Today we are going to talk about geographic farming scripts for Realtors. I was a guest on The RedX Podcast and got to speak with Robert Sullivan, the host, about all things geographic farming. You can watch the full podcast below, and we’ll highlight the key takeaways within this blog. One of the key takeaways? Through strategic geographic farming, you gain mindshare from your target neighborhood, and you demonstrate that no one works harder than you. When it comes time to buy or sell, you want these residents to think of you first.
Yes, it is a low-inventory market. But that doesn’t mean it’s a low-listing market. There are tons of listings. It’s probable that in 2021 we will set the record for most listings ever. A lot of people don’t realize that, and it’s because the listings are flying off the market so quickly. Before this year, the record for the most listings ever recorded happened in the peak of the housing boom. There were 6.2 million listings sold in 2006. That was the top year of the housing boom. At that point in time, people thought there was no inventory. It’s very similar to how people feel today.
They way you control the market right now is by controlling the listings. And the way you control listings is by getting more of them. We coach our clients here at ICC to focus on their sphere of influence (SOI) first and foremost as a pillar of business. That said, another important pillar of business that we coach is geographic farming. If you are looking for a way to get more listings in this low-inventory market, geographic farming can be a revolutionary tool. Before we dive into some helpful geographic farming scripts, let’s talk a bit about how geographic farming works.
Most of our top-producing clients start geographic farming when they are looking to increase their price point. There is no better way to increase your price point than by choosing a neighborhood with homes in that price range and targeting it as a farm. Find where the expensive houses are and target market that area. Here is an overview that shows 6 steps to breaking into a geographic farm.
We use the sixth step listed above to navigate our script flow when it comes to geographic farming marketing. This should be the order of attack, and when you put it all together, it gives you eight touches. Do six emails and two mailers. This gives you a 6:2 ratio, and you spread them out. You are saturating your target market with this system — it isn’t just two mailers saying “Just Listed” and “Just Sold,” as many agents do without success.
These emails and mailers are your geographic farming scripts! Beyond these mailers and emails, you can create social media campaigns around them, too. Every touch can have a corresponding Facebook and Instagram post. Now we’re at around 15 or more touches for one listing! Because this plan has so many steps, you need to add each of the steps to your Listing & Closing Checklist.
The key with geographic farming is to make it look like you are the hardest working Realtor around. You are demonstrating your prowess and your expertise by marketing over, and over, and over again, in various ways. It will evidence your success while showing the high level of customer service that you provide to your seller clients that are their neighbors in their community. You will be respected for your hard work! Everything you are doing is weaving in customer service to add value — while marketing your services at the same time.
There are a lot of leverageable tasks that you can give you an administrative assistant to support you in your geographic farming efforts. A lot of agents fail at farming, or give up. This is why at ICC we coach that in order to level up as a top-producing real estate agent, you need administrative support. High-level teams can farm multiple neighborhoods at once because they have great, full-time administrative support. The key to farming is diverse, layered contacts. A lot of agents don’t hire an admin because of the cost. However, with good administrative support, the rule of thumb is that it will pay for itself on a 3:1 return on investment.
Once you have an admin to assist you with your geographic farming scripts and marketing, you can create a structure to make the workflow easier. Add the geographic farming tasks to their listing to contract and contract to close checklists. This will ensure that all of these geographic farming ideas are executed with every listing you take!
Here are a few quick tips that will help you as you embark into geographic farming.
