In the digital era, most realtor marketing materials are encountered online: real estate websites, property pages and social media platforms dominate advertising. There are plenty of reasons to focus our attention more on the activities on the internet and less on the print materials, e.g. wider outreach, measurability and care for the environment. However, with the rising competition online, it is beneficial for real estate agents to mix digital and print marketing practices. Even though you can reach anybody with your stunning photographs and engaging posts, giving your prospective clients something tangible that will remind them of your existence and services still pays off. Read on to learn about the best marketing materials for real estate professionals that facilitate finding potential buyers and strengthen their brand awareness.
11 Real estate marketing materials
1. Real Estate Business Cards
Business cards never go out of style – quite the contrary, each year there is a tiny revolution in the design trends and the ways of making them stand out from the crowd. This little piece of cardboard can be a game changer: the more eye-catching and beautiful your business card is, the harder it will be to throw it away.
Apart from choosing the right combination of colors, fonts and images, you can consider other ways of making your business card memorable: unusual shape or texture, matte or glossy finish, or a few words that get remembered or conjure warm emotions. You can also insert a QR code to your website.
Typically, business cards are designed by professional designers, but you can make one on your own, too! For starters, you can do it in a free design platform such as Canva and use one of the existing templates or design your own project from scratch.
If you’d like to have a short quote connected to real estate on your business card, see our 99 favorite quotes for realtors.
2. Open house sign-in sheet
Sign-in sheets are a perfect way to collect quality leads during open houses and other real estate events. They are designed to collect the most important information on a prospect client, including contact data and a note on what they are looking for. Usually they have a form of a table.
Your sign-in sheet should be eye-pleasing, after all it is where your potential clients are leaving their sensitive data. Make sure that it is well designed and printed as well as not crumpled. It should have your logo and brand colors. You can also have a digital version of your sign-in sheets on a tablet and hand it to open house visitors. It is also crucial to inform the signees on how you are going to process and use the information they provide.
3. Real Estate Flyers
A well-designed and informative flyer is still a great way to spread the word about your real estate services, especially to the local audience. Undoubtedly, the distribution of real estate flyers has changed a little – we rarely see people handing them out in the streets anymore, rather than that, it is more usual to leave them in places they might get seen by people looking for a realtor. If you cooperate with other local businesses in your are such as interior designers, carpenters or construction professionals, ask them to have your flyers or other, similar print marketing materials displayed in a visible place at their offices or add one of your flyers to their marketing materials. They might be distributed during various networking events as well!
A perfect real estate agent flyer will work as a more elaborate business card. It should contain information about you – for example a short bio, a few words about your past successes (for example number of sold properties in the previous year) and the areas of real estate business you specialize in. Similarly to a business card, you can include a QR code to your website and a short and catchy sentence.
4. Thank you cards
We tend to focus a lot on the first impression and not enough on the last one. The way a real estate agent says “thank you” to their clients might determine whether or not they will work together again. Sending a warm email might be enough, but a beautiful real estate card with best wishes for the future and a few words of gratitude will last longer – both in the minds of the clients and as a tangible object that is a token of your emotional connection. You can send it to your clients or hand it in with a little customer appreciation gift.
5. Seasonal Real Estate Postcards
Remind your past clients about your amazing services by sending them seasonal realtor postcards – be it for Christmas or their birthday. If possible, try to make them personal – include a handwritten signature or work on a text that will show how invested you were in the process of selling or finding a home for them (for example include best wishes for their family members as well if they mentioned them).
6. Giveaway boxes or gift packaging
If you want to better the customer experience, consider small appreciation gifts for your clients. It might be a box of fancy chocolates with a personalized note, a handmade candle from a local artisan or a voucher to something nice close to their new address. You can also add a small thank you card to the gift and package it in a branded bag or paper that you can have designed and produced at a fairly low price. These small gestures show that you care about the people you serve and can go a long way toward establishing loyalty, contributing to the overall experience.
7. Real Estate Brochures
Brochures are another example of printed materials that can be successfully used in real estate marketing, especially if it comes to commercial or luxury real estate, where it takes a little longer to sell the listing. It should contain all the relevant information about the property as well as offer deeper insight into it than typical MLS information: for example a compelling story about the new listings or useful information about the area. You can also have a digital version of the brochure that will work well for your online marketing.
8. Promotional items
Promotional items include marketing materials that can be used in everyday life by the person who received them, for example pen drives, notebooks, calendars, water bottles, pens, tote bags and many more. Promotional items are a great way of establishing a stronger connection with a client – let’s admit it, everyone loves a freebie, and getting them very familiar with your brand’s logo and colors (if you know your target audience very well, chances are that you will give them something they will use every day).
Usually, producing branded promotional items is not expensive, but you have to pay close attention to what prospective buyers will appreciate and most likely use. You should also find out about the latest trends – in the era of affordable home decor there is no point giving out branded mugs, however eco-aware clients will definitely make use of reusable water bottles and capacious tote bags.
9. Real Estate Yard Signs and Open House Signs
Yard signs are one of the most traditional marketing materials that have been used in the real estate business. Although most of the properties for sale are available to see online, the curb appeal is often more attention-drawing than even the highest quality photographs and eye-catching signs help them be noticeable.
There are several rules when it comes to designing eye-catching signs: it should be instantly recognizable, include the contact information of the real estate agent and be readable from a certain distance (at least 300ft). Specialists recommend using sans-serif fonts as they are more legible from distance.
10. Branded digital imagery
Digital marketing materials for real estate business include websites, landing pages, email marketing, social media posts and social media ads, ebooks and digital brochures, Google ads imagery and online content. Every year they play a larger and larger part in the real estate professionals’ marketing strategies to reach their target audience and generate leads.
Your offline and online marketing materials should speak in one voice, that’s why it is important to take a holistic approach and work on them simultaneously. Your online and offline marketing efforts should be complementary to each other and create a synergy effect.
If you already have your printed real estate marketing materials and are new to online ads, base your color palette, fonts, keywords and messages on what you already have. This way you will strengthen your real estate brand awareness and create a consistent image.
If you don’t work with a professional marketing agency, you can create your brand assets for digital ads on free platforms such as Canva or PicMonkey where apart from thousands of infographic, high quality images and fonts, you will find ready-to-use, adjustable templates for a social media posts for every community platform or display advertising.
11. Real Estate Marketing Videos
For some time, video marketing materials have proven to be one of the most effective and engaging forms of communication for real estate businesses. Video materials, such as an “about me” film, a short announcement, real estate listings presentation or thematic real estate videos such as tips and trick to preparing a property for sale or getting a mortgage, can be posted anywhere online – from the realtor’s website and landing pages to their social media profiles where they are often favored by the algorithm. They can be used on Facebook and Instagram as video ads as well.
High quality videos will always be desirable, however the video ads that you post or use to promote your social media profiles don’t have to be professional at all. You can make them with your own mobile devices and post them straight to your social media: your followers will appreciate your authenticity and the opportunity to get to know you a little bit better.
What Marketing Materials Do Real Estate Agents Need?
Real estate agents should base their marketing plan on offline and online activities. For offline activities, they can use print real estate marketing materials such as business cards, flyers, poster advertising, open house signs, sign-in sheets, postcards, brochures and promotional items (branded pen drives, tote bags, water bottles etc.)
For digital marketing, realtors will need several different types of content and digital imagery, depending on the channels they want to use for communication:
- Instagram post pictures (square 1080px by 1080px)
- Instagram Stories pictures (vertical 1080px by 1920px)
- Facebook post images
- Facebook ads images
- Videos (preferably vertical for Facebook and Instagram)
- Google ads imagery
- Website content
- Property pages
- Newsletter content
- Digital brochures
- Ebooks
