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Looking for sales and marketing tips for a real estate photography business.

Veteran

David DeMille Ogden, UT

I recently started a real estate photography business and we’re trying to work on becoming preferred vendors for brokerages in the area.

1) We are struggling to get in front of the decision makers and are looking for an effective strategy to get the initial appointment with key people.

2) Advice we have received about our approach is to “talk to the people that the realtors want to talk to.” The obvious answer is that realtors want to talk to potential buyers or sellers, but are there any groups of people that I should engage to open the door to meeting with realtors?

3) When we do have to cold call, what is an effective approach to gain their interest?

4) We have not tapped into property management companies, commercial real estate, or real estate investors yet and welcome any strategies to reach them.

Essentially, we are growing but not as fast as we would like. I welcome any tips or out of the box methods to reach realtors and brokerages.

13 July 2018 4 replies Networking

Answers

Advisor

Rick Toston Hudson, WI

David...
To quickly find local Realtors and Builders, go to their associations for contact information. Also, the front desk of each Real Estate company has the phone numbers and emails of each Realtor. They may be reluctant to give out such information, but they will pass along any information or promotional materials to their Realtors for you. Google the associations for both Realtors and Builders.
RT

Advisor

Rick Toston Hudson, WI

David...
I use a company called "The Tour Factory". I started working with this company for numerous reasons. Competitive pricing, the marketing value of their website and the professional photographers. You should check their website out...excellent and one of the best marketing tools out there! In my area, they have pretty much put the one or two person businesses out of business. They are that good.

Who should you target? You want Realtors and Home Builders as your main targets as they have the largest need...and greater needs. Skip the Real Estate office Brokers...they run the "brokerage" or business and do not control how Realtors market their properties...so go directly to the Realtors. If you land a couple of the top producers in each office, others will follow simply by word of mouth. Same for the Home Builders. You may want to target property managers too...having apartment or condo photos at their fingertips is an asset.

You need to provide more than home photography. You need to provide a marketing tool to Realtors and Home Builders. You need to have a website to market your product! Hope this helps. RT

Advisor

Tom Cal, CFA San Francisco, CA

Also seek out local mentors at score.org, see https://www.score.org/find-mentor , https://saltlake.score.org/find-mentor-49 , and https://saltlake.score.org/ .

Advisor

Jeremy Serwer Woodstock, CT

Hello David --

As you've probably learned, in all states there's typically a state level Real Estate Board that licenses all brokers and sales agents. As such, the broker of record -- principal in the firm -- is usually listed on the Board's website. That should at least help identify decision makers in each firm. While that may just be the beginning of a cold call, it at least gets you to the right person(s).

Then, an effective strategy may simply be to e-mail a presentation of both your product (best photos, residential and commercial, etc) in a Power Point format, along with competitive pricing. Quality and pricing are no doubt the key decision points for agency Brokers on anything to do with marketing.

Also, a word to the distinction between "Broker" and "Realtor" that may help: "Realtor" is a designation by the National Association of Realtors, which also has state level organizations. Not all Brokers are Realtors (ex., I'm a licensed broker in multiple states but not a Realtor, since my business niche doesn't need it), but all Realtors technically must be Brokers (or sales agents).

Thus, it may help to contact your state level Association of Realtors for their assistance: they may know personally some of the Broker principals in your area, and at least should be able to assist with recommendations.

As for management companies, commercial real estate, or investors, depending on the sub-categories for each, there are various ways to contact them through their industry associations, public listings, etc. All probably too numerous to explore here, though I'd be happy to have a conversation about this any time: by e-mail (Jeremy@theserwercompany.com) or phone.

I specialize in retail real estate, primarily factory outlet centers across the U.S., and have done traditional retail leasing and tenant representation as a broker/consultant.

Good luck, and if desired by you, I look forward to further contact.

JS

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