For real estate professionals, marketing and branding play important roles in how you set yourself apart from your competition and greatly influence how you create a valuable product, service, or experience. Commonly mistaken as the same thing, marketing and branding are interrelated but fundamentally different.

While marketing typically falls under the branding umbrella, branding establishes the foundational guidelines that ensure consistency in your messaging and design. In other words, master your brand and your marketing will follow.

Follow these four must-have strategies for growing your real estate brand so you can effectively market your business starting today.

Developing a distinct and memorable brand voice and tone will help prospects and new leads recognize your unique communication style. When you describe your real estate business and services, will you be friendly, authoritative, humorous, or helpful?

No matter the tone, ensure your brand voice is consistent across all channels, from direct mail to e-newsletters, social media posts, and your website.

Why Brand Voice is Especially Important for Independent Agents

If you’re an independent agent, identifying your unique brand voice is one of the most important first business decisions you will make. Knowing your unique communication style will not only help you avoid writer's block, it will allow you to reuse and repurpose content between different marketing campaigns and avoid being overlooked or mistaken for a different company.

When it comes to finding your own brand voice, think about how you engage with others in real life. What style of communication comes naturally to you? If you’re direct in person, be direct on paper and online. If you are witty, weave some clever one-liners and puns into your copy. Your readers will actively look for common threads.

If you’re feeling stuck getting started, visit some of your favorite websites for inspiration and ideation. Collect key elements from various sources and incorporate them into a sample email template. Send a copy of the email to a trusted mentor or colleague and ask for honest feedback.

Equally as important as finding your voice and using it consistently is establishing the same best practices for when you use visual elements in your website, social media channels, signage, and other printed flyers, and promotional materials.

This includes your logo, the fonts you use, and the colors you select.

Why Visual Elements are Especially Important for Independent Agents

Without a larger corporation enforcing brand standards, you essentially have a blank canvas for creating your own business’s unique look and feel. When selecting visual elements, think about how they complement your brand voice in spirit and the impression they make on anyone visiting your website or receiving a piece or direct mail.

For inspiration and ideas, create a dream board style document or folder of images, logos, and photos that resonate with the appearance you are trying to create. Again, look at some of your favorite brands and websites or use visually-heavy sites like 

If your time is better spent helping clients buy and sell homes, you may find the quickest and easiest way to achieve professional visual design elements is to enlist the services of a graphic artist or web designer. If you’re in a local business networking group, ask for referrals. If you’re on a tight budget, consider using a multinational freelance online marketplace like 

A brand style guide is a reference document with guidelines and instructions on how to use and represent your brand consistently. Having a brand style guide sets you up for growth.Ensuring your visual elements, tone of voice, and messaging are used consistently and accurately will better enable you to work with freelance copywriters, graphic designers, web developers, print vendors, and more.

Why Brand Style Guides are Especially Important for Independent Agents

If you are a one or two person shop, a brand style guide may not seem important at this stage of your business. However, having even the basic elements of a brand style guide documented and organized will help you onboard new employees in a more efficient and effective way.

To get started on your own brand style guide, consider using a 

 from Canva. Begin by writing your mission statement and personal values. Think about who you serve and what matters to them the most.

Follow along with the template and record any guidelines on how your logo and fonts should be used, including any direction on size, placement, and restrictions. Consider the types of photos and images you have on your website and printed materials. Record the tone and feel you’re trying to convey and add a few good and bad examples. Repeat this exercise for your writing style as well.

As a Realtor®, you should already have a strong understanding of your clients’ buying and selling needs, current market trends, and pulse of the local community. Knowing the demographics of who is visiting your real estate website, where they live, what devices they use, their ages, incomes, etc. will solidify your overall brand strategy and help you market to the correct users online.

Why Understanding your Online Audience is Especially Important for Independent Agents

If you are an independent agent, your website is a major component of your brand. A section of your brand style guide should clearly list what you know about the prospects and leads who find you through an online search. To do this, you may find that writing customer profiles helps you to articulate your marketing messaging according to the wants, needs, and interests of your online audience.

Tip: For more ways to optimize your real estate website to attract new leads, be sure to include these five features. (cross link to this document : 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HxmztFtirPdnQw2AN76q1tJTM5gTUjgRajgeGgX7PiQ/edit

Google Analytics is a powerful and universal measurement tool for gaining insight into who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, and what they are searching for once they arrive. If you do not have a Google Analytics account created and registered with your domain, employ the assistance of a web developer or developer partner (link here).

When your website is configured and successfully tracking visitors, expand the Audience, Acquisition, and Behavior tabs and review the data. If you are running paid advertisements through Google Ads, you’ll see this information as well. As you run marketing campaigns, Google Analytics will show you if your message is being well received by the audience you are targeting.

No matter what your brand looks and sounds like, staying consistent over the long run will solidify your business in the minds of your client base. To achieve this on your real estate website, 

 by Elm Street Technology is an industry-leading solution for automating and streamlining your marketing and lead generation activities. Take your business to the next level with a CRM that does a lot of the groundwork for you. Learn more today!

Don’t be a Secret Agent: 4 Must-Have Strategies for Growing Your Real Estate Brand

 Platinum and HOME clients in a Beta release is a new Prime Map Search page template that provides an interactive and real-time search experience for prospects and leads visiting your real estate website.

Housed in a responsive window that dynamically updates as users drag, drop, and draw on the map section of their web browser or mobile device, the IDX Broker Prime Map Search returns properties from multiple MLS listings as individual pins on the map.


The Prime Map Search template seamlessly integrates with the existing lead management capabilities within the tool, allowing users to save their favorites by simply clicking the heart icon in the feature image of the results window (a 

 we launched earlier this year). The new template also automatically applies any 

 you have configured in the Lead Registration menu.

How to Activate the Prime Map Search Template

To activate the Prime Map Search template in your Platinum or HOME account:

Log into Middleware and navigate to the Websites section of the Design menu.

Expand the Websites menu and select Page Templates.

Navigate to the Map Search Pages section of the Pages window (this is located about halfway down the screen).

Select the Edit button in the layout column.

In this window, press the “Activate” button in the Prime Map Search template field.

The map search page on your real estate website will automatically update to display the new interactive map and property pins.

 if you need more detailed steps on customizing the page layout.

Upgrade Your IDX Broker Lite Account Today

If you're an IDX Broker Lite client and are interested in upgrading your account to access the new Prime Map Search template, we’re happy to help! Follow 

 or call a member of our Customer Support Team at 541-343-3912.

Modern, Responsive Prime Map Search Template Now Available for IDX Broker Platinum and HOME Clients

From interested prospects to active leads, new customers seeking your assistance in finding and selling a home deserve the same level of consistent and dependable customer service every time you engage with them.

However, when it comes to nurturing everyone in the lead funnel, Realtors® often make critical mistakes that hinder their success in converting those leads into clients. Here are seven of the most common offenders and some easy solutions for fixing them today:

Mistake #1: Lack of Personalized Communication

One of the biggest mistakes Realtors make is treating all leads the same. Each lead has unique needs and preferences, and a lack of personalization can make them feel like just another number.

Why Lack of Personalized Communication Happens

In marketing, it’s easy to fall into the “one solution fits many '' mindset. In reality, buying a home is perhaps the most important financial decision a person will make in their lifetime. With limited time and bandwidth, it may feel easy to send a mass email or newsletter to your clients. Active and engaged leads will find this type of communication distracting and potentially insulting.

Tailoring your communication and content to the specific interests and requirements of each lead can significantly improve your chances of nurturing them successfully. If you're using a CRM to manage your pipeline, be sure to add specific details about each person’s unique wants and needs, their background, or any other details you discussed in a meaningful and engaging way.

Mistake #2: Failure to Follow Up Promptly

Time is of the essence when it comes to lead nurturing. Delayed or inadequate follow-up can make leads lose interest or seek assistance from other Realtors.

Responding immediately to inquiries, sending timely follow-up emails, and scheduling property showings with urgency are crucial steps in building trust and keeping leads engaged and your pipeline full.

Why Failure to Follow Up Promptly Happens

Offering the best possible customer service to the client in front of you means you're engaged and focused on the activity at hand. Even if you're using the best automation tools, communication with everybody else; the text messages, emails, and voicemails, tend to pile up or drop through the cracks entirely.

The lead pipeline doesn’t pause when you're at showings, networking, or sleeping. If you use a 

 to manage your lead nurture process, consider adding a third-party concierge service to respond to web queries 24/7/365 like 

AIVA’s team of Conversion Specialists can help you qualify conversations to identify and book appointments with empathy, consistency, and immediacy. Best of all, AIVA guarantees a one-minute response time no matter the time of day.

Mistake #3: Overwhelming Leads with Irrelevant Information

Bombarding leads with excessive and irrelevant information can be overwhelming and off-putting. Receiving too much information can also have the effect of making home buyers feel like you're asking them to do the work for them.

As an expert on the local real estate market and your local community, there’s literally volumes of information to share. From financing options to interest rates and local school ratings, it’s easy to fall into the habit of wanting to provide your clients with everything, everywhere, all at once.

Once you’ve established a working relationship with your lead, remove them from any marketing campaigns that will hit their email, phone, or mailbox at the wrong point in the pipeline. In providing targeted and valuable information that addresses the current or next step in the buying or selling process, you can help guide them towards a specific action or decision.

Many agents use “what to expect” documents or make high-level checklists to keep their clients informed, trusting you're the expert they hired to walk with them through the homebuying or selling process

Mistake #4: Neglecting Consistent Communication

Consistency is key in lead nurturing. Realtors often make the mistake of reaching out to leads sporadically, which can lead to a loss of interest and staying top-of-mind.

Why Neglecting Consistent Communication Happens

Are you touching your leads at the right time and with the right message? When it comes to frequency of communication, timing and cadence is key. Without a system to know what, when, and how to reach out, agents miss the opportunity to know if their marketing efforts are hitting or missing the mark.

Create a nurturing plan that includes regular communication through various channels like email newsletters, social media updates, and personalized messages. The key is to stay top-of-mind without being overly pushy.

Find a good cadence and stick to a plan that works for your business; if you feel like you're communicating too much or too little it’s okay to ask a past client for honest feedback. If bandwidth or lack of content is challenging for you, one easy solution is to enlist the help of a lead nurturing software platform with a CRM.

Mistake #5: Failing to Listen and Understand

Effective lead nurturing involves active listening and understanding the needs and motivations of potential clients. Many Realtors make the mistake of talking too much and not taking the time to listen to their leads.

Why Failing to Listen and Understand Happens

For many Realtors, the excitement around helping new homeowners find their dream space is palpable. It’s easy to let your own excitement overshadow the person you're working for. Or, without even realizing you’re doing it, your own personal bias may incorrectly influence what your client is looking for.

To instill confidence in your client that you're all on the same page, repeat back what they have told you in your own words. Allow room for corrections or clarification and repeat the cycle as many times as necessary. At the end of the meeting, send a follow up email with key speaking points from your conversation so you have a record of what you discussed.

If you find yourself missing the mark or feeling your clients’ frustration, it may be helpful for you to provide examples of properties and talk through the pros and cons of the listing together. If you find yourself dominating the conversation, acknowledge, apologize, and move on.

Lead nurturing is a long-term process, and many Realtors give up on leads too quickly. Not all leads are ready to buy or sell immediately, but they may become valuable clients in the future. According to a key sales statistics report published on HubSpot, top sellers spend an average of six hours every week researching their prospects and that 80% of sales require five follow-up calls.

Understandably, agents can experience frustration when they keep repeating the same activity without tangible results. Especially when your calls are not being returned, you don’t know if your emails are being received, your blog posts are being read, or your direct mail is reaching the right households, it’s natural to feel like you’re wasting your valuable time and money.

To find motivation and recharge your business battery, so to speak, reach out to your mentors, your colleagues, and your broker. It’s okay to ask for help and take a break. Sometimes our best ideas come to us when we allow ourselves the time and space to rest and take care of our emotional needs. Sometimes we find what we need in the most unlikely of places.

In the same key sales statistics report, we learn that 54% of sales leaders say CRM usage is one of the most important productivity metrics to track. Automating your follow up and your lead nurturing game can dramatically alter your business and keep you on track when you feel like giving up is the only option.

Mistake #7: Ignoring the Power of Automation and Technology

Automation tools and technology can streamline lead nurturing processes and make them more efficient. Some Realtors overlook the benefits of email automation, CRM systems, and other solutions that can help manage leads effectively.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, when business is slow and money is tight, there is no better time to implement automation and technology marketing solutions into your real estate business.

Why Ignoring the Power of Automation and Technology Happens

As you build your real estate business, you know every penny counts. In lean times, we prioritize our budgets to keep the lights on and marketing and promotional activities are typically some of the first ones to go. This is where we can fail to think about the value of our time in terms of efficiency, capacity, and return on investment.

Begin by identifying the tasks you wish you either had someone or some way to automate. Do you wish you had help writing blog posts, designing email templates, and qualifying web leads? Can you easily update your real estate website on-the-fly without the assistance of a web designer or developer?

Do you have a way to measure and track the performance of your digital campaigns in terms of deliverability, views, and opens? Find an all-in-one, award-winning solution to help meet all of these challenges–including a CRM and concierge service powered by AIVA–with Elevate, by Elm Street Technology.

By maintaining regular contact, nurturing relationships over time, and staying engaged you can position yourself as the go-to Realtor when leads are ready to make their first move. Start today by investing in your business, investing in yourself, and knowing you’re making positive changes today to grow your business for years to come.

Need help nurturing your leads? Elm Street can help! Schedule a conversation with one of our success coaches to learn more.

7 Critical Lead Nurturing Mistakes Realtors Make (and how to fix them!)

A real estate professional asking someone "Are you thinking of selling your home?" is like a restaurant owner asking people, "Are you hungry?". The answer to the question might be "yes", but that's not how diners (and homeowners) tend to frame the question in their minds. 

Rather, they think "I could really go for some chicken wings", or "I haven't had lunch today"; these are statements that lead to action, that lead to the restaurant owner getting to serve some food. 

So, what are some conversation-starting we can use to get the listing-ball rolling with potential clients? Here are three ideas:

1. "A home nearby just sold for more than I was expecting. Are you curious about how much your home is worth in today's market?"

Any time there's market activity near a potential listing, you've got an opportunity to start a conversation. Recently sold homes, or "comps", give you a chance to estimate accurately what a similar home would sell for. 

; and it's not always easy, which is why we have an Automated CMA tool available as a part of our Elevate CRM platform. 

2. "I saw that it's been 5 years since you purchased your home. I offer free, no obligation 5-year market check-ups. Are you interested?"

Real estate, including the homes we live in, are an investment. Using most MLSs, you can go back in time to see which homes sold five years ago. 

Chances are, those homeowners aren't monitoring their market value closely. 

But, since we know that the typical length of ownership (especially for first-time homebuyers) is about six and a half years, starting the value conversation around the five year mark is a great way to get yourself in front of potential listers early. 

3. "I've got a buyer looking for a property just like this one. Would you be open to seeing if your house is a fit?"

A lot of potential sellers hesitate to list their home for sale because they aren't interested in the lengthy preparation process of getting a home ready for the market. A potential for a private, created sale shortcuts all of that, allowing a potential seller to speak to a single buyer. 

This is a great strategy to use if you have buyers who aren't finding what they're looking for. If you find a home that's a fit, awesome. If not, you've started the selling conversation with a homeowner, getting you on your way to a full market listing.

Each of these approaches focuses on establishing you as an expert in your local market. They demonstrate various components of what we call your EEAT; Excellence, Experience, Authority, and Trust. The higher your EEAT, the more listings you close. 

Want to turbocharge your relationship marketing?

 Our automated real estate marketing systems for 

 can help you generate more leads and referrals from prospects who see you as the agent-of-choice. Questions? 

Sales Scripts for Canvassing a Neighbourhood

3 Sales Pitches for Overcoming Objections

Getting Prospects to Say YES to Your Email Campaigns

How to Ask for Real Estate Referrals with Confidence and Professionalism

3 Better Ways to Say, “Are You Thinking of Selling Your Home?”

Marketing your real estate business is hard, especially for those of us without formal marketing training. Here are the critical errors that most real estate professionals make when marketing their business, and how you can avoid making these mistakes. 


Successful real estate marketing is a game of consistent delivery. No matter what you're doing; social media, email, direct mail, open houses and events, it all requires consistency in order to be successful. 

If you're a hit-and-miss marketer, you'll never pick up the momentum necessary to be successful. Additionally, Realtors who aren't consistent with their marketing miss a chance to learn from the performance of their past efforts, thus making their path to improvement much longer. 

Start by making a marketing calendar. Sit down at the start of the month and plan out exactly what marketing you'll be delivering on which days, and stick to the plan. You're going to have to block time out in your day to make sure you're making good on your promises to yourself, but the more you do it, the easier it will get.

The real estate marketing cycle is long. Prospects don't turn into leads and leads into clients overnight; this is a process that takes months (in some cases, years). Realtors who don't take this into consideration get frustrated with their short-term results and change tactics before their efforts have a chance to be effective. 

When it comes to real estate marketing, measure your short-term success by the amount of work you do, not by the number of deals you close. Once you've been consistently marketing for six months, start to track your closed transactions back to when your relationship with those clients started; with your marketing. 

By measuring your success based on the work you're doing, you'll keep motivated to continue in the short-run. And, by connecting the transactional results to your long-run work, you'll build the motivation and strategy to keep going. 

Real estate is a funny business in the sense that our colleagues are also our competitors. As a result of this dynamic, some real estate professionals are content with their marketing not reaching an entire market in fear that other agents will see it and copy their tactics. This is a mistake. 

Limiting the reach of your marketing will reduce your effectiveness, make each lead you turn to a client more expensive, and slow your growth path dramatically. 

To avoid this mistake, you need simply to realize a basic truth; if you're doing something great, 90% of agents won't have the skills or motivation to replicate it, 9% will try but won't have the ability to think long-term about their results, and the remaining 1% might have what they need to do the same thing.

The threat to your business is very low, and if you are doing something worthy of imitation, you are in the top 1%. Embrace it!

Mistake #4: Relying on Social Media for Sales

Social media is a great place to sell items that cost less than $100, but a terrible place to sell a house. If you are using social media as a vehicle solely to market listings and generate sales, you're doing it wrong. 

You can avoid this mistake by remembering that social media is not about selling, it is about 

. Social media is a place for your potential clients to connect with you to see that 

you are who you say you are, and do what you say you can do. 

Structure your social strategy around providing people a window into your world, not a direct path to a contract. 

Mistake #5: Not Effectively Tracking Marketing Results

If you aren't closely measuring the amount of time and money it takes to generate marketing and pairing that information with the amount of return you're getting from that effort, you're missing opportunities. Understanding your ROI is critical when it comes time to reevaluate and scale your marketing in order to grow your business. 

Start with a very simply tracking sheet. Record the basics; what you spent, how much time it took, and what business you can track back to that effort. From there, you'll understand the return on your dollars and time. 

Real estate marketing can be challenging, especially if you're trying to do it all yourself. Fortunately, Elm Street Technology is here to help. We offer a ton of great marketing solutions, from social media, to websites, to direct mail, and more. If you need help bringing your marketing strategy to life, Elm Street Technology is here for you. 

5 Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make When Marketing

You spend time every day marketing your real estate business, but how confident are you that what you're doing is actually working? If you're not sure that what you're spending your time (and money) on is driving your business forward, don't worry, you're not alone. 

Real estate marketing can be a tricky effort to measure, but not impossible. Here are three strategies you can use to get more confident in your real estate marketing. 

It might seem simple, but you'd be surprised how many real estate professionals aren't spending time digging into the actual results of their marketing efforts. If you're sending an email newsletter, for instance, you should be looking at how many people open your newsletter and how many people click on the links.

If you aren't getting the sort of open and click rates that you want, adjust your strategy. Confidence starts by measuring performance and making positive changes. 

When you start measuring your performance, it's easy to get caught up in what we like to call "vanity metrics". These are performance numbers that look compelling, but don't actually create positive momentum. 

For instance, say you're big into organic social marketing, specifically, Facebook. It's great to have a large Facebook audience, but if nobody that follows you actually interacts with any of your content or visits your website, does that follower-count really matter? 

To get more confident that your marketing efforts are making a difference, identify the specific metrics that will move your business in the direction you want it to go. Make those 

 the center of your strategy and try to block out the metrics that don't matter. 

3. Remember, Real Estate Marketing is a Long-Term Play

Successful real estate marketing is about sustained, strategic effort over a long period of time. There's no such thing as an overnight success in real estate marketing. 

This means that in order to properly understand the value of your work, you need to be looking at results on an annual scale. This also means that the hard work you do today might not get recognized for a while, which can be tricky for building confidence. 

In order to get more confident in you real estate marketing, start measuring your day-to-day and week-to-week success by the 

, and your quarterly and annual results by transactions closed. 

In order to truly become confident as a real estate marketer, you have to start seeing results. Results come from measuring the effectiveness of your work, zeroing in on the metrics that matter, and understanding the right time table for success. 

Here at Elm Street, we're experts when it comes to real estate marketing. We've got the systems you need to tackle any marketing task. Got questions? We'd love to help.

Are you a Confident Real Estate Marketer?

In an ideal world, a good real estate CRM helps agents streamline daily activities, nurture leads, and prioritize what’s important. We know, all of that sounds great in theory, but what about the real world? 

We connected with some real-life real estate professionals using the industry-leading Elevate real estate CRM to learn about the features they find most useful. Here's what they said:

An Efficient Real Estate CRM Dashboard Saves You Time

Before my CRM, I was stressed because I felt like I had to spend hours every week chasing leads and trying to focus on follow up. Now I have this great at-a-glance dashboard of all my daily activities: who I need to contact, automated outreach, and all follow up. I was able to cancel four other products, which saved money, and the insight and time saved has turned me into a loyal fan.

Invest time to learn about all of your CRM’s features and how you can consolidate and automate your daily activities. Jennifer's major unlock was that she was able to 

 her subscriptions to other products and platforms. 

 Your CRM is likely capable of more than you're using it for, so take some time to dig into all its features. If you're an Elevate user, we've got a ton of great resources to help you level up your CRM game. If you're not an Elevate user, it might be time to consider a switch!

A Lead Concierge Service Improves Your Closing Rate

“I spend about $1,600 a month on leads, and my CRM’s concierge service is converting an average of 12% of them into conversations for me. The transcript gives me valuable information about my prospect, and the fact that people think that I have an assistant in Los Angeles is priceless.”

Lead Concierge is an Elevate-specific tool that dramatically increases your capacity to nurture leads at scale (while still operating the other parts of your business). 

If you aren't an Elevate user, or haven't turned on Lead Concierge, another option to consider is hiring someone to help with the follow-up. Virtual assistants have become pretty common in real estate, so if you don't have the high-powered tech of Elevate's Lead Concierge, you should consider a low-tech option. 

More, Low-friction CMAs get You More Listings

“A comprehensive CMA can be really time-consuming. My CRM has one of the easiest CMA wizards ever. It creates and shares a professional CMA in minutes so I can move on with my day. My clients are always impressed with how quickly I can respond to their information requests.”

We all know how much our clients value a CMA. If you don't have the high-powered Automated CMA tool from Elevate, consider doing "neighborhood CMAs". Rather than having to conduct an analysis on every house in a neighborhood you're prospecting, you can put together a single report on the whole community and share it at large. 

If good conversations start from it, you can conduct a more individualized analysis for interested sellers.

Connected Social Media Allows You to Be More in Touch with Leads and Clients

“I knew I needed social media, but finding the time to commit was overwhelming. Elevate automatically posts my listings to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, along with other content for my audience. Now I’m a social media rockstar and only lift a finger when I want to post something personal.”

How to Use the Social Media + CRM Combo Better 

Find a CRM with social media marketing tools that do the work for you, especially if social media isn’t a strength.

Send More Accurate Market Reports, More Often

“My favorite feature (of Elevate) is the daily market reports. Anytime a listing hits the market that matches client interest, they receive an auto-generated email with all the details. In today’s market, we need to move quickly, and this tool ensures that my clients are the first to know about new listings.

How to Make Sure Your Market Reports are Competitive with Zillow's

A lot of your potential buyers will have market alerts set up through third-party sites like Zillow. In order to make your alerts stand out, make sure to provide some value that Zillow doesn't. Our favorite strategy here is to include a link to an automatic calendar service like 

 where your clients can use your calendar to select a time for a showing request.

Originally published in partnership with 

5 Ways A CRM Fuels Agent Success

Finding your real estate niche is all about communicating to your buyers and sellers that you're not only an expert in real estate, but you have specific expertise that sets you apart from the sea of competitors out there. Realtors who identify a niche get better referral rates, have more repeat clients, and see their business scale faster than agents who try to be "all things to all people".

Before you can select your area of focus in real estate, you need to ask (and answer) a few questions: 

There's no sense in selecting a niche that you're not interested in. For instance, commercial real estate is very different (different properties, different clients, different goals) from residential real estate. If you aren't passionate about commercial real estate, that would be a poor niche to focus on. 

What niches are under-served in my market? 

Selecting a niche with a particular demand will be critical if you plan on growing beyond your friends and family. For instance, if every other agent in your market is trying to specialize in first-time homebuyers, you'd likely be better off aiming for luxury clientele if there's less agent competition. 

What expertise do I possess that will differentiate me from my peers?

If you have a particular area of knowledge or experience that makes you an immediate authority, you'll grow faster in your chosen real estate niche. For instance, if you spent 10 years as a residential home builder, you're likely to have insight into new construction projects that others do not. 

Promoting your real estate niche starts with identifying the specific groups of people who are your most likely clients and identifying where they're spending their time. Once you know where your audience is reachable, you can design strategies for putting yourself in front of them. 

For instance, if you are targeting first-time homebuyers as your niche, you're likely going to get a lot of clients living in apartments. So, direct mail marketing to apartment complexes, or targeting Facebook and Pinterest ads for people who've identified a "first home" as an interest would be a good strategy.

Of course, you're also going to want to communicate your niche to the people you're already connected to, using effective email marketing and promoting your real estate website. A fantastic real estate CRM is a great way to do this. If you're looking for a great CRM, make sure to check out Elevate from Elm Street Technology. 

10 Popular Real Estate Niches to Consider

If you still haven't chosen a real estate niche to focus on and need some ideas, we've got a list of the top 10 real estate niches you should consider. 

Buyers Looking for Short-Term Rental Properties

Finding Your Real Estate Niche

Direct mail marketing is historically one of the most effective and reliable methods for reaching potential real estate clients. But, it's not right for every every real estate business, and certainly not the optimal strategy for every Realtor. 

If you're new to real estate (or have been around for a while and simply have have a renewed sense of purpose) and are trying to decide if direct mail is right for you, we've got you covered. In this article is a simple checklist you can use to determine whether or not you should be hitting up the mailboxes of your community, or considering another form of marketing.

If you meet the following criteria, direct mail is a great option for you and your real estate business: 

: Direct mail takes time to organize. You've got to do research on the communities you're targeting, compile your address lists, and finalize your content (are you mailing postcards? Letters? Flyers?). All of this requires an investment of time; usually about 40 hours to start, and around eight hours a week after that to maintain. 

 marketing, to execute a direct mail campaign you've actually got to 

 and get it to your recipients' mailboxes. This requires labor, printing, postage, and delivery. Sure, there are corners you can cut to bring the cost down (ever licked 500 stamps?), but in general, you need to prepare to spend at least $300 per month on direct mail. 

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Don’t be a Secret Agent: 4 Must-Have Strategies for Growing Your Real Estate Brand