Creating a Farming Strategy That Guarantees Success
Farming is a strategic way to grow your brand and secure more listings. When a real estate agent takes the time to foster relationships within their sphere - leads, listings, and recommendations will naturally follow.
There are many crucial factors to keep in mind when creating and maintaining your farm. Remember, no matter how much experience you have, there’s always room for improvement and ways to refine your strategy. So let’s jump right in and get started!
Choose Your Farm
When identifying a potential farm area, look for one primarily within or includes your neighborhood. There’s no neighborhood you know better than your own. You likely know your neighbors, regulations, and more, giving you a leg up on the competition. This familiarity—and acceptance of the neighborhood as your own—will also appeal to potential clients. If you approve of it for yourself, surely it will work for them as well.
Living nearby or within your farm has countless additional benefits. It makes pop-bys easy, as you can most likely walk from your house to your leads’. You also won’t have to commute to your farm regularly or wonder if there’s new construction, road blocks, and so on. You’ll have firsthand knowledge of everything going on.
Do Your Research—And Always Continue Researching
Pay close attention to things that make your farming area unique. It’s good information to have on hand—and the kind of selling points that will win over prospective home buyers. For example, what are the typical listing costs for each neighborhood? What are the average resident ages? House sizes, backyard sizes, and square feet?
Amenities and local information—like school zones and districts, dog parks, and new grocery stores will be helpful information to relay. Being familiar with any unusual land regulations and rules will also make it easy for you and your client during the paperwork process.
Have a Niche
Whether this is a specialization in certain homes or homeowners within your neighborhood, it’s always a good idea to start and become an expert in one area or aspect before expanding. These could be one-story homes or perhaps first-time homeowners or seniors looking to downsize. Whatever you choose, this will guarantee that you’ll be seen as having expertise, appealing to prospective homebuyers who will feel like they must work with you as you know more than anyone else in the area.
Four Ways to Engage With Your Farm
We’ve discussed strategies and talked about why farming is so critical. Next, we’ll discuss how to begin putting these plans into action.
1. Send Direct Mailers
Direct mailers are a tried and true way of consistently connecting with your farm. They’re successful—and for a reason. It’s an affordable way to increase your presence in your farm and grow your brand. Send tips on market trends, your just listed and just sold listings, or even recipes and seasonal well-wishes. Whether you’re interested in sending EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) postcards, our most cost-effective direct mail option, or Home Estimate postcards that are personalized for every single homeowner, Corefact has direct mailers both you and your farm will appreciate.
2. Connect Online with Virtual Marketing
Have you begun integrating digital marketing alongside your direct mail? From emails to social media, having a strong online presence proves you’re an agent who’s responsive, knowledgeable, and ready to help leads find their dream home.
Corefact is here to help you increase brand recognition and connect with your farm using consistent content across all your digital and physical marketing. Social Share makes it easy to post personalized content to your social media platform of choice in seconds. Best of all—this content was created specifically for the real estate industry and can feature your branding!
Corefact Tip:
Schedule matching social media and direct mailers simultaneously, so your farm receives your consistent marketing in physical and digital format at the same time for increased effectiveness!
Of course, emails are a key way to connect with your farm on a personal basis. Besides having one-on-one conversations with leads, send out regular newsletters and emails. This can be a monthly or seasonal newsletter from your team on the market and local events. You can also segment your email list based on your relationship with them: send specific emails to prospects, past clients asking for referrals, and so on.
3. Don’t Forget Your In-Person Presence
Your physical presence in the neighborhood—whether you’re out for an evening walk or doing pop-bys—is more effective than you might think. If you live within your farm, you might be able to do both at the same time!
Another advantage of dropping off door hangers yourself is the opportunity to connect with homeowners in your farm who might be getting home from work or out on a walk with their own families. Nothing is more effective than catching up in person. You’ll learn what they’ve been up to as well as find out whether they or someone they know might need any real estate-related assistance soon.
After door knocking, make sure you update any leads and notes into your leads portal and follow up with any potential buyers or sellers via email. Depending on the location and neighborhood, you can also hand out flyers for nearby listings to invite them in person or your business card if they might need your help down the line.
4. Increase Community Branding
In addition to traditional and online marketing, an easy way to increase the visibility of your brand is by giving back to the community. Donate your time and resources at the local library or with your HOA, so your name and expertise will be out there. Sponsor local events: food drives, food truck giveaways, and more. These unique and fun activities are great ways for you to market yourself and also connect with those in your community.
Real Estate Farming Strategy
Now that we’ve discussed some best practices when you’re setting up your farm let’s delve into different strategies you can implement within your farm.
Begin by creating a process that works for you. A key part of a successful farming strategy is simply having a workflow process and following it. From continually checking in on hot leads and sending a thank you note after a listing presentation to sending a closing gift. Knowing your next steps and following them means you’ll be more productive and won’t forget to follow up with anyone.
Reevaluate Your Farm Size
If you’ve already built a solid farm area, it may be time to look at what’s working and what’s not. You’re already the top agent in the area—but maybe it’s time to expand your farm. Perhaps you’d like to change things up for the different seasons throughout the year. Are there any popular or growing neighborhoods nearby that you’d like to start targeting?
It’s important to remember that your farm doesn’t need to be set forever. You always have the option to adjust, revise, or resize as needed.
Market Consistently with Corefact Elite
We previously shared our top five tips to maximize your real estate farming. This includes marketing to your farm frequently and consistently. Mailing your farm regularly reminds homeowners, clients, and leads you’re the top agent in the neighborhood. You’ve got the know-how and experience to find their dream home.
Corefact has made consistent marketing a breeze with our automated Elite program. Corefact Elite takes the busy work out of marketing, allowing agents to set up an automated year-long campaign. We’ll send a best-selling branded direct mailer to your farm so you can focus on following up with leads and closing listings. If you’re interested in learning more, we’ve got several articles dedicated to Elite on our Academy of free resources and regular webinars you can attend.
We also have an Elite concierge team ready to answer your questions and help you increase your listings!
Use A Lead Tracking Platform
There are many online platforms created to help agents track their leads. Ideally, these platforms would be integrated alongside your direct mailers, so you can track and follow up with your leads immediately. Staying proactive with homeowners in your farm helps grow your brand organically and reminds homeowners you’re the agent available to assist with any of their questions or inquiries.
The unique Corefact lead tracking platform was created with real estate experts in mind. Using it, you can order all your needed marketing materials—including direct mailers that feature unique tracking codes for every homeowner to review their estimated home value. Using the responsive marketing home estimate tool from Corefact, agents can send direct mailers with personalized maps and a personalized landing page that covers how much their home could be listed for.
It’s a win for homeowners wanting more information about the market and a potential list price—and for agents, as they can see exactly which leads have logged into their personalized landing pages, so you can prioritize following up with them.
Following these tips will help make your entire marketing plan run smoothly. It may take time to create a farming strategy that works for you and your business or to modify this strategy in a way that suits your goals and capabilities. But, however long it takes, know that it will be worth it!
Before we jump into a few ways you can implement your farming strategy, make sure you check out our Facebook Group. Led by Corefact CEO, Chris Burnley, and Creative Director, Chio Saelee, Corefact - Real Estate Marketing Secrets & Strategies is the best place to connect with industry leaders and discuss tips, and insights, or ask any questions you’ve got. In addition, Chris and Chio share live workshops and webinars where they share strategies and insights on how to get the most from your marketing campaigns.
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Email: CS@Corefact.com
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