How Real Estate Agents and Brokers Can Increase Market Share


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Your market share is the percentage of your total sales that make up the totality of sales in your niche. While the details are much more complex, you can increase market share in two ways. You can either increase your sales in the areas where you already operate, or you can expand into new markets.  

Of course, none of this is easy. As a broker or agent, you deal with a variety of challenges. The market can fluctuate deeply and quickly. It can also be difficult to overcome barriers to entry established by other firms when you try to expand. Still, the challenge of growing your market share is not insurmountable. Keep reading to learn some important tips for accomplishing your goals.

Go All in With Networking But Keep it Focused

A lot of agents and brokers attend networking events. Unfortunately, these events often don’t bear fruit. Instead, they become nothing more than get-togethers where the same folks meet and ‘press the flesh’.

Sure, some business gets done and connections are made. Still, imagine the growth you could start if you approached networking with laser focus and specific goals in mind. Even better if you can be open-minded about your networking opportunities. Some realtors had some great suggestions. Their ideas included:

  • Joining the chamber of commerce in your city and attending meetings
  • Working as a volunteer in your community
  • Joining a local ‘Lead Group’
  • Attending community events

Finally, keep in mind that realtors are a bit like doctors. No matter where you go, there is likely to be someone looking for information on the real estate market. The person you’re introduced to at the neighbourhood BBQ could become a solid client.

Nurture Your Leads

Be the realtor or broker that everyone thinks of when they are ready to buy or sell. Ideally, you have been collecting business cards, names, email addresses, and other contact information. Even better, you’ve got all of this nicely stored in a great CRM database. Or, at the very least, a spreadsheet. Don’t let that information go to waste.

Stay in contact with your leads. Consider creating a monthly newsletter and distributing it to them. If you have contacts that you believe are a bit further down the funnel, target them with something a bit more personalized. The more undecided prospects you can convert, the bigger your share becomes.

Target New Customers and Locations

It may be time to revisit your target market and your customer personas. Increasing your share may need to involve moving into new markets. You may also want to consider expanding your customer base.

For example, if your target market has been solely single family, residential homes within your county of residence, growing in that niche may not be possible. This is especially true in a saturated market. It may be time to expand the types of real estate you deal in and the customers that you target.

If you choose this path to growth, don’t ignore the untapped potential of immigrant communities. Not only are many of the people in these communities positioned to buy homes and businesses, they are eager for the opportunity to work with businesses that they can communicate with.

If you would like to target non-English speaking communities, consider working with a service like The Word Point. They can help with everything from the translating marketing materials to translating real estate contracts. They can even assist with the website localization process to ensure that you can engage online with any community.

Ask Satisfied Customers for Reviews and Recommendations

Real estate thrives on referrals and recommendations. In spite of this, many realtors and brokers don’t make it as easy as they can satisfied customers to provide those. That’s a shame because positive reviews and recommendations are a great way to grow your business. In fact, it’s pretty rare for someone to seek out an agent or broker without researching or conferring with people they know.

Increase your chance of earning these referrals and recommendations by taking steps to make the process easy, and to provide a bit of motivation. First, provide links to review sites when you finalize transactions. Provide referral forms on your website, and make sure they are easy to find. Finally, give clients the white glove treatment. Wine and dine them. Remember them with thoughtful gifts.

Make Effective Use of Social Media

If you aren’t doing what it takes to maximize your social media presence, your competitors are getting the best of you. Social media is a great place to share your listings, build relationships with customers and business associations, share your expertise, and to simply let the community get to know you better.

With 91% of real estate professionals using social media, you have to do more than create a presence. Use social media as a tool for outreach and to build trust. Establish thought leadership by participating in conversations on real estate and investing on Twitter. Create a blog to share your thoughts and advice. Create and curate content that is relevant to a variety of customers and their needs.

Ultimately the key to a great social media is consistency. If your target audience can count on you for content that is informative, entertaining, and educational and posted reliably, you will increase the chances of them remembering you when they are ready to make a move.

Conclusion

Increasing your market share is a challenging, but worthwhile endeavour. By growing your business, you can increase your bottom line, drive more traffic to your website, and build a name for yourself and your company. The tips mentioned here allow you to increase your customer base, move into new markets, and establish a strong social media presence. You can even build and nurture leads in ways that you may not be doing right now.

If your primary goal over the next few months is growth, give these tips a try. You may find that you are better able to execute your growth plan than you realize.


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