If you want to build a personal brand that generates business while you sleep, choosing the right real estate marketing materials is crucial. Second only to your time and emotional energy, your marketing materials are your most precious assets. Think of them as the vehicle that delivers your personal brand to the world.
Of course, even experienced agents have a hard time choosing which marketing materials to spend their hard-earned time and money on. That’s why we used our expertise to put together this definitive guide to the eight real estate marketing materials every agent needs to build a better personal brand in 2023 and beyond. Whether you need Instagram Reels templates or business card advice, we have you covered.
1. Professional Pictures: One Headshot, One Lifestyle
One of the most important lessons that Ryan Serhant teaches in his course, Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build a Personal Brand, is that your personal brand needs to be curated and authentic. After all, people should want to work with you, not just “a real estate agent.” There are millions of agents, but only one you. This is why headshots are by far your most important marketing material.
📌 Pro Tip
For your lifestyle shot, pay particular attention to your body language. The goal is to look open and approachable, not guarded. You can see the difference in the two pictures above.
Your headshots literally put a face to your personal brand and are the only marketing piece that can’t be copied by other agents. So take the time to make sure your headshots are both curated and authentic. Ryan recommends creating two headshots for your real estate marketing materials: one professional headshot and one lifestyle shot.
Once you get those gorg headshots, it’s time to build marketing collateral that impresses. Hire a freelance graphic designer on Fiverr to touch up your headshot photos. You can even order those hero shots that look fab on your postcards and other collateral.
Fiverr freelancers offer all the services from logo design to listing flyers to social media post design to content creation to help you build your business from the ground up. And it’s super simple—find a designer to match your style, click the order button, fill in the project details, and pay. Your designs, on demand.
When it comes to social media marketing materials, many agents make the mistake of assuming that bringing their authentic selves to social media means they need to create everything from scratch. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those behind-the-scenes Reels and TikToks you shot at your open house don’t have to look like a Hollywood movie, but it might help if they look more polished.
This is where professionally designed social media templates come in. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every time you post on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, you can use templates designed for real estate agents by graphic designers. The difference between professional social media templates and generic templates from Canva is night and day.
Looking for sleek and stunning templates for your social media? Coffee & Contracts has the most gorg templates, including Instagram Reels, carousels, Broke Agent memes, and more. You’ll get access to fresh content and new options every month as a subscriber.
As a special thank you to Close readers, use promo code THECLOSE for $15 off your first month at Coffee & Contracts.
3. A Website That Shows Off Your Personal Brand
After headshots and social media templates, your website is the next most important piece of your marketing materials. It’s also one of the only brand assets you truly own. After all, no matter how hard you work on them, you don’t really own any of your social media profiles or even the shiny website your brokerage provided for you.
While you might be tempted to add bells and whistles—like IDX listings, lead capture, landing pages, and a customer relationship manager (CRM)—to your website, make sure they reflect your personal brand first. For a good example of an agent website centered on personal branding, check out Carlin Wright. Notice how her lifestyle image is front and center? That’s no accident. Her website is about her, not real estate.
In Hawaii, the warm weather and outdoor lifestyle are what Kinga Mills is selling. So much of her website is focused on her personal brand—videos of surfers, lush mountains, palm trees, and the turquoise ocean feature prominently—capitalizing on the very well-established Hawaii brand.
If you want a site like Carlin’s or Kinga’s, you can hire Luxury Presence to build and host your website starting at around $180 per month, plus design fees. Get $500 off by clicking the button below.
Kinga Mills, eXp Realty Hawaii
“Luxury Presence support staff, the website’s setup, and ease of use have exceeded my expectations. My goal was to showcase my experience, personality, and accomplishments in a beautiful eye-catching design, and I believe that I have achieved that with my website. Luxury Presence is definitely helping me stand out in a competitive agent space.”
Visit Luxury Presence
Or, if you want more control and want to level up your own skill set, check out our guide to building a website using WordPress here:
Related Article How to Build an IDX Real Estate Website in an Afternoon4. Business Cards That Set You Apart
Even in the age of Realtor TikTok stars, there’s something about a well-designed business card printed on quality paper stock that can’t be beat. Sure, popping up in someone’s social media feed once a week is great, but your business card might get pinned to a bulletin board, be kept in a wallet, or sit on someone’s desk for months on end. Not bad for a 50-cent piece of paper, right?
Of course, like your website, your business cards should reflect your personal brand. So make sure to use your brand colors, fonts, and headshot. As far as strategy goes—whether you’re working with a designer or creating them yourself—it can be helpful to ask yourself, Is this a business card I would keep? Why or why not? If the answer is no, head back to the drawing board.
Related Article The Best Real Estate Business Cards (+ Mistakes to Avoid)5. Facebook Business Page
Even though your teenage niece will probably tell you Facebook is so over, you still need a business page, even if you never post on it. Why? Demographics. The average age of a Facebook user is a little over 40 years old, and a whopping 22% are over the age of 55. Sounds dull, right? Well, what if I told you that according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the typical homeseller was 60 years old last year?
With demographics like that, a Facebook Business page is not optional for serious Realtors. It’s not all about demographics, though. If you want to advertise on Facebook or Instagram, you will need a Facebook business page. So even if you also think Facebook is so over, you’re going to need to build one.
If you don’t already have one, we have an easy step-by-step guide to building a Facebook business page (along with specialized advertising and cover photo advice) here:
Related Articles
- How to Set Up a Real Estate Agent Facebook Page to Get More Leads
- 11 Awesome Real Estate Facebook Cover Photo Examples to Inspire You (+ Templates)
- How to Create Real Estate Facebook Ads That Actually Generate Leads
6. Instagram-quality Postcards
Want to get laughed at? Tell someone under 30 that you’re sending them a postcard. If they’re under 20, you might have to actually explain what a postcard is. Of course, while we have nothing against 20 year olds, they’re not exactly the right audience for your real estate marketing materials. At least, not yet.
According to the NAR’s Homebuyers and Sellers Report, the average first-time buyer in 2022 was 36 years old, while the typical repeat buyer was 59. Take it from me, people our age like getting postcards, but older people love getting postcards. My mother is in her seventies, owns several homes, and sits in her recliner every morning to go through her mail. You know where she’s not spending her mornings? TikTok!
But just because you’re using old-school marketing materials doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them, no matter what your personal brand is. For example, check out the Instagram-inspired postcard from Coffee & Contracts above. It’s classy and professional, with a tiny bit of sass.
Why use Instagram-inspired design for your postcards? Simple. Television and newspaper ads are inspired by online design trends today.
You can design your own, use a fresh template in Canva, or work with some of the predesigned templates inside ProspectsPLUS! to amplify your marketing message. Select your target audience, upload or create your design, and let ProspectsPLUS! do the rest. They will deliver dazzling Instagram-worthy postcards directly to your audience, showcasing your marketing brilliance.
Build Instagram-worthy Postcards at ProspectsPLUS!
Related Articles
- Top 23 Real Estate Postcard Templates That Actually Generate Leads (+ Design Guide)
7. Email Newsletter
Like postcards, email newsletters are another crucial marketing material that will make your niece roll her eyes. It also happens to be one of the best ways to market to your sphere. Again: You don’t own your social media profiles, but you do own your email list.
Email is also much easier to scale than social media, and much less expensive than pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The return on investment for your time and effort is also better. According to statistics from Campaign Monitor, the average rate at which people open marketing emails is 21.7%. So as long as you keep growing your list, the number of people you reach with your content will continue to grow with very little extra work.
If you plan a content calendar for your email newsletter, you can keep your sphere engaged for years with just an hour or two of work per week. Here are a few easy real estate newsletter ideas to get you started:
Related Articles
- 35 Proven Real Estate Newsletter Ideas (+ Template Tips)
If you want to really stand out in your farm area, you might consider a more robust approach. Parkbench makes it super-easy to dominate your market as the community leader. They create a hyperlocal website filled with neighborhood news, market info, events, real estate listings, and more, all with your logo and contact information to put your face in the forefront of your community. Watch your trust factor soar and leads start flowing in. They only allow one agent per area so, don’t wait! Check to see if yours is still available.
Check Your Market’s Availability With Parkbench
8. Marketing Videos
Whether you love it or hate it, video is definitely taking over the digital marketing space. From shorter vertical videos, like the ones on Instagram Reels or TikTok (above), to longer-form videos on YouTube, video will drive your business faster and more effectively than static forms of content.
Think lifestyle or walk-through videos set to music on Reels and TikTok or educational videos on the buying or selling processes on YouTube. Putting your content in video format will boost your exposure and get you in front of more potential clients since Google and Facebook both favor video over static images or text.
You can typically get your pro photographer to shoot some of your polished videos of listings. But you can also easily create your own lifestyle or educational videos with your smartphone.
Over to You
Do you think these are the right real estate marketing materials for every agent to build their personal brand? If not, what would you include instead? Tell us in the comments!
