10 Real Estate Marketing Tools You NEED in 2024

Real estate marketing can be overwhelming. Especially with the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing tools.

However, with over 90% of homebuyers hitting the web in their quest for their dream home – knowing the best real estate marketing tools is vital.

Knowing which tools and how to use them effectively can make the difference between profit and loss in your real estate agency.

To help you out, we’ve rounded up the top 10 marketing tools for real estate that you need in 2024. These tools will give your real estate business a leg up on the competition from SEO to social media and beyond.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Marketing for Real Estate?

Real estate has grown thanks to the internet and digital marketing rapidly.

Traditionally, house hunting involved visiting every property and spending hours examining it, making finding or selling a house an arduous task.

Modern house-hunting is fast and, most importantly of all, highly personalized. Heck, you can even virtually visit your top picks before driving across the state to see them in person.

The benefits of using digital marketing as a real estate agent are certainly non-negligible:

• Cost-effectiveness. Depending on the strategies and real estate marketing tools you choose to promote your business, digital marketing can be affordable.
• Automation. Automation lets you focus on other important parts of the job, like meeting with clients, preparing presentations, and visiting properties. Plus, it paves the way for lower rates of burnout, higher satisfaction, and fewer errors!
• Visibility. You can market your business, rank first on Google, and get an unbelievable quantity of leads by applying search engine optimization strategies! It’s simpler to be recognized today than it was in the past if you do your homework.
• Improved customer relationships. Regular content on social media or direct interactions with clients via email allows realtors to nurture their relationships with leads, clients, or past customers!
• Greater reach. In the past, advertising real estate mostly relied on newspapers, billboards, TV commercials, and door-to-door flyers. However, these methods were only accessible to some agents who could afford them. But today, online ads have levelled the playing field for all real estate agents. No matter what their budget is, agents can reach a larger audience and promote their business online.
• A solid understanding of what the target audience wants. Most marketing tools for real estate have analytics features. These will help you say goodbye to guesswork and hello to targeted, compelling content.

Just imagine having to rely solely on traditional media to promote your real estate business. Dire, right?

Luckily, you can now combine both print and digital marketing techniques to boost your business. Don’t let that chance slip between your fingers.

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10 Real Estate Marketing Tools You NEED in 2024

1. Best Real Estate Virtual Tour Software – Virtual Staging Solutions Kuula

Covid-19 changed the face of the real estate industry for good. Virtual tours have become a popular alternative to in-person visits, allowing homebuyers to explore properties from the comfort of their own homes.

And real estate virtual tours are here to stay. They’re co-beneficial, after all.

For one, homebuyers can tour homes from anywhere without spending big bucks on gas money and rentals just to attend an open house. Plus, a virtual tour can help people cross off some properties on their list.

Not only do homebuyers benefit from this, but also real estate agents. Virtual tours give you a global reach, attract more attention than regular listings, and multiply sales.

It’s kind of tempting to jump on board, isn’t it? If so, don’t worry – it’s not rocket science. Especially if you use real estate virtual tour software.

And here is where Kuula comes in. Kuula is one of the most popular real estate virtual tour software out there. One of the best things about this software is that it’s easy to use, regardless of your experience level.

Upload panoramic and non-panoramic images and create 360 tours that wow your audience! Add hotspots, tags, background audio, and floor plans. Kuula is also optimized for mobile users, ensuring that everyone has a smooth experience.

With Kuula, you can easily embed the virtual tour to your website, add it to listings, or add branding elements to stay top of mind!

Kuula Pricing

Kuula offers a free plan but doesn’t include the virtual tour editor. The pricing plan starts at $16 per month and goes up to $36 monthly for the business plan. This plan offers a custom domain, password-protected tours, analytics, a landing page editor, and multiple logo use.

2. Best SEO Tool for Real Estate – Ahrefs

SEO for real estate is the most effective way to attract leads through organic search without spending big bucks on online ads. Search engine optimization enhances your chances of getting your website and social media channels ranked first.

In order to gain new customers, get your brand out there, and ultimately win clients, you have to do this.

One marketing tool for real estate to help you with all things SEO is Ahrefs. Regardless of what business you’re in, Ahrefs is a game-changer.

With Ahrefs, you can check the SEO performance of your web pages, check how competitors are doing, perform keyword research, backlink checks, or explore content ideas.

And the most exciting part? Some of these tools are free to use and will certainly help get your real estate business to the top.

The Keyword Explorer

Let’s talk about the first free tool: the Keyword Explorer. You can use this to come up with keyword ideas for your website or YouTube channel.

Say you want people in your town to contact you for your services.

In this imaginary tale, you’re from Washington, DC. Getting to the top is a bit harder in the capital than in other US cities.

You can use the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer to find a keyword that’s easy to rank for. I typed in “real estate agent in Washington,” and here’s what I got. The keyword “real estate agent in Washington DC” has been searched 300 times this month and has a keyword difficulty of 14.

The higher this KD score – the harder it will be for your website to rank first. Especially if you don’t have a lot of backlinks or high domain authority. So, until you build your name on Google, it’s best to stick to lower KD keywords.

Another great free tool is the Keyword Difficulty tool.

To show you how this works, here’s an example.

I wanted to see how difficult it would be to rank in the top 10 on Google with the keyword “luxury real estate”.

Obviously, it’s super hard since it’s a generic term used by many. According to Ahrefs, it would take around 455 backlinks from other websites to rank in the top 10.

Auch.

At least I can cross this keyword off my list and find something more specific and easier to rank — like a phrase containing the location of my business.

The Webmaster Tools

Lastly, the Webmaster Tools – have been recently released as free. A free and reliable tool that regularly audits your SEO performance? Yes, please.

With this real estate marketing tool, you can regularly scan your website for SEO issues and get insights into what needs work.

You can also look through your website’s backlink data and get backlink insights. Finally, the Webmaster Tools show you which keywords bring you more traffic and how it compares to competitors.

Ahrefs Pricing

The tools mentioned above are free to use. Of course, the free version doesn’t display all the data. If you want to invest in an all-in-one solution for SEO optimization, Ahrefs starts at $99.

3. Best Design and Content Creation tool for Real Estate – Xara Cloud

Visual content is often the backbone of your marketing materials. Especially in this day and age. That’s why a visual communication platform is one of those essential real estate marketing tools.

Whether you want to design your business card, add attention-grabbing elements to your listing presentation, or create engaging social media posts – this tool will be your reliable assistant.

One marketing tool for real estate that will help you with that is Xara Cloud – the go-to choice for many realtors and real estate agents. With Xara Cloud, you can easily create eye-catching digital and print marketing materials that showcase your brand.

The Brand Portal and Design Templates

Real estate templates make it easy to create any type of material, whether it’s a listing presentation, a real estate brochure to promote your listings or a social media post. The Brand Portal allows you to add brand elements such as logos, icons, brand colors, and fonts.

Your Brand Portal only needs to be filled out once, and you can edit and add assets. Each time you choose a real estate template to work with, your brand elements are inserted automatically.

The MLS Integration

Another cool feature is the MLS integration. You can easily connect your MLS account to your Xara account.

This will automate your listing’s content (address, features, price, and more). Just add your listing ID, and the listing info will be uploaded to Xara. All you have to do is drag and drop the info into the posts, and voilà! Flawless listings on social media – every time!

Lastly, this integration allows you to repurpose materials in one go. Enter the new listing ID and the information will be automatically replaced with the new listing’s info. Talk about scaling your marketing game!

The Collaboration Feature

With Xara Cloud, you can collaborate with other realtors from your agency on any business pitches or marketing materials.

Team templates, commenting and tasks, approval workflows, and lockable templates make collaboration a breeze – whether you’re in the office or across the country.

Digital Asset Management

Forget about lost files or poor collaboration. The single source of truth allows you to store all marketing materials and brand assets in one hub – this way, you’ll always have the images, logos, or fonts you need on hand. And so will your colleagues!

Xara Cloud Pricing

You can try out Xara Cloud for free to get a feel of the platform! Xara Cloud offers an Essential plan for $12 a month. For scaling your brand, there is a Scale plan available at $20 a month. For larger organizations or multiple teams, a customized Enterprise plan is available, please contact us for pricing details.

4. Best SMS Software for Real Estate – SimpleTexting

SMS marketing is a powerful tool that real estate professionals should be using.

Unlike emails, text messages are read almost immediately, with an open rate of 98%. This makes SMS an ideal method for realtors looking to generate more leads and connect with more buyers. If you’re not currently using SMS marketing, now is the time to start.

SimpleTexting is one of those intuitive tools that allow you to automate and send text messages to potential or past customers.

It’s an excellent real estate marketing tool because it is intuitive and easy to use. The learning curve is minimal, making it an excellent option for realtors looking to improve their marketing efforts.

This app offers features such as automated bulk messages, scheduled messages, one on one messaging, and SMS keywords to grow your subscriber list. You can use web forms embedded on your website to get people to sign up for your SMS marketing campaigns and connect these web forms with SimpleTexting.

If you want to get into SMS marketing for real estate – SimpleTexting is the one SMS software for real estate you should use.

SimpleTexting Pricing

You can try SimpleTexting for free if you want to give it a shot. SimpleTexting’s pricing plan varies depending on how many text messages you want to send monthly. The plan starts at $29 for 500 text messages per month. This plan offers free incoming text messages, three user seats, customer support, integrations, unlimited SMS keywords, and unlimited contacts.

5. Best CRM for Real Estate Agents – SalesForce

If you’re looking for the best CRM for Real Estate Agents, SalesForce would be it. Real estate is all about nurturing relationships with prospects and customers.

That’s why customer relationship management is one of those must-have real estate marketing tools.

SalesForce automatically fills out essential forms, files documents, and retrieves the data you need, cutting your workload in half and allowing you to focus on bigger issues than tedious paperwork.

With SalesForce, you can personalize and automate messages and respond to any messages on the fly. This will improve your relationship with prospective homebuyers and sellers by reducing the time it takes to respond to messages.

The single source of all truth ensures that all the information you and your team need is stored in one location – which you or fellow real estate agents can access anytime, anywhere. Plus, the IDX, MLS, and RETS integrations leverage the full power of CRM.

SalesForce Pricing

SalesForce’s CRM can be tested for free. As far as pricing is concerned, you’ll have to contact the team to set up a customized solution to suit your needs as a real estate agent.

6. Best Email Marketing Software for Real Estate – MailChimp

Another one to make it on our top 10 best marketing tools for real estate is MailChimp.

Email marketing is a big part of promoting your real estate business, asking for referrals, and attracting more active clients. MailChimp is the leading email marketing software for real estate.

MailChimp didn’t get its reputation on a whim. There’s a reason it’s the most well-known email marketing tool out there. Its easy and intuitive interface makes it suitable even for the most inexperienced users.

With MailChimp, you can segment your audience based on different criteria, such as postal code or age group. More so, behavioral targeting allows you to send emails based on the type of content people engage with on your website.

The variety of email templates turns real estate email marketing into a quick and easy task. You can personalize every template to suit your personality and goals.

If you wish to put your research goggles on, MailChimp offers an A/B testing feature. You’ll stop blindly guessing which email works best – the results will be right there for you to see!

If you’ve not already incorporated email marketing into your real estate marketing strategy, 2023 should be the year.

MailChimp Pricing

A free plan is available, allowing you to send up to 2,500 emails to up to a maximum of 500 contacts. From there on, the pricing plan starts at $13 a month, going up to $350 a month.

7. Best Real Estate Video Maker Tool – Animoto

Animoto is an easy-to-use real estate video maker.

Unless you’ve been living a social-media-free life for the past few years, you must have noticed that these platforms are flooded with video content.

And the real estate industry is not exempt from that. According to NAR, 73% of homeowners are more likely to list properties with a real estate agent who uses video marketing.

If this isn’t enough to sway you, let us remind you that video marketing improves search engine optimization and that listings with videos get more engagement!

So if you want to give real estate email marketing a shot – Animoto is the tool to use.

Animoto offers a wide selection of video templates for real estate, a timesaving feature. Especially if you’re not a keen designer or don’t have plenty of time on your hands. Their vast stock library ensures you’ll find the right images and videos every time.

Since brand awareness is crucial to the growth of any business, Animoto also allows you to add a logo watermark to any of the real estate marketing materials you produce. The platform Animoto is an excellent pick for real estate professionals who want to jump into video marketing with little hassle.

Animoto Pricing

Animoto has a free plan, which allows users to create unlimited videos. The gist is that every video will include Animoto’s branding, and you get no templates, music, or voice-over capabilities. The paid plans start at $16 a month and go up to $79 monthly.

8. Best Social Media Tool For Real Estate – Loomly

Social media marketing is essential to the growth of any business, let alone real estate.

But to stay top of mind, constant content is a must. Without social media tools, however, it will all become overwhelming. And quick.

As a real estate agent, your primary responsibilities already take up all your time. Keeping current with market trends, preparing listing presentations, staging properties, and assisting clients with home-buying processes are just a few duties a realtor performs daily.

While social media marketing is a must, managing your channels and content can be outsourced to a tool like Loomly.

With Loomly, you can manage all your social media content – organic and paid – with ease. Save lots of time by scheduling posts and automating the posting process.

Thanks to the centralized database, you can keep all of your real estate marketing materials in one place. This cuts down on workload time and, honestly, the annoyance of having to go through a shedload of storage space to find that one image of the most current property for sale.

Loomly also acts as an assistant – you get optimization tips, guides, a hashtag manager, and a media studio, so your real estate marketing materials are top-notch.

Loomly Pricing

Loomly’s pricing plan starts at $26 a month and goes up to $269. If you want a customized enterprise plan, you can have a chat and set up the conditions and number of seats that work for your organization. If you want to take Loomly for a test drive, you can try the platform for free!

9. Best Platform for Online Ads – Facebook

We can’t showcase the best marketing tools for real estate without giving Facebook Ads its spot on the list. Online ads are essential for closing deals, expanding your real estate target audience, and promoting your services as a realtor.

And Facebook Ads is certainly one of those essential lead generation tools that you can use.

A study by ConstantContact revealed that the average real estate Facebook ad has around 4,800 views. It gets around 44 leads, the average cost-per-lead being $2.44.

The Facebook Ad tool is free, but each ad costs. You can launch online ads on any budget. So even if you’re just starting out or own a reputable real estate brokerage, Facebook Ads is a reliable tool for promoting your business and gaining leads.

With Facebook Ads, you can target specific audiences, optimize the budget for each campaign, use automated rules, schedule ads, test ads, and analyze the performance of your ads. You can check out our guide to creating Real Estate Facebook Ads.

10. Best Platform for Content Ideas – Reddit

Have you ever been short of content ideas? Not to worry, we’ve got the right tool to put an end to your creative block.

Reddit. This is one of the most valuable real estate marketing tools out there. And it’s free to use!

Join a few real estate communities to find content ideas and check out the posts.

Here is the first post I came across in my quick search on Reddit. This is a great content idea for your real estate email marketing campaigns or even as a social media post.

Reddit can also be used to promote your services as a real estate agent and establish yourself as a thought leader in real estate.

Well, there you have it – our rundown of the quintessential marketing tools for real estate to stay ahead of the competition and face 2024’s real estate challenges! If you’re looking to simplify your process of discovering tools to grow your real estate business, consider using a platform like Dealify. Dealify helps you find the best deals and discover the latest top software options.

Use Xara Cloud to Scale Your Branded Real Estate Marketing Materials

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t want to see their marketing efforts take off or, better yet, pay off. That’s why you need the best real estate marketing tools out there to make it big in 2024.

Local real estate competition is fiercer than ever. The key to establishing yourself as a top agent is constantly creating marketing materials that wow your audience!

That’s where Xara Cloud makes a difference. Whatever your real estate marketing plan is, Xara Cloud will help. Manage marketing assets, create stunning materials, and share them with your prospects!

Countless realtors and agents trust Xara Cloud to elevate their marketing game – join them and stand out in the competitive world of real estate.

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