It’s officially fall, and the holiday season is fast approaching. While some real estate brokers and their teams are already starting to wind down for the year and hibernate for the slower winter months, smart and enterprising brokers are motivating their teams to do a final end-of-year push. The next couple months are critical for hitting your annual revenue targets and setting your brokerage up for a great start of the year.
Why the holiday season is a great time for real estate agents to market
With the finish line in sight and only a few weeks left in the year, it may be tempting for your team to take your foot off the gas. But in fact, the holidays are an amazing time for real estate marketing. Here are 6 reasons why real estate brokers should market over the holidays:
1. You can capture leads that are looking for a quick sale
There are numerous financial and tax benefits of closing on a house by the end of the year. If any of your leads decide that it’s time to take action, they’ll be especially motivated. If you were nurturing your leads properly throughout the year, you’ll already be top of mind. But it’s never a bad time to share how you can help your leads buy or sell their home before December 31.
2. You can tee buyer and seller leads up for the spring
The winter months are notoriously slow for real estate in many markets, with lots of buyers and sellers preferring to stay put and wait for the warmth to return. But real estate leads can also take many months to convert, making staying top of mind, even when business is slower, that much more important. Interested sellers will want to start making preparations well in advance, and buyers will want to be ready to make a move when their dream house gets listed. Plant the seed now, and it may bear fruit in the spring.
3. It’s a great time to highlight your team’s achievements
What is real estate marketing if not self-promotion? After 10 months and 3 quarters, your brokerage definitely has things to brag about: talk about all the great deals you closed, feature your total sales volume to date, share any glowing testimonials or reviews you received, and toot your own horn a little bit. You deserve it, and your leads deserve to know about it!
4. It’s the perfect opportunity to share some cheer
In general, the holidays are a delightful time. These months are full of reasons to celebrate, enjoy gatherings with family and friends, be generous and kind, and have fun. The warmth of your marketing can make up for any lack of warm weather, that’s for sure! During the holidays, timely, warm, short, low-key, and relevant emails, texts, calls, social media posts, and even in-person visits and events can be the cherry on top of what is already a lovely time of year.
5. The holidays put the meaning (and value) of home into focus
Holiday parties, family gatherings, trick or treating, pumpkin carving, cookie baking, latke making… these experiences are often part of our core memories, and they both remind us and help us appreciate home, wherever that may be. It’s easy to forget sometimes—amid the conversations about artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, technology, software, the cloud—that the fundamental job of real estate brokers and agents is to help people find their home. What better value proposition to sell during the holidays?
6. You can tell your past and potential clients how much you care about and value their business
Your brokerage exists because of your great team and, ultimately, your clients. The holidays are a time of heartfelt messages and feelings, so the time is ripe for sharing just how grateful you are for your past clients’ business and how excited you are to help your sphere with their real estate needs.
The last couple months of Q4 are also your last opportunity to hit your business goals for the year so you can set yourself on track for a great Q1. Don’t waste them!
How to make your real estate marketing go the extra mile over the holidays
Here are a few useful tips for making your real estate marketing even more successful toward the end of the year.
1. Reconnect with cold leads
As a rule of thumb, it’s easier to keep a lead warm than it is to revive a cold one (or find a completely new one). But the holidays can be an exceptional time for generating organic leads. What better excuse to reach out than the holidays? You should also think to share information your leads will find relevant: if your communications are full of your expertise and tips about homebuying and your community, your leads will engage in a meaningful way and think of you when they’re ready to move.
2. Coordinate your physical and digital touchpoints
Digital marketing is an incredible way to amplify your physical marketing efforts, and vice versa. Are you delivering food to previous clients or the less fortunate? Share what you’re doing and how you’re impacting your community on social media. Are you hosting a client appreciation event? Make an invitation on Facebook and promote it across your digital channels. Always compliment your touchpoints and find ways to share the same information on different channels. Since social media is free, it’s a great way to get your brokerage’s name out there.
To learn more about optimizing all your touchpoints, download our free ebook:
3. Publish blogs for homeowners and homebuyers alike
Are you leveraging blogging as effectively as you could be? Real estate agent blogs are an amazing way to generate organic leads, and with the right blogging tools, it doesn’t have to turn into an extra chore for your agents. Here are some post ideas that are perfect for the holidays:
- Promoting businesses that help remove leaves, ice, and snow
- Tips on winterizing homes to save on heating bills
- Announcements to remind your clients of any holiday hours or closures
- Holiday decorating ideas (you could even hold a photo contest among previous clients
- Reasons why the residents of your community love where they live
Best practices for holiday marketing and messaging
Keep in mind that different people celebrate different holidays (or choose not to celebrate at all). Whenever possible, tailor your messaging to the holiday(s) you know your clients are celebrating. After all, the better you know your clients, the better you’ll be able to help them with their real estate needs, and this includes the religious and cultural traditions they have around this time of year.
If you’re not sure, just be warm, friendly, and spread the holiday spirit, rather than your wishes for a particular holiday.
Upcoming holidays you can work into your marketing
This list is current for 2023:
- Halloween – October 31
- Veteran’s Day – November 10
- Diwali – November 12
- American Thanksgiving – November 23
- Giving Tuesday – November 28
- Chanukah – December 8–16
- Christmas – December 25
- Kwanzaa – December 26
- New Year’s Eve – December 31
Make real estate marketing easy with Constellation1 Front Office solutions
With the right front office tools, your team can ace your marketing strategy all year round, not just during the holidays:
Digital Marketing Suite
Scroll-stopping content, powerful automations, and an entire suite of print and digital tools that make marketing to your entire sphere of influence a piece of cake. Of particular interest during the holidays: the Broker Broadcast feature, which lets you send branded, brokerage-level posts out across your agents’ accounts.
Constellation1 CRM
Featuring thirty pre-built campaigns and templates for messages for every occasion, including holidays (and not just the ones at the end of the year!). Keep in touch with every lead and keep your brokerage top of mind, no matter the season. See just how easy it is to use and what it can do!
Learn more about all the ways Constellation1’s Front Office solutions for real estate can help your brokerage.
