We surveyed our most engaged readers to get a pulse on how real estate pros plan to move the needle in their business in 2022—and the results are finally in. Check out our 2022 Real Estate Agent Marketing Survey to see this year’s hottest trends.
In this article, we’ll review the most significant takeaways from our reader survey and provide recommendations about how to level up your business this year. Finally, we’ll share our comprehensive infographic to give you a handy overview of all of these exclusive findings and stats from The Close.
Social Media Reigns Supreme
Social media is the #1 channel that agents say they plan to use when growing their business this year; 80% of agents said they planned on doing so. Email marketing was a close second, and emerging in the top 3 was video marketing (which, to be fair, is often a component of social media thanks to Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube.)
Note: Agents were allowed to pick more than one channel when responding.
The #1 reason agents want to maintain a presence on social media is to stay top of mind amongst their sphere of influence. Generating leads and referrals were the 2nd and 3rd most popular reasons for engaging in social media marketing efforts.
While I initially scratched my head as to why social media ranked above email (despite email having a 30-40x ROI), our readers’ choice makes sense when viewed under the lens of wanting to stay top of mind. As The Broke Agent recently tweeted, agents sometimes email leads for superfluous reasons. However, on social media, these topics can actually be fair game.
In terms of what social networks are important to agents’ marketing, Facebook is at the top of the list. And yes, there has been a lot of sentiment that sounds like this: “Facebook is dead!”. However, Hootsuite recently released The Global State of Digital 2022 report, and they too hit home that “Facebook is still the most popular social network—by a long shot.”
Hootsuite also reported that 2.91 billion people on Planet Earth are on Facebook. With 4.66 billion people having access to the internet, well over 60% of internet users worldwide are on Facebook. So, yeah, Facebook is most certainly not dead. And Instagram, now owned by Facebook, is the second most popular social network for agents.
Suffice it to say that agents seem pretty sold that they need social media marketing to grow their businesses. Two-thirds of agent respondents said that posting great content on social media is more important than having a blog. Organic posting on social media was the second most popular way agents got clients in 2021.
Our survey revealed a couple of roadblocks from agents who struggle to maintain a solid social media presence. First, many agents get distracted with other core business duties and, therefore, post inconsistently and without a solid strategy. Also, according to our survey data, only about 47% of agents feel confident with their social media skills.
That’s why one of the most popular real estate marketing tools amongst our community of agents is Artur’in. They take the heavy lifting out of maintaining a social media presence. So if you want to do more social media marketing but know that you won’t have the capacity or skill set to do so consistently, then Artur’in is worth checking out.
Are Agents Backing Up their Marketing Confidence with Results?
The oddest result we got from this survey (in my opinion) spoke to how confident agents felt. More than half of agents (53%) said they felt confident with their marketing skills. However, less than half (45%) said they got leads from their marketing. That had me scratching my head a bit because one of the main marketing goals many agents have is getting high-quality leads.
Similarly, while almost three quarters of agents (74%) feel confident that they can turn leads into clients, only 53% felt confident with their ability to get motivated leads.
And I get it—many agents are relatable, experienced, and legitimate subject-matter experts in their community. So, OF COURSE, they feel like they could convert leads… if only they could get leads. However, data has shown that agents are generating more leads than ever. And yet, many agents are still closing the same number of deals.
So while agents might think the problem is getting motivated leads, perhaps the issue is that agents aren’t nurturing the leads that they’re getting properly. Just because a lead isn’t ready right now doesn’t mean they won’t be prepared to buy or sell in a few months (or even years).
If you’re interested in converting more leads, step 1 is making the work you put into your CRM’s data and nurturing programs a labor of love. And if you don’t have a CRM, we highly recommend LionDesk (which we ranked best overall real estate CRM in our 2022 guide). LionDesk is low-cost, easy to use, and you can even try it for free.
As we already discussed, social media is an important channel for agents. So much so that almost half (48%) of agents say that social media ads are their most effective form of advertising.
And as a graph I included earlier in this article pointed out, Facebook Ads were a more popular channel for agents in 2021 than “old school” approaches like cold calling, door knocking, and print ads.
I anticipate Facebook Ads will only increase in popularity among agents as a lead gen channel in the year ahead, and we expect that number to increase when we send out our annual agent survey in early 2023.
The Support & Help Agents Get and Need
The good news is that most agents set goals and an action plan for 2022 and get adequate support from their brokerage.
However, despite understanding the importance of video marketing, our reader survey revealed that it’s an area where agents feel significantly less confident. Only 32% feel confident with using video marketing in their business.
Yet marketing videos ranked as the third most popular way agents plan to get clients in 2022. Plus, 37% of agents said YouTube was important for their marketing, and another 18% pointed to TikTok as being important to their efforts.
As we recently discussed with Eric Simon on our Close Weekly podcast, video is essential for agents. Simon, who has 350,000+ Instagram followers with his Instagram account, The Broke Agent, even went so far as to encourage agents to appear on camera.
If that feels daunting to you, we hear you. That’s why we often recommend Parkbench. They help agents create a video-rich online presence. And they offer excellent support for agents who are just getting started with video.
Key Takeaways + Full Infographic
Overall, it’s clear that social media continues to gain momentum as an essential marketing channel. However, while agents feel confident with their marketing skills overall, they need to make sure they have clear, measurable goals they can tie to these efforts—whether those are lead generation goals, growing their SOI or online presence, or simply gaining referrals.
Based on this data, it’s clear that Facebook isn’t going anywhere for Realtors. I anticipate the data will show that Facebook Ads will grow in importance as a marketing channel. Here’s why: Agents already got more clients from Facebook Ads in 2021 than they did from more traditional types of prospecting and outreach (i.e., door knocking, cold calling). As agents become more sophisticated with Facebook Ads, their ROI will only improve.
Email marketing was ranked the second most popular way agents will grow their business in 2022. With the ROI on email marketing being as high as it is (around 30-40x that of social meidia), agents have a lot to gain by putting their energy into their CRM.
Lastly, agents are great at setting goals and seem to feel supported by their brokerages for the most part. However, video is still a sore spot for agents. Agents might have to get out of their comfort zone and get in front of the camera to chase their marketing goals in 2022.
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