Theo K. Browne: 12 Real Estate Winter Marketing Ideas To Slay The Holiday Season (For EVERY Agent!)

There are less than 100 days left in the year and it’s time to plan your winning real estate winter marketing activities!

Halloween is over.

The World Series has ended.

And Starbucks has a brand new cup design for you to behold.

Yep.

With the 1st of November came the start of the 2017 holiday season.

As tempting as it can be, there’s no sense in putting it off.

It’s crucial that agents market to past clients and prospects over the slower real estate season and make it a top priority to capture the best leads.

Of course, just because your schedule as started to open up, doesn’t mean your community is experiencing the same lull.

It’s all too likely that your past clients and future leads are preparing for their own holiday events.

So, where does that leave you and yours?

In order to ring in a stress-free new year and enjoy the upcoming winter holidays, you’ve got to get into the holiday spirit and join your community in ushering in the merry season.

And we’re here to give you everything you need to slay your real estate winter marketing efforts!

Here are 12 ideas to prepare for your best season yet –

3 Festive Blog Post Ideas

#1) 10 Ways To Beat The Freeze In (Your Area)

Depending on where you living, this winter could be a doozy. Tackle the cold by giving helpful tips on how to combat the chill and tell buyers and sellers exactly how the frigid temps could affect local homes. You can include suggestions on how to prepare pipes, clean out gutters, and a list of resources your community can consult when in a grinchy pinch.

Live somewhere warm? Luck you!

Read on for more real estate winter marketing blog ideas.

#2) DIY Holiday Decorating Guide

Snow or shine, most folks loving decorating for the holidays! And it’s easy to position this type of post for your community. Whether you’ve got palm trees or pines, your area will still be getting in on the cheer!

Throw in some extra safety instructions on how to hang lights without damaging the exterior or interior of a home. For DIY tricks, think back to your favorite childhood decorating traditions and share one or two family favorites with your audience. You can encourage them to do the same!

Want to add lead capture? Create an info form for leads to fill out so they can download the guide.

This is super easy to do with LeadSites!

Here’s an in-depth walkthrough on how to setup blog popups with Smart Popups 2.0:

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#3) A Year In Review

It’s always nice to reflect on our personal and business success over the past year, but you’ve got to put a slightly different spin on it to make this blog worthy.

Real Estate Winter Social Marketing Campaigns

#4) Host a Holiday Contest

Even if you haven’t had much success with contests or giveaways in the past, the giving season is the perfect time to try again.

Have your followers share a photo of their seasonal decorations and give a special prize to the the person whose photo gets the most likes.

You can test this out over Thanksgiving and do another round for Christmas or New Year’s.

For Thanksgiving – go beyond decor and encourage your network to post a photo of a special recipe or their Thanksgiving dinner spread.

When Christmas rolls around, you can ask folks to share a light display, the final results of a DIY family decor project, or their gorgeous tree.

For the prize…

There are a lot of different directions to take this. You can pick up some Starbucks or Amazon gift cards, or partner with a neighborhood family business to encourage people to shop local. A major perk of co-promoting your giveaways with a local business is that you’ll increase your reach.

For a giveaway, we recommend using Facebook. You can post on your personal account, business page and even share the post in community groups.

#5) Get On Instagram

If you haven’t already, create an Instagram account.

It’s a great way to connect with new people and add a very necessary visual storytelling component to your real estate winter marketing strategy.

As you collect photos throughout the season, add them to your Instagram feed.

You can include both community and property features.

A tree lighting ceremony, twinkling neighborhoods, a shared hot chocolate on a snowy day…etc., these are all great ways to stay top of mind, and heart, in your area.

Create These Two Pinterest Boards

#6) Holidays + Seasons In (Your Area)

If you’re finding little payoff in creating unique Pinterest boards for every holiday, season, and occasion, just make one.

You can then update it year-round. Include all four seasons and the major holidays within those months.

To get this board going, start with November – January and include Thanksgiving Inspiration, Christmas, and New Year’s with lots of winter inspiration sprinkled between the holiday goodness.

This is a great way to get your board organized because you really only have to focus on one season and one or two holidays per month.

Next, take on February – April and include Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter. Your board’s aesthetic will quickly change from a wintry wonderland to a fresh Spring. You can continue to share this board on other social platforms so your audience can follow along for all seasons.

#7) Join or Start A Holiday Decor Group Board

Group boards are exploding on Pinterest. With group boards, you’ll not only be sharing the “pinning” load with other Pinterest users, but you’ll be expanding your network with every new member that’s added.

Encourage pinners to join you and share new decorating tricks they’re going to try as well as to pin recipes they’re making. You can pin your related blogs to this board and this will encourage pinners to visit your website.

Spread Joy In Your Community

#8) Give Back

Start thinking about ways you can be in service during the cold months. Host a canned food drive, make your office a drop-off point for Toys For Tots, or take coat donation and give them to a local shelter or organization.

You can bake a batch of cookies and keep some cocoa or eggnog on hand to get conversations going with your area when they come to leave their contributions.

#9) Gingerbread All The Way

Reach out to a community center and setup a gingerbread decorating party. If you’re enjoying hosting contests, you can even give out some fun prizes to those who decorate the best cookies or houses.

This is also another nice opportunity to build community relationships. See if you can partner with a bakery or even local grocery store to sponsor supplies or give some decorating tips for the party.

Plus, building houses together is the perfect segway for you to deliver some information to buyers and sellers who attend!

#10) Send A Holiday Card And Ask For This In Return

Give Thanks for your clients on Thanksgiving or with them Happy Holidays by mailing them a card or e-card. Of course, you’re just showing your appreciation, but it doesn’t hurt to ask them to leave you a quick review.

It doesn’t have to be a long testimonial, though that would be great, you can just link them to your Facebook Page, Yelp Profile, or anywhere your agent profile exists online and ask them to leave a quick remark.

Looking Ahead

Whenever you find yourself with some downtime, check these quick tasks off your list:

#11) Update CTAs

Majority of all online leads are going to come from your real estate website. So make sure you lead capture tools are ready to work.

Take a look at the various opt-in forms floating around your site, including landing pages, and make sure they’ve all got a strong Call To Action button.

With LeadSites, it’s incredibly easy to update any form for your real estate winter marketing campaigns and then swap them out again in 2018.

You can also track all your opt-ins in the backend of your LeadSite dashboard to see what pages are performing well and which could use a boost in conversion potential.

#12) 2018

You should also set aside some time to start planning for a great New Year.

Update your database, clean up any outdated information, and do the same with your social media profiles.

I mean, when was the last time you updated your profile or cover photo?

Or updated your bio?

The time and effort you put in now will have a huge impact next year, and you owe it to yourself, your clients and future leads to be prepped and ready for the best New Year yet.

These simply, yet highly effective real estate winter marketing ideas are perfect for any agent to up their lead gen game and define themselves as the leading community expert.