‘Winter is coming’ was the beginning of an ever exciting tale. But for some, it doesn’t always bring excitement. By using our real estate marketing plan, real estate agents can make any season exciting.
Most real estate buyers and sellers go into hibernation during this time of year and agents are left without much to do. So what’s actually the best season to buy a house?
According to Redfin, it takes almost twice as long for a house to go under contract in the winter compared to spring or summer.
But this doesn’t mean you should sit back during the down season and wait for the market to pick up.
Improving your seasonal real estate marketing plan is the best way to make sure you keep those marketing cogs turning throughout the four seasons.
Real estate marketing plan: Winter
Winter is the perfect time of year to hit ‘resume’ on all those projects you’d paused due to workload. Launch that newsletter you’ve always wanted, and start being more present or creative on your social channels.
Again, homes take twice as long to sell during winter compared to summer. On average, a home takes roughly 50-60 days to sell after being listed during winter whereas in summer a home usually goes under contract within 30 days.
Housing inventory also usually dips during the winter months. The slowing down of the real estate market during winter is what makes it the ideal time to put more emphasis on your seasonal real estate marketing plan.
Another reason why buyers don’t line up in winter is because winter falls in the middle of the school year. Understandably, parents as a rule don’t like to move houses at this time.
These factors result in a decrease in housing prices between December and late January. Because of this, you can say winter really might be the best season to buy a house.
During spring and summer, buyers come in waves, but most of them are just browsing and known to take their time finding a property. On the other hand, the few buyers who come out in winter are the more serious ones who are willing to get a deal done.
The winter season can also be used to set all your marketing campaigns for the busier spring and summer seasons.
Target secondary home buyers
Another key thing that real estate marketers should keep in mind is that a lot of winter homebuyers are actually looking to buy their second home.
Since most people in winter are wanting to get away from their hectic city lifestyles, you should be finding creative real estate content ideas to promote cosy and not-so-suburban second homes.
Send out email drip campaigns
The winter downtime you get from fewer customers can also be put to use in sending out marketing campaigns. A great way to do this is by using drip email campaigns. Email drip campaigns are a set of automated marketing emails that get sent out when a contact sets off a trigger.
Here’s an example: Someone signs up to learn more about a specific property. In your automated welcome email, you give the contact some options about specific neighbourhoods to click on to spark their interest.
Find trending real estate content ideas and include these in your email campaigns to share this information with your prospects.
Real estate marketing plan: Spring
Spring is when the real estate market starts to pick back up. More buyers come out of hibernation and you’ll start getting more enquiries on your listed properties. This is when the real estate market starts up its summer resurgence.
Spring for many is a new beginning. All the Christmas family reunions and New Year’s eve parties are over. And everyone’s had time to heal from any after-party hangovers.
You can find heaps of real estate content ideas during spring. For example, you can design a fun campaign around Valentine’s day to drive more traffic to your social media channels or the website.
This is when agents should make sure their properties look attractive. Kerb appeal is no secret in the real estate industry.
According to HomeLight, 75% of top agents report that a well-landscaped home is worth up to 10% more than one that isn’t landscaped.
Focus on kerb appeal
Spring is naturally a great time for kerb appeal in many markets. Make sure your properties look nice when someone drives past it. Because that’s the first thing that will attract anyone.
For marketing, you should share kerb appeal tips with potential buyers and sellers. Share kerb appeal tips using your email newsletter, for example.
If you don’t have a newsletter, the spring selling season is a great time to start one! Email newsletters are one of the best ways to do seasonal real estate marketing.
Post related articles on LinkedIn and Facebook for your sellers as well. For your buyers specifically, post beautiful spring-themed listing photos on Instagram.
Create appealing videos
Another way to up your social media game this spring is to create TikTok videos and Instagram Reels. More and more real estate agents are getting into video formats because they can help you reach a wider audience – plus it’s an engaging way to share information!
If you’re not ready to commit to creating a TikTok, test the waters with an Instagram Reel (or at least videos on your listing pages). Try also creating video tours of your recent listings or showing off your properties and that cosy front yard you’ve built for better kerb appeal.
You can even find fun and engaging real estate content ideas by following current trends on social media platforms. For example, Instagram is continuing to emphasise Reels in response to the popularity of TikTok. Reels are top-performing organic and paid ad creatives. So start creating simple and short reels if you want to get more reach.
Real estate marketing plan: Summer
Everytime summer rolls around you get the feeling something big is about to happen in the real estate market. That’s because if you’re a real estate agent, this is going to be the busiest time of year.
You’ll find many potential buyers lining up to view your properties, but you need to make sure you’re spending your time wisely and with the right buyers.
Most summer buyers are known to be browsers than those who are looking to commit anytime soon. Most people believe that summer is the best season to buy a house and hence many start putting out feelers to see what’s out there in the market.
Because of this, most agents have busy summer calendars. That’s why you should use lead qualification to know when these potential buyers are looking to buy so you don’t waste your time on the wrong prospects. You can better qualify prospects by asking a couple of questions about their requirements. To do this, you can use a chatbot or form.
Don’t want to do it yourself? Book a consultation with us so we can show you how to qualify your leads better.
But before you start qualifying leads, you need to figure out strategies to generate those leads. Even though summer is the busiest season for the real estate industry, you can’t just expect leads to magically appear out of thin air.
The competition in real estate is higher than ever and if you’re not being proactive with your seasonal real estate marketing plan, you can sit back and watch as your competitors swallow up all potential leads.
Use a summer landing page
A great way to get traffic to come to your website is by running ads on social media linking to a summer-themed landing page. During summer, you have a secret weapon to promote your new landing page: purchase intent ads.
Imagine having the advantage of targeting customers you know are ready to buy? Purchase intent ads do exactly that. In order to find the purchase intent, you have to look at demographics, engagement, past purchases, and how they interact with your marketing messaging. You have to look at all these different factors to determine whether or not your customer is ready to purchase.
And don’t forget to utilize stunning and well-edited images. You can quickly improve any picture by using one-click editing software like Picsart. For example, you can remove image backgrounds easily without design experience, which is perfect for the busy real estate agent.
Host a community event
Real estate is a business that relies largely on human-to-human interaction and trust. And summer is the best time to build on these within your community. Being involved in the community is great for establishing yourself as a local authority. Depending on where you’re located, you may want to throw a BBQ, sporting event, or beach gathering.
Think about what’s most liked in your community and consider the interests of the largest demographic. Putting out newsletters promoting these interests or other local events is a great way at the same time to gain traction for your business. Just don’t forget to snap a few photos for your social media profiles and other content creation!
Real estate marketing plan: Autumn/Fall
Fall is the time of the year when everyone starts preparing for winter. The market will start slowing down as a result, especially compared to the faster pace of summer and spring. But it won’t be as slow as the winter.
Fall can also be the time where you put together your seasonal real estate marketing plan for the rest of the year. Put the downtime you get to good use by studying industry trends and planning your campaigns accordingly.
Fall, however, is also a season that’s filled with cultural events! Depending on which part of the world you live in, you’ll have different events going on. From the Andalucia Jamon festival and wine festival in Italy’s Castelvetro to the Paris Nuit Blanche art festival and, of course, Halloween! Include these cultural events in your seasonal real estate marketing plan during the fall season.
Show off your community
We’ve discussed all the cultural events happening around the world during this season. And these events are sure to make neighbourhoods colourful and vibrant. If you’re a real estate agent, you’d be foolish not to use this to your advantage.
Show off the vibrant colours of your community through your social media channels. Post stories on Instagram about the cultural festivities that are going on in your area.
If a local restaurant is introducing a brand-new menu item during this time of year, consider showing off that delicacy. Because when people are looking to buy a home, they also want it to be in a nice neighbourhood. Showing off your community will peak the interest of people to check out your property listings.
Share your expertise
Real estate buyers and sellers have a lot of concerns before they start their buying or selling journey. Since fall is one of the slower times of year, you can use this time to host a knowledge sharing session either locally or in the form of a webinar.
For example, you might team up with a local home improvement service to conduct a webinar on the top five most valuable home improvements sellers can make to their homes to boost sales prices. Since you’re the expert, share knowledge that buyers and sellers can’t always find online.
This will only grow the trust they have in you and will have them come to you when it’s time for them to buy or sell.
Conclusion
Even though the market slows down during certain seasons, marketing is a never-ending cycle. And with a carefully crafted real estate marketing plan that fits all four seasons, you can secure sales even in the off-seasons.
Use slower seasons like winter and fall to craft your real estate marketing plan for the hotter seasons. But make sure you don’t leave winter and fall out of your calendar. There are pros and cons to every season and if you play your cards right, you can run very successful marketing campaigns throughout all four seasons.
If you want to learn more about how to get more leads, read our latest blogs about what real estate buyer leads and seller leads care about the most.
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