How To Win In Real Estate On A Hyperlocal Level

Roughly speaking, about 99% of agents just sort of blend into one another.

Most real estate agents today don’t know how to step outside the box. They’re using the same marketing tactics as everyone else, presenting themselves in a cookie-cutter way, and not putting in the effort to stand out from the crowd.  

It’s largely the same as it’s always been, albeit with the addition of social media platforms that have changed the format a bit. It’s time to bring a new approach to real estate marketing.  

So leave that traditional messaging behind and get ready to step into a completely new framework that’ll help you reel in more leads than ever before.  

What Is Hyperlocal Marketing?

The proliferation of the internet and digital interfaces has changed consumer behavior considerably in the past decade. Whether you’re dealing with buyers, sellers, landlords, or building developers, their search typically begins online. That means if you’re not front and center when they start searching around, it’s likely you’ll get passed up for someone who is.  

That’s why hyperlocal marketing is so important today. Going hyperlocal means you employ a highly targeted marketing strategy that’s focused on a specific area.  

Hyperlocal marketing can mean targeting any of the following in your real estate marketing strategy:

• Specific neighborhoods or zip codes
• Country clubs
• Points of interest
• School systems
• Geographic regions

Basically, any marketing strategy that is laser-focused on a specific zone, area, region, or demographic is hyperlocal. This is where the strategy differs from a more traditional real estate marketing strategy.

Most real estate agents would consider themselves an expert in an area, like Silicon Valley. So they’d focus their marketing efforts on the Silicon Valley market and cast their net wide to try to reach everyone in that market. They (mistakenly) think that it’s targeted enough to gain new leads.  

While they might have some success, Silicon Valley can be broken down into many smaller sub areas. Different school systems, points of interest (landmarks, popular shopping areas, parks, etc.), tight-knit neighborhoods… there’s no reason you can’t develop specific, hyperlocal marketing campaigns for several smaller zones within the Silicon Valley region.  

AgentFire Pro-tip:  When building a website for your business using AgentFire, we offer an ‘Area Guide Slider Block’ feature that makes it easy to highlight your listings in a hyperlocal way. Check out this video to see how it works: 

Benefits Of Hyperlocal Marketing In Real Estate

As you can imagine, hyperlocal marketing has some key benefits over a traditional marketing strategy.  

Increased return on investment 

Adopting a hyperlocal strategy allows you to attract new leads to your business without spending a ton of money on marketing. For example, you could sponsor a local high school sports team and you’ll connect with parents and families who live in that school district.  

Word of mouth spreads fast

People love to support local businesses in their own communities. When you can establish yourself as the go-to real estate agent for a small community, you can bet those clients will be happy to give your contact information out when their neighbor is thinking about buying or selling. On the other hand, it’s much harder to get referrals when you’re focusing on a city of millions of people. Get small and get specific. 

Easily scale successful strategies & campaigns

Working in smaller areas means that there are less people to connect with. This translates into less money spent on each area. With that, you can more easily test out different strategies and see what sticks. Once you figure out what’s working for your business, you can increase the budget and effort in that strategy and allow it to flourish to the next level. 

Top Marketing & Real Estate Experts LOVE Hyperlocal Strategies

Top real estate experts and marketing gurus are no stranger to hyperlocal marketing strategies. In fact, it’s something that they have all advocated for in recent years.  

For example, Tom Ferry loves to make the point that as a real estate agent, you’re always going to be competing with huge corporations and a sea of other agents out there. It’s a constant battle for fresh leads and a hyperlocal strategy can make all the difference. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say on the subject from his Tom Ferry Podcast Experience: 

“I want you to win. I’m trying to put you in a position where you can beat some of these monster companies. You might not outspend them, but you can win on a hyperlocal level. And that’s what I want. So what are you going to do and what are you thinking about?”

Winning on a hyperlocal level doesn’t mean pouring money into your marketing efforts and casting a wide net. It’s all about focused, targeted messaging and strategies that connect with the clients who are dying to find someone like you.

Create Irresistible Offers They Can’t Refuse

A huge aspect of hyperlocal marketing is speaking directly to the needs, wants, and desires of your target audience. And when you’re breaking down your marketing strategy into hyperlocal segments, you can really tailor your offers and messaging to speak to very niche demographics. 

Consider the difference in impact between these two short headlines to target bottom of funnel leads:

Find your dream home in the Seaford School District

Buy your Long Island home today

If you were looking to buy a house and send your kids to Seaford schools, which ad would be more enticing for you?  

This is the power of hyperlocal marketing. The real estate behemoths like Zillow, Redfin, and Trulia aren’t capable of this type of hyperlocal marketing strategy. They simply cast their net far and wide and rely on name recognition to bring in most of their clients.

Part of creating irresistible offers is knowing the areas you’re planning to target like the back of your hand. Stay on top of interesting local events, share interesting findings from the community, connect with local businesses… you need to think outside the box! The more creative you get about this, the better.  

Gary Vaynerchuk – serial entrepreneur and founder of several companies including Vaynermedia, Vaynerproductions, and Empathy Wines – is also a huge proponent of a hyperlocal marketing strategy. According to him, “[ad] creative is the variable of success.”

Depending on your marketing budget, he recommends targeting many different groups at the same time, though through different marketing campaigns. Regardless, the value of speaking directly to the leads you’re trying to attract is what will generate the highest response rate. 

“When you’re talking once and you’re trying to talk to everybody, you can only be relevant to a small percentage of people that you paid to get in front of.  I’m trying to talk to everybody, but talk to them in context. The way Matt talks to his buddies on a 4-day weekend in Vegas on a reunion, vs. when he comes back into the office on Monday and there’s a whole different Matt in that boardroom. And that’s exactly right.  It’s human.  It’s right.  Context is the game.” – Gary Vee

AgentFire Pro-tip:  Since lead magnets are a foundational aspect of any digital marketing campaign, we’ve made sure to incorporate them into every website we build.  You can use our tool to create customizable Buyer & Seller Guides that increase your credibility about a specific area and show your leads how much knowledge and experience you bring to the table. 

At The End Of The Day, It’s All About Relationships

A hyperlocal marketing strategy won’t get you anywhere if you’re not nurturing your client relationships on a daily basis. Ricky Carruth, a top real estate coach with 20+ years of experience in the industry, doesn’t spend much money on marketing at all. He puts his focus primarily on connecting with his local community and being the first name people think of when they want to buy or sell.  

The way to do that is to know your clients like the back of your hand and provide consistent value over time.  

“It’s all about personal branding. When you build a personal brand, your clients are chasing you, not the other way around. Think about it like this — it’s not how many properties you sell; it’s how many people in your market know you, and never forget who you are. I want to think of myself as a politician and canvas the market letting everyone know who I am, what I do and that I am here to help, on top of sending them a weekly email on the same day of the week for the rest of my life. 

Every real relationship you create with a client is worth both the future business and the current deal you may or may not make with them. Repeat business, referrals, and referrals of referrals are the key to everything in today’s business world. Market share is the percentage of relationships you have with customers in the marketplace compared to your competitors.”

Ricky keeps it short and sweet with a weekly newsletter that he sends out to his clients. He’ll use the email to share community events, information about development projects in the area, and up-to-date information about the real estate market. 

Be sure to keep your emails concise and focus on sharing information that your clients will find valuable and relevant to their lives. Even a simple touch like this can go a long way.  

AgentFire Pro-tip:  You can add Search Grid Blocks to your website to create a new form of hyperlocal search experience. When creating a block, you can select between different areas, search pages (customized pages that you create for different lifestyles, home layouts, or other niche attributes), or custom links. These are another way to improve your hyperlocal strategy quickly and easily with AgentFire. 

Wrapping Up

Hyperlocal marketing is a fantastic way to maximize your marketing budget and take your real estate business to the next level. People are interested in a more customized and personal experience when they’re considering purchasing a product or service. It’s always been that way for buying and selling a home, but today it’s been taken up a notch.  

If you want to be the real estate agent that everyone calls in a specific area, you need to implement a hyperlocal strategy. That’s how you stand out from the big corporations and make a trusted name for yourself in this industry. And now, with platforms like AgentFire at your disposal, it’s never been easier to bring in new local leads.  

Interested in learning more about how AgentFire can transform your real estate business with hyperlocal marketing? Take a quick tour of our platform here.