Grow Your Business: Creating a New Farming Area

Whether you are just starting your real estate career or you are looking to branch out into a new niche area, there will always be times in your real estate career where you need to create a new farming area. If you have never created a farm, it may seem as daunting of a task as starting an actual farm. Have no worries though. You can easily create and grow your new farming area without creating new headaches.

Grow Your Business: Creating a New Farming Area

1. Pick Your Area or Ideal Client

Start by working up your ideal area or client. If you are looking for an area, look at inventory turnover, list-to-sell price ratios, days on the market, property histories and who the most active agents are. While you don't want too much competition in a new area, some is good. Be mindful of the number of homes in the area as well. One thing I've noticed over time is agents tend to choose farms of 1,000+ homes. If you are direct mailing the area, you will go broke in no time. Also, areas that are that big will always have every new agent knocking on their doors. So pick your area wisely. Choose something with solid turnover, days on market list-to-sell prices and just enough competition to keep you driven but not drowned out.

If you are looking for more of an ideal client, write up all their traits that make them your ideal client. What do they do in their free time? Do they have kids? First-time homebuyers? Empty nesters? Figure all this out from the start. Do not, I repeat DO NOT simply go with "anyone looking to buy or sell in my town." That's not your ideal client. That's just any client and will cause you to lose focus as you cannot market to everyone with one ad. I've seen many real estate agents go broke with this mindset, so skip the headache and get super specific with your ideal client.

2. Create a Website or Blog

Creating a website or blog can be done with little skill, effort or cost these days. You can create free sites using WordPress.com (not .org as that is for self-hosted sites), Wix, Blogger/BlogSpot, Google Sites and others. I personally prefer Blogger as you can ensure there are zero ads from competitors (your site has to qualify for ads before they are placed), but WordPress is definitely another go-to I often use.

Create your site, add market updates, local events, contact information, searches (if your MLS offers free IDX links, you can use these or simply link back searches on your primary site) and lead captures. If you are creating a blog or pages that need regular updating, schedule time each month or week to update them or produce new content. (Area/local videos are a great, easy way to produce content that catches people's eyes.) Be sure to really tailor the site/blog to your target area or client. If it doesn't pertain to them, don't add it to your site.

3. Create Landing Pages

Landing pages are great lead captures that stand alone from your site or blog. People can request market updates, download buyer or seller guides, watch a webinar, whatever you want. But basically whatever you offer needs to be good enough that people are willing to hand over their contact info in exchange for your offer. You can create landing pages for free using MailChimp and everyone who signs up automatically gets added to your email list. You can also use Google Forms (part of Drive/Sheets) and set up your CRM to receive these leads as well. Landing page links can be used for calls to action on blogs, searches, ads, emails, social media, pretty much anywhere!

4. Run Social Ads and/or Send Direct Mail

To attract potential clients, you need to spend a little money. Organic reach only gets you so far! The best bang for your buck online is social advertising. You will need business pages/profiles for most sites, but this can usually be set up or your account converted with little effort. *Note - to run Instagram ads, you need a Facebook business page to link to your Instagram business profile.* Plug in your requirements for your audience, set up your ads and budget then let them run once approved. If you are directing traffic to your site from your ads, use a link builder like this one to track your site traffic with ease.

If you are targeting an area and not a person, you still cannot go wrong with direct mail provided you send quality mailouts. Vistaprint, Got Print, Staples, and Office Depot/Max are all ones I've used in the past with great success. Staples and Office Depot are my favs for same day jobs while I go to Vistaprint and Got Print for bulk jobs. Set up a schedule you can maintain to drop mailings and regular intervals. It takes 8 touches before people start to recognize you, so if you can send something monthly or even every other week, you will see results even faster. Some people say this is too old school for real results, but I can honestly say I work with a top luxury real estate team who send mailouts almost weekly and they get both prospects and clients. It's old school but works, so don't knock it!

5. Be an Active Member of the Community

The biggest thing you can do to make it known you are part of the community is to be part of it! Attend yard sales, block parties, and community events. Dine at local restaurants, get coffee from the corner shop and use the local mechanic when your car needs work. Even if you are targeting your ideal client, if you sketched them out fully, you know what types of places and events they like, so go where they are! And be that person online who shares it. Seriously! If you are at the local coffee shop or brewery, take a photo, tag the business and share it. Make sure people know that you are not just the real estate guy, but you are the real estate guy who lives where they live. It's a little weird the first time someone walks up to you and says they recognize you from your posts or they decided to try a place because you have shared it so much, but those followers are just waiting to become your clients. Make sure locals know you are one of them.

Creating a new farm doesn't have to break the bank but just like a real farm, it does require time, research and dedication to be successful. So get out there, get your hands in the (metaphorical) dirt and start growing your business!

Until next time my lovelies!

-M

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