The Definitive Guide To Hyperlocal Real Estate Marketing

Hyperlocal real estate marketing strategies are the natural response to the current state of online real estate.

Companies like Zillow and Realtor.com are dominating search engine results for most major cities. The good news is they aren’t your competition.

Going hyperlocal gives you the ability to pinpoint your focus on specific neighborhoods and home types.

If you try to rank for “real estate Miami“, you’re going to have a tough time getting anywhere near the front page, which is where more than 90% of traffic will end up.

You’ll be much more successful (and have a lot more fun) if you target long-tail keywords like “best real estate agent in Coconut Grove, Miami“.

And speaking of fun, hyperlocal marketing is more than pumping out blog posts stuffed with long-tail keywords.

You want to create an all-encompassing campaign that your target market will see on multiple channels — and depending on the channel, show a bit more personality than usual. ?

Think pictures on Instagram of you and your team volunteering at a local charity, with a corresponding YouTube video and Snapchat story to match.

If you read that and thought “Bah… I don’t want to use that crap for my business.” I get it! It’s not for everyone.

But this article wouldn’t be complete without mentioning these massive platforms, and most agents can find a way to make it work for their personality.

Plus, there are plenty of other ways to create a well-rounded campaign.

Here are 32 strategies you can use to make it happen.

Hyperlocal Real Estate Marketing Strategies

There’s a lot to go through, so to make it easier, the strategies in this article are listed in four different sections: Content, Community, Social Media, and Networking.

Content

Create content that your target market will find valuable. Think of your content as bait on a hook.

You want high-quality bait made specifically for the type of fish you’re looking to catch. Publish more (valuable) content, catch more fish.

When you’re ready to dive into content, make sure to read The Complete Guide to Content Creation For Realtors.

1) Blog Consistently

Your website is the home base for your digital marketing efforts. Your blog allows you to expand the size and usefulness of your home base massively.

Every time you add a blog post to your website, you’re adding another web page.

This means you can create an entire page targeting a hyper-specific keyword phrase, and you can do this for every neighborhood in your city.

Also, if you stick with it, your email list will start to grow. You’ll have a direct channel to share all the content you’re producing, making your entire marketing campaign more effective.

2) Create Informative Area Pages

Create pages on your website for individual neighborhoods in the city (or cities) you service.

Give your readers the lowdown on local school districts, restaurants, and demographics. Tell them the good and the bad.

Let them know if there’s a haunted house in the neighborhood. ?

This is a great way to provide value while ranking on Google for long-tail keywords.

That last sentence is actually an understatement. They’re one of the go-to features for every website we’ve made at AgentFire because they work so well (click here for more info).

3) Create Area-Specific Lead Magnets

You can create an eBook or PDF guide and offer it for FREE! Well, it won’t cost them money… but it will cost them their email address.

Once they enter their email, send them your eBook or PDF guide. Check out an example of a real estate lead magnet below:

This is foundational for any digital marketing campaign, so much so that we include customizable Buyer & Seller Guides (like the one above) for all the websites we build.

If you want to create your own downloadable guides, we highly recommend gathering all of the information you want to include, and searching Fiverr.com for “PDF Lead Magnet” to find someone who can translate that into a beautiful PDF.

You could also create a market report with the statistics for a specific area. Talk about how the local population is changing. Show them the housing market trends. Let them know where they will lose or make money.

Give them the raw data they need to make wise purchasing decisions and come off as an expert in the process. Oh, and get that email address. ?

4) Contribute to Local Newspapers

Apply your expertise and local market knowledge to a local newspaper column. It’s not difficult to write for a local paper if you have unique information, a solid pitch, and know how to write well.

Doing so can help with local branding, and establish your expertise to those who prefer good ol’ fashion newspaper. ?

5) Write Guest Posts for Relevant Local Blogs

Guest blog posts can have a direct impact on the success of your own website. Find a relevant business (like a home inspector or construction company) and offer to write a blog post for them.

They’ll get free, high-quality content to send to their audience, and you’ll get your name out there.

Furthermore, you can include a link to your website somewhere within the blog post, or in the author byline. This is great for search engine optimization (as long as it’s a dofollow link!).

Community

Use these strategies to establish yourself as a leader in your local community.

6) Contribute on Local Forums

If you live in a 1st- or 2nd-tier city, you should have a large enough population to find a local forum. If not, I suggest going to TripAdvisor by searching on Google like this:

TripAdvisor Forum + your city name.

People ask questions in these places frequently about local neighborhoods. Answer their questions! When relevant, link back to content on your site.

Generate a little goodwill and who knows, another forum member might recommend your services to someone they know.

7) Help Organize Community Events

Here’s a great chance to take a leadership position.

You don’t have to give up hundreds of hours of time. You’ll likely stumble upon the opportunity for a community event anyway, with all the time you’re spending in your hyperlocal area.

Find a topic to create an event for, find a place to hold the event, and find the right people to spread the word.

Make an appearance and see how it goes! Hone your skills here and people will see you as a community leader — and you’ll have earned it.

8) Speak at Community Events

You hold the attention of your audience captive when you speak. It’s also hard not to feel like a mini-celebrity, although as an introvert I have yet to experience that. ? 

Not only is this a cool way to market and build your brand, but it can also be a lot of fun!

9) Support Local Causes

Do you want to be known as a kind and thoughtful person within your community? I know I do.

Simply volunteering a few hours is enough to give you the reputation as a ‘giver’.

Bonus points if you become a ‘regular’ at your favorite charitable organization.

10) Do Interviews at Events

In my hometown, there is a guy named JR Digs who coins himself as “The Man With a Van.” He interviews people in his van – with usually nothing more than a decent camera and microphone.

Everyone in the city knows The Man With a Van.

You might not have a van, but you can go out to local events and ask people for their thoughts.

Do little interviews and post the videos on your Facebook & YouTube accounts. This is cool and shows you know what’s going on locally.

11) Do Interviews With Local Papers/Blogs

Did the last strategy stand out to you? If so, you’d probably enjoy doing it. And the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Once you reach that point, contact local papers, blogs, and podcasts and offer to interview.

Local publications are always struggling to find good stuff to cover.

Reach out and offer them your time for an interview, and make sure you have some exclusive information for them.

Barbara Corcoran did this kind of thing, and it immediately launched her business to the next level.

12) Do Small Giveaways

You can generate exposure and subscribers to your email list by doing giveaways. And you don’t have to give someone a car or tickets for a cruise. ?

Give away things like gift cards to your local home improvement store, or other home-owner services is a great way to generate some buzz for your business.

Check out “KingSumo” for the best Wordpress giveaway software.

Social Media

How to influence your prospects and network in the digital world.

13) Send Texts To Clients

Think of moments in your life when it makes 100x more sense to send someone a text message instead of calling them…

Apply this mentality to your clients. They often prefer it.

Open rates for text messages are higher than 95%…

Did the price of a house they were looking at just drop? Shoot them a quick text. New house on the market you know they’d love? Let them know and text the link!

Just make sure to treat their phone number with respect, and always have a good reason to be texting them.

14) Join Local Facebook Groups

This is one of my favorite strategies, as I have especially seen new agents leverage this one to massive success.

There are thousands of Facebook groups for almost anything you could imagine.

People discuss and ask questions about the housing market, and what’s going on in their communities.

Start by answering questions, and go from there. Put your name (and profile picture!) out there and establish yourself as an expert in the area.

Find relevant groups search Facebook with the below criteria.

Real Estate/Housing + Your city or neighborhood name

Events + Your city or neighborhood name

Example: You could have a safety watch group in your neighborhood. Discuss break-ins and local crime. Chime in with resources and tips.

15) Lead a Local Facebook Group

Create a Facebook Group on your own or with strategic partners. Alternatively, you can offer to be an admin in existing groups.

You can leverage leadership positions to boost your credibility and drive people to your content. When you talk, they’ll listen.

16) Tag Your Location on Facebook and Instagram

You can tag your geographical location on Facebook by “Checking In”. Doing so means you have a better chance of showing up in the search results.

You also show up on the city or neighborhood page you tag as your location.

Niche down the location as far as possible. Check if you can tag your specific neighborhood. You’ll show up when people search for your service areas on Facebook.

17) Share Pics and Testimonials on Facebook

The same idea as using Snapchat, except you’ll want to take a more formal approach.

Create a Facebook album just for pictures of you and homebuyers in front of their new home. Post pictures of your real estate team volunteering at the local food shelf.

Get a written (or even better, video) testimonial from your happy clients.

Make a photo or video album for testimonials on Facebook. This is a great way to build some social proof.

Also, every time you post pictures and videos, make sure to tag everyone!

18) Boost Your Facebook Posts

Use Facebook’s ad platform to boost your posts with very specific search criteria.

For example, you could target people who have liked home-owners association pages.

You could also profile prospects by age and interests, then retarget to the people who interact with your ads.

19) Share Content and Testimonials on Instagram

Instagram is a great place to show what your everyday life is like. I tend to avoid all social networks in an effort to maintain higher levels of productivity, but I find Instagram to have a lot of active users (feel free to follow me… @nelsonquest!)

Working late? Post a video of how wired you are on your 3rd cup of coffee. ☕

Personalize your sharing as much as possible, but try to keep some sort of theme throughout all your posts.

For example, take a look at @therehablife. It’s a well-designed page run by a young house-flipping couple, with a stellar entertainment/educational ratio.

Notice when your scrolling through their entire profile how everything seems to be in the right place.

The unified color scheme (white) and rehab theme goes a long way in the eyes of their followers.

Dissecting a Pro Instagram Post

Let’s look a bit deeper and break down one of their most popular posts…

1. Great Account Name: Short, sweet, and on-point. Rolls off the tongue and let’s other users know what the account is all about.
2. Relevant Eye-Catching Picture: The ‘after’ picture is hard to see in the example above, but posts like this are hard to scroll by without ‘liking’. Also totally relevant to the rehab theme.
3. Clever Tagging: You can tag other accounts on your posts, which can increase the exposure of your content. TheRehabLife tagged the construction companies they bought their housing materials from. Genius ?
4. Tons of Relevant Hashtags: Posting hashtags aren’t just trendy, they also point traffic toward your content. Pro-tip… After writing your caption, and before publishing your content, write out all your hashtags in the caption box. When you’re done, select all of them, ‘cut’ them out, and post your content. Then, immediately (and I mean like 2 seconds after you post) paste all your hashtags as the first comment. You retain all the benefits of hashtags without cluttering up your caption.
5. Respond to Comments: This is essentially the point of marketing. Remember, your content is an ice-breaker. If your audience has questions or comments, reply! It makes them feel special and gives your entire account a welcoming touch. And who knows, some of your commenters could be warm leads…

I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this… Keep in mind that you can post videos on Instagram. This is a golden opportunity to post more testimonials and show off how happy your clients are. ?

And if you can only get a written testimonial — post a relevant picture, then include your client’s testimonial in the caption below.

20) Use Hyperlocal Tags on Instagram

The great thing about Instagram is your ability to create tags for just about anything.

You can make a tag for a #specificarea or #hometype, and your content will be featured with everyone else using that tag.

It’s not uncommon to find Instagram influencers using dozens of tags for one post. Feel free to do the same, as long as they’re relevant.

21) Feed Your Instagram Into Your Website

Instagram really hit the nail on the head with the layout of their user’s content. Leverage their layout and your activity on Instagram by posting it to your website.

This is especially good if you’re active in the community and supporting local causes… As if you needed another reason to volunteer in your community. ?

(Psst… Pro tip: Use a website like Instagram Feed WD to create a responsive widget, then embed it into your website… or check out one of our Spark Sites, which have built-in Instagram feeds.

22) Post Videos on YouTube

You can build up a following on YouTube with video home tours, drone videos of your properties, and homebuyer guides.

YouTube also makes it easy to share your videos across all of your platforms, such as Facebook, or your website.

If this sounds like something you’d really enjoy doing, check out Meet Kevin’s channel. *Edit 4/7/19* More recently, he’s shifted away from quality content to more ‘click-baitey’ type content – but if you can get past that, he’s got some quality stuff and he knows how to ‘play the game’ – his channel has gone from 0 subscribers to more than 90,000 in a little over a year.

23) Interact With Your Social Media Fans

Make sure you are responding to all of the inquiries and comments on the stuff that you post. The content you post is like an icebreaker; it’s only meant to start the conversation.

You earn a great online reputation when people can see that you give your audience time and attention.

When activity on your social media accounts starts to pick up, make sure to find a way to continue engaging with your followers. A lot of agents set it and forget it. Get this right and the market will reward your diligence.

24) Answer Questions On Twitter

Use the Twitter search function to find people looking for help, then jump into a conversation.

Use keywords relevant to your community. Think about what homeowners would be talking about in the buying or selling process, then see if you can find some relevant hashtags.

This is a great way to bootstrap a following.

25) Snapchat Your Listings

So, I’m going to mention Snapchat because there are legitimate opportunities here. However, I understand that this tends to be a ‘younger person’s social network,’ and if this doesn’t appeal to you at all, just skip to #15. ?

Now… with that said — Snapchat gives you some room to let your hair down. Show off your process of selling a home with some behind-the-scenes type content.

You could start by taking pictures and videos of the staging process, then take pictures with your clients and visitors at the open house.

If the homebuyers are cool with it, throw a mini-party for their contract signing, film it, and upload it to your story. ?

26) Contribute To LinkedIn Groups

Join local homeowner association groups on LinkedIn. You could also join business networking groups to leverage strategic partnerships and alliances.

27) Publish Articles on Linkedin Pulse

Another great way to promote yourself is through LinkedIn’s native publishing platform: Pulse.

Some regular writers (like Jeff Haden) reach upwards of 500,000 viewers per article. You can use this to drive traffic to your own blog or social profiles, or focus on LinkedIn and make it your baby.

Networking

Build relationships in a structured environment. Leveraging those relationships to generate real estate business and referrals.

28) Attend Local Conferences

Make connections to other professionals in your community. Go to conferences in your area targeting homeowners, real estate, etc…

There are a few types of connections you can make here:

• Other business owners you can partner with…
• Real estate investors you can provide services to…
• Other homeowners looking for information.

29) Attend Business Networking Groups

Business networking groups are specific places where business owners and professionals go to network.

We cover this in-depth in How To Find Strategic Real Estate Partners as an Agent, as well as referral groups.

30) Use Referral Groups

Referral groups specifically designed for local businesses and professionals to market and generate referrals for each other.

Use them to find other professionals who are open to collaborating.

31) Market With Other Businesses

Create marketing material with other businesses and use the combined leverage. Some strategic ideas include:

• Offering package deals on your services…
• Creating coupon books…
• Setting up a local buyers club.

Make sure the people you work with are in non-competing businesses, or real estate agents outside your target market.

This is obvious, but make sure the people you build partnerships with are trustworthy. We also cover this concept completely in our Strategic Partnership Guide.

32) Get a Leadership Position in a Business Group

Contribute to local business groups by volunteering your time or money. Take the initiative on community projects or charitable events.

This will require a bit of creativity and gusto ? but will help build your reputation as a leader in the community.

In Conclusion

Websites like Zillow and Realtor.com are here to stay, but they don’t have to be your competition. While many see them as a problem, you have the solution…

Go hyperlocal.

There are no absolute, sure-fire ways to ensure you’ll beat out the competition.

However, going hyperlocal and building your reputation as the definitive expert in your community is what we’ve seen as THE critical success factor.

And if you’re looking for, without a doubt, the best hyperlocal real estate website solution on the planet, make sure to check out Spark Sites – you can even try one out free for 10 days!

Have you used hyperlocal marketing strategies to build your real estate business? Let us know in the comments!