to an engaged audience
- Create a young, fresh, high-tech perception and brand
Essential Features
- Short format content such as luxury lifestyle clips or high-end home showings
- Integrated social media channels and website to build a following
Difficulty Rating: 3/10
Recommended: In-House Marketer
Building A Billion Dollar Brand
Branding Materials
Branding assets allow you to communicate your brand consistently across a variety of mediums. They include your logo, business cards, style guide, brand voice, and any number of items that dictate how you communicate your brand’s value proposition to the world visually or verbally.
Objectives
- Create a visual and written representation of what your brand stands for
- Achieve visual and written/verbal consistency across all marketing channels
Essentials
- High-quality logo and style with a luxury look and feel
- Clear brand guide including color palette, brand voice, and style guide
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: The Branding People
Monthly Newsletter
A monthly newsletter allows you to engage your email list and nurture new leads until they are ready to convert. The goal of your newsletter should be to entertain and inform, not to sell.
Aggregate interesting content, exclusive listings, and personal recommendations in order to create a newsletter that is worth reading and won’t be perceived as spam.
Objectives
- Engage your existing email list to build trust and position yourself as a local expert
- Stay at the top of your clients’ minds to generate more referrals
- Drive traffic to your website and listings
Essentials
- Clean design template in line with your website design
- Engaging, valuable and interesting copywriting and image selection
- Clear CTAs to direct traffic to blog posts or listings on your website
Difficulty Rating: 4/10
Recommended: Mailchimp / In-House
Weekly Blog
Your blog should be hosted on your website and feature timely and valuable content for your visitors. Your blog serves as a destination for web traffic from ads and newsletters, as well as an integral part of your SEO strategy.
Objectives
- Establish trust in your brand and market knowledge
- Engage and provide value to your website visitors and ad traffic
- Convert traffic into leads by having high-value “lead magnets” on your blog
Essential Features
- Clean design and readability
- Ability to post blogs including text, photos, and videos using an admin panel
Difficulty Rating: 3/10
Recommended: Local Copywriter or Luxury Presence
Your Listings
We could write a book on this topic, and chances are so could you. How you present your listings is critical to your success and allows you to sell listings faster and for a higher price while using the listing to boost your own brand. Some of the most important elements (from an online marketing perspective) are: high-resolution photos, high-quality video production, Instagram stories, professional presentations, and a well-written description for your website and newsletter.
Objectives
- Make the listing look good to stand out and receive attention from potential buyers
- Keep your sellers happy by promoting their listing beautifully
- Generate buyer leads
- Use the listing to build credibility with future clients (in a specific market or price range)
Essential Features
- High-quality listing description, high-res photography, and video production
- Facebook live video and Instagram stories
- Virtual tour (only for standout listings)
- Website with full-screen slider and beautiful listing pages
Difficulty Rating: 3/10
Recommended: Local Copywriter and Photographer or Luxury Presence Property Websites
Video Production
Video allows you to show off your personality, brand, market, lifestyle, and properties. It is the most engaging medium and extremely beneficial for use on social media, your website, and your ads.
Objectives
- Brand video: highlight your personality, expertise, and what you stand for
- Lifestyle video: often used for background opening of your website, highlights your market and/or standout properties
- Property videos: highlight a particular property with aerial and interior video clips
Essential Features
- High-quality production and editing team
Difficulty Rating: 8/10
Recommended: Lemonlight Media
Virtual Tours
Virtual tours are a staple of the home buying experience today. Many platforms support virtual tours that give visitors a feel for the property without having to step foot in it. Virtual tours can please home sellers and provide a marketing advantage when integrated correctly.
Objectives
- Showcase a property in 3D with the ability to use a VR headset to view a listing remotely
- Make virtual tours available on your website’s property pages and 3rd party listing websites
Essential Features
- A website with the ability to embed virtual tours seamlessly
- Photographer with the ability to shoot 360 photography and create VR tours
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: Matterport
Market Info
Market information can be used to provide value to home buyers and sellers by offering market insights and lifestyle recommendations. It is most commonly presented in neighborhood pages on your website, blog posts, and social media channels, oftentimes by pulling in the latest MLS listings for the neighborhood. Creative ways of sharing marketing information include neighborhood lifestyle videos, Instagram stories/reels, or TikTok posts to highlight the latest open houses every week.
Objectives
- Highlight your market knowledge and local expertise
- Provide valuable information about your market to your audience
- Use neighborhood pages to boost your SEO and rank for keywords in multiple neighborhoods
Essentials
- SEO optimized neighborhood pages with well-written copy and imagery on your website
Difficulty Rating: 2/10
Recommended: In-House, Local Copywriter, or Luxury Presence’s expert real estate writing
Press & Media
For many of our most accomplished clients PR provides an opportunity to reach a large audience, boost SEO, and build a global brand. The links from articles on online media such as Forbes or WSJ provide an excellent foundation for our SEO work and allows agents to rank much quicker.
Objectives
- Get media coverage for you and your properties across print, online, and TV
- Provide valuable information about your market to your website visitors
Essentials
- Newsworthy pitch, such as a celebrity listing, big sale, or unique story
- Great PR partner with establish industry relationships
Difficulty Rating: 2/10
Recommended: Influence & Co
Referral Network
Building a global referral network is among the most effective marketing strategies for high-end luxury real estate professionals. Top agents understand the value of being able to earn 25% or more in fees while referring their clients to trusted referral partners in luxury markets around the globe.
Objectives
- Develop a strong network of referral partners in each luxury market globally
- Generate inbound referrals of international buyers
- Generate referral fees by referring clients to agents in other markets
- Share listings and promote each other to create a personal brand with a global image
- Share best practices and opportunities
Essentials
- Travel budget to establish personal relationships
- Warm introductions to the top agents in each market
- Ability to connect your website to share your listings with other top agents
- Marketing materials to communicate your global reach to your clients
Difficulty Rating: 9/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click Here to explore Networks and connect with luxury agents in your market
Turn Your Leads into Sales
IDX Home Search
Your IDX home search tool is critical to generating buyer leads on your website by providing a beautiful and user-friendly search experience. Your IDX tool needs to be able to capture leads by allowing for account signup in order to save listings and search parameters.
Objectives
- Allow buyers to search the MLS using your website
- Capture lead information by prompting visitors to create an account to save listings
Essentials
- High-quality and user friendly IDX search tool with frequent updates (30-60 minutes)
- Map search, split screen, and boundary search ability
- Ability to create account to save listings
- MLS listing notifications system (instant, weekly or monthly email reports)
Difficulty Rating: 9/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click here to view one of our custom IDX tools
Home Valuation Tool
A home valuation tool allows you to capture the address and contact information of seller leads. The key is a multi-step tool that looks appealing and provides a predictive address field before notifying you so you can follow up with the lead to schedule an in-person viewing of the home.
Objectives
- Allow sellers to request a home valuation on your website
- Generate seller leads by driving traffic to your home valuation page
Essentials
- Beautiful multi-step home valuation tool
- Predictive home address field
- Instant lead notification for improved follow-up
Difficulty Rating: 6/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence → Click here to view one of our home valuation tools
Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is content that is so valuable that people are willing to give their contact information in order to receive access. For example, the marketing blueprint you’re reading right now is a lead magnet.
Lead magnets allow us to build an email list by providing a lot of value. The key to effective lead magnets is to actually provide high-value content and to communicate the value clearly in the headline or the description of the ad.
On your website, one way to implement lead magnets is by writing high-quality blog posts and asking people to create an account in order to access the page on your website.
Objectives
- Build an email list of people interested in the content you are offering
Essentials
- High-value piece of content (e-book, blog post, list of brand new properties, etc.)
- Website to host the content and ability to require email input to access the content
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence
Lead Capture
Lead capture tools can be used in countless ways. For most real estate agents and teams the following are the most important ways for capturing leads: IDX home search account signup, multi-step home valuation, newsletter signup, lead magnet capture, and contact inquiry form.
Objectives
- Capture the contact information of as many website visitors as possible
- Generate leads in a non-intrusive way
- Maximize conversion rates at each stage of the sales funnel
Essentials
- Modern website optimized for conversions
- Clear CTAs on the website
- Multiple credibility builders such as testimonials or press mentions
- Lead capture tools including IDX, home valuation, lead magnet, and newsletter signup
Difficulty Rating: 7/10
Recommended: Luxury Presence
CRM
Once your audience is growing and your website is fully optimized for converting traffic into leads, you will need to develop a system for following up with and nurturing leads over time. Timely follow up (within 3 minutes of receiving a lead) drastically increases your chances of turning the lead into a customer.
Many leads do not immediately convert, so for those leads a lead nurturing system is critical. The two most common ways for nurturing leads are 1) automated, individual email sequences or 2) monthly newsletters.
A CRM allows you to manage the lifecycle of your contacts and leads from when they first become a lead all the way until they become your customer. Most importantly, the detailed analytics allow you to learn which channels are the most effective.
Objectives
- Organize contacts and leads into segments that can be individually addressed
- Automate lead follow-up with personalized emails
Essentials
- Full-service CRM with email integration
- Great customer support and training
- Full website integration to push your website leads into the CRM
- Full integration with other lead sources such as Zillow and Homes.com
- Personalized email sequences and email blasts to various contact segments
- Email templates and reminders to simplify your follow-up
Difficulty Rating: 5/10
Recommended: Follow Up Boss
