How can real estate professionals and companies maximize their outdoor advertising ROI and achieve superior results?
Outdoor marketing remains one of the staples of lead generation for solo investors, real estate brokerages, independent Realtors, and national home builders. If anything, outdoor real estate marketing is surging as the U.S. real estate market rebounds. For both new and existing outdoor advertisers in the real estate industry, this means it is becoming even more important to strategize, and find ways of enhancing ad performance and profitability. Having said that, the following methods can be used for increasing outdoor real estate advertising ROI:
1. Creating Urgency
In the real estate industry, outdoor advertising is often used as a branding and visibility tool. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach either. It is necessary for any business. However, many real estate companies, agents, and investors could be getting a lot more tangible action from their spends. Creating urgency is a great tool. Yet, many don’t see the opportunity in such a small messaging space. It is also worth remembering that multiple ads can be used in a chain. With proper placement, they will be seen by the same prospects again and again. Still, even without cheesy promises, professionals can increase engagement and direct response rates. Running contests can be one of the simplest solutions. Announcing one day property auctions is another.
2. Integrating Technology
Technology and online advertising are not competing with offline real estate marketing as much as you may think. Rather, it offers a suite of tools for enhancing traditional marketing mediums to increase results and ROI. A few methods of integrating technology with outdoor signage include:
- Text for info
- iBeacons, push notifications and hyper-local digital mobile offers
- Call capture, and interactive phone systems
- QR Codes and augmented reality
- Linking to virtual tours
- Interactive and virtual staging apps
3. Negotiate Pricing
They say everything in real estate is negotiable. This definitely goes beyond property prices and contract clauses. Often times, real estate pros and marketers may be able to identify distressed agencies by vacancies, vandalized signage, or stock news, and be able to seize the opportunity for a substantial discount on an ad.
4. Split the Costs
Innovative real estate pros and CEOs have long used this concept to reduce marketing costs, or even obtain free advertising for door hangers, print, and radio play and TV commercials. The same concept can certainly be used for outdoor signs, billboards, bench ads, transportation ads, and more. This can be done ‘on page’ by splitting messaging. Or, for the more creative deals, can be struck to refer business and share leads. For example, a mortgage company, or home inspector may pay for as much as 100% of the advertising for a real estate company who fields the leads, signs up deals, and then simply refers actual deals to the vendor for their part of the transaction. This can create incredible, and highly profitable win-win solutions for all.
5. Get Better at Measuring Results
Big data continues to be a trending topic. However, when it comes to maximizing real estate marketing ROI, what is needed is precise metrics and measurements. Knowing exact passing traffic figures, inquiries, demographics, behaviors, lead numbers and conversion ratios can help to increase ROI at every level. This can be achieved via traffic counting technology, Google analytics, tracking phone calls, and using lead management software. Armed with solid numbers, real estate marketers can make actionable decisions and gain support, while constantly honing their efforts.
6. Alternative Outdoor Advertising Solutions
Newer and smaller real estate companies that have already obtained quotes for outdoor marketing mediums may have found them to be incredibly expensive, and cost prohibitive. Many may not have $5,000 to splurge on a single billboard for a month, especially when far more immediate leads, and long term value may be found in spending that working capital online, on SEO and blogging. However, there could be some innovative alternatives for those eager to add to or augment their marketing mix with offline and outdoor ads.
This could include:
- Street side physical sign holders for close to minimum wage
- Using homes and buildings as billboards
- Going bigger with yard and bandit signs
- Collaborating to put yard signs on partners’ properties
- Popup signs and even showrooms
- Sponsoring new benches, billboards, roads, holiday events, and revitalization projects
- Using cars or trucks as mobile billboards
- Producing magazines or getting on the front cover of magazines
- Using local mobile marketing to push messaging directly to consumers on their own devices, in their hands and in front of their eyes
Despite the power of outdoor marketing for real estate, it is also critical to remember the advantages of referral marketing. Those whom are creative enough to blend social recommendations and outdoor trends could find that conversions and scale comes easy.
