As a real estate agent, your business depends heavily on your marketing efforts. You haven’t been an agent long enough to establish brand recognition or a solid network of referrals. It’s smart to focus your new real estate agent marketing on establishing credibility.
You can build credibility through your content marketing efforts. This guide will explain the different types of credibility and how you can establish each.
New realtors will find that credibility increases lead generation and grows their real estate business quicker. Credibility also helps a new agent stand out in the real estate industry.
Why Credibility Matters
Consumers judge the safety and credibility of your business based on your website. You could be losing potential leads simply based on your website’s lack of credibility. This is a huge loss that can be the reason your new real estate agency fails.
Since you haven’t been in business long enough to have a performance track record, you need to look to other marketing tools for establishing yourself as an authoritative voice in the local real estate market.
Types of Credibility
There are four types of credibility, and as a new real estate agent, you need to focus on the types that you have control over.
Presumed Credibility
This type of credibility is presumed by your website visitors. As a new real estate agent, you won’t have much of this because few people are familiar with your brand.
Establishing this type of credibility requires you to get your name and real estate agency brand out there with the use of marketing campaigns. Appear on platforms that have already established credibility. This helps you build your brand’s credibility by familiarity and association with others. Begin consistently blogging and targeting keywords to start ranking in search engine results.
Surface Credibility
You have direct control over the earned credibility you get from your website. People visit your website with a short attention span and critical eye. They’re looking for a reason to not trust your website, and by extension, your business. Present a professional and trustworthy business page, and you’ll earn credibility with your visitors.
When creating your website, choose a website layout that looks clean and professional. Make it easy to navigate and find the information they need. Several website services offer templates to make this easier.
Reputed Credibility
As a new real estate agent, you’ll build this type of credibility as you successfully serve your client’s needs. This takes time and you’ll slowly build it as you help homeowners buy and sell their property.
Establish this type of credibility by focusing on your client’s needs and giving them the high-quality service they desire. Clients that are happy with your service will recommend you to their family, friends, coworkers, or anyone else. Try tailoring your service, with a more hands-on approach for first-time home buyers. Perhaps streamlining your service for past clients who are experienced.
Earned Credibility
Once a website visitor decides that you have surface credibility, you need to start earning it. Your website can’t just be beautiful; it also needs to have substance. Website visitors want to find content that’s full of useful information.
There should be no errors and lots of expert advice. Look at what your competition is talking about. Talk about something different or take their content and expand upon it to improve its quality. Talk with your clients and add content that answers their most burning questions.
How to Establish Credibility
Now that you know why you need credibility and the different types, it’s time to learn how you can establish your own credibility as a new real estate agent. You’ll want to use a combination of these marketing tips to build credibility both in the short and long term. This will create a solid plan for establishing yourself as an authoritative and influential real estate agent.
Earned Credibility
Consistency is key when earning credibility. Your ability to reliably perform with your content marketing will establish trust with your potential clients. This consistency and reliability will transfer to your performance as a real estate agent. Your blog should always be up to date and look actively maintained.
Additionally, don’t force your website visitors to give more than they are willing to. This means no unnecessary registrations for an email list or information submissions just to be able to post a comment, live chat, or get other useful information.
Add a help or FAQ section to your website. This creates a quick resource section that’s useful for those looking for fast information. Don’t fall into the trap of making this a low-key sales pitch. The best real estate agents gain more trust by keeping it focused on direct, correct, and honest information. Potential buyers want to know that their chosen real estate professional is experienced.
Create varied content, such as blogs, webinars, infographics, and checklists. Talk about everything from preparing for an open house to setting up your new home.
Finally, minimize the jargon in your content. Everyone is familiar with the overly used sayings that real estate agents use. As soon as they see them on your website you’ve lost the reader. Instead, stick with concrete statements and facts backed by data. This is more credible and helpful than abstract slogans and buzz words.
Reputed Credibility
This type of credibility can take time to build. But start now as a new real estate agent because the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll start seeing positive results. Follow up with satisfied clients for a testimonial or review. Ask fellow industry professionals for an endorsement.
You can also include trust seals from trusted industry organizations. This lets you borrow their credibility to establish that first grain of trust. Include these seals on your website in prominent places.
Once you start closing deals and establishing yourself, you can start applying for awards. This can boost your prestige as a new real estate agent and give you something to boast about in your content marketing. Be careful with this strategy. You don’t want to apply to awards just for the sake of having them. The less credible or noteworthy the award, the more skeptical your potential clients will be of your credibility.
Presumed Credibility
Consider working with industry-related experts to establish brand and name recognition. Focus your online marketing efforts on real estate websites that home buyers are already familiar with and trust. This means having a presence on LinkedIn and listing properties on Zillow or Trulia. This will improve your credibility before a visitor even comes to your website. Focus on establishing relationships and marketing partnerships with other businesses that already have a well-established reputation and are considered credible.
Another way you can establish presumed credibility is with guest posts. Reach out to well-known publications and real estate-related websites and offer to write a blog post or article for them. In exchange, you ask that they link to your website. This builds your website’s credibility with Google by having a well-known and authoritative website linking to yours. It also helps with your credibility by having your name appear on a trusted publication.
Surface Credibility
To establish your surface credibility, establish a brand for yourself as a real estate agent. This should be one of the first things you do when creating your new real estate agent marketing plan. You need an easily recognizable visual marker or logo that people can associate with you as a real estate agent.
This is the branding that you’ll use throughout your entire real estate marketing plan. The design, color scheme, and message on your website should match your business cards, email marketing, LinkedIn, Social media platform profiles, Facebook ads, and direct mail. Follow the lead of marketers and coordinate your SEO efforts with your mailers. This keeps you top-of-mind with potential clients.
You’ll then create a cohesive message by continuing your branding on your website. It should be a clean and professional-looking website design. Especially when you consider that people form their first impression of your website in the first 50 milliseconds. This isn’t a conscious opinion, just one that’s formed naturally and almost emotionally.
About half of people visiting your website will use your website’s design to determine its credibility. They don’t realize it, but they use their past experiences with familiar companies to determine whether or not something looks credible. National brands all use the same proven guidelines when creating their websites. So your website needs to look similar to what consumers are used to seeing to be considered credible.
As a new real estate agent, you’ll soon realize that you’re working with people from all walks of life. Your content needs to be easily readable to accommodate all skill levels. A larger font is easier to read, resulting in faster read times and improved comprehension. The easier it is for your visitors to read and understand your content, the more likely you will persuade them.
The website should be easy to navigate, with visitors finding what they want quickly. There should be no broken links or technical errors. Include a photo and bio of yourself. Your email and phone number should be easily found on all of your landing pages. Make your phone number clickable for compatibility with mobile devices.
While large corporations make their contact information discreet, this strategy won’t work for you. The goal is for people to contact you, so make it easy with a variety of contact platform options. The more information you have for contact, the more legitimate you look and the more confident a potential lead will be about contacting you.
Start Building Credibility
As a new real estate agent, there’s no better time than now to focus your attention on your real estate marketing strategy. One of your main goals should be to establish credibility as a small business. This will encourage your website visitors to contact you and potentially turn into a client. With more satisfied clients come more real estate leads. Before you know it, your small local business will grow into a sizable brokerage.
Contact me today, and let’s work together to create quality content that will establish you as a trustworthy voice in the local real estate market. Check out my other blogs for more useful real estate marketing ideas.
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