Goal-setting is just the first step in realizing real estate business success. Simply setting goals doesn’t automatically lead to results. Instead, many goals become just another item on the never-ending to-do list for agents, and year after year you’re left with the same shortfall on your original goals.

1. Noah George - Turning Business Goals Into Real Estate Marketing
Plans
Goal-setting is just the first step in realizing real estate business success. Simply setting goals
doesn’t automatically lead to results. Instead, many goals become just another item on the
never-ending to-do list for agents, and year after year you’re left with the same shortfall on
your original goals.
The key to getting results is setting up feasible goals and a detailed action plan that will keep
you focused and hold you accountable as you work to achieve those goals.
Developing a Real Estate Action Plan to Manage Goals
Set great real estate marketing and sales goals.
First, set realistically attainable goals. That doesn’t mean you can’t strive to be an Olympic
swimmer one day, but if you’ve never been in a pool, it’s unlikely that setting a high goal at
the outset will yield anything but stress and disappointment. As you set goals at the start of
your year, don’t focus on the harder stretch goals, rather, focus on the goals that you know
you can achieve within the year that will allow you to make progress towards your stretch
goals eventually.
Use our real estate business plan template to help calculate the expenses, transactions, and
monthly and yearly goals for your real estate marketing and business.
Set inspirational actions.
Developing a business plan with goals is just the first step. Specific actions should be the all-
encompassing motivator. If you’re hoping to get leads, the motivating action may be
“increase lead generation by 50%.” This becomes the mantra for your goal and will help you
refocus when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
It’s also important to prioritize your actions. Is lead generation more important than lead
management, or is content creation more of a priority this month? Use a color-coding or
numbering system (as we’ve done in our real estate marketing action plan template) to
prioritize which should come first.
Develop tangible action steps.
Now that you have motivating actions, you need steps. Keeping with the example above,
increasing lead generation can encompass action steps like advertising through Facebook,
running pay per click (PPC) ad campaigns, and writing three blog posts per week. Be focused
with actions steps: This is not the time to add a laundry list of items to your plate, but rather
to zoom in on the steps that are manageable and will give you the highest return.

2. Write out the tasks for each action step.
This may seem redundant, but breaking your action steps into small, manageable tasks can
alleviate the stress that comes with thinking about big steps (plus successfully tackling small
tasks can increase positive feelings and your general mood toward your work). So, if one of
your action steps is to increase lead generation through Facebook advertising, define what
that means in small steps, whether that’s selecting your best 10 blog posts and choosing to
boost them, or developing photographic assets for your top five listings to use in ads.
And don’t forget that you’ll have to write copy, build landing pages, and track how your ads
perform. As you can already see, the process is already more in-depth than simply
“advertising with Facebook,” so whatever actions you choose, just make sure the
corresponding tasks are as specific as possible.
Determine the investment.
Each action and its series of action steps requires an investment, whether that be time,
research, marketing collateral, money, etc. It’s important to write down exactly what it will
take to execute this. Putting this is writing really lets you know how much you can feasibly
manage in a week, month, or year. Ideally your top priority goals will take up the majority of
your time and the lower priority goals will require less output of your energy and resources.

3. Develop methods for measuring and tracking: Determine how you’ll define a successful
completion of a task, and also how you’ll determine if you’ve reached your goal by your
deadline (e.g. “I track Facebook leads through a specific landing page, and will compare this
data with my original data month-over-month to see if my leads are increasing by 50%”).
Set Start and End Dates: You likely won’t (and shouldn’t) tackle everything all at once.
Above, we discussed setting priorities, and now it’s time to set dates. Write when you’ll
start an action step and the deadline for completion. You can also create deadlines for each
of your smaller tasks if that will help keep you on track.
Mark your progress, successes, and takeaways.
Marking tasks off of your action plan can alleviate stress and provide a sense of
accomplishment. Once you’ve completed a task, small or large, write down the date
completed. This should also jumpstart motivation to tackle the remainder of tasks in your
real estate marketing action plan. Then, see if your actions led to your goal being met. Use a
“Notes” section to write down any takeaways from your experience — good or bad — and
focus on the tactics that worked and didn’t work to streamline your strategy the next time
around.
Add coaching to the mix.
While this is an added expense, real estate coaches can help you stay accountable to your
goals and complete the action steps mentioned above. The important thing is finding the
one that works well for your goals, who checks in regularly, and who offers real industry
insight. Use your coach as a resource to see if your action steps are on track, and meet with
them to monitor your progress and to decide if you need to revamp your strategy mid-year.

4. Turning Real Estate Business Goals Into Marketing Tactics
Now that we’ve established how to create an action plan, it’s time to consider real estate
marketing ideas and tactics for typical agent and broker goals:
Lead Generation
Real estate lead generation takes many forms, and the tactics for getting leads will depend
on your particular marketing niche. You could simply want a large lead base to cultivate or,
in cases where you already have many leads, more targeted leads to pursue.
Marketing tactics to generate more leads could include:
Building a content marketing strategy that develops you as a thought leader and drives
website traffic.
Using pay per click (PPC) advertisements that target a set of popular and moderately
competitive key terms that lead to landing pages with strong copy and CTAs.
Developing a strong brand on social media to grow your audience over time.
Increasing lead capture opportunities on your website so visitors are more encouraged to
get in touch or be put on your mailing list.
Ensuring your website is responsive so you’re offering a great experience for mobile users.
Increasing Close Rate
Few things matter more for your bottom line than “did you close the deal?” When assessing
ways to make improvements in close rate, you need to take note of lead nurturing.
Show you’re a helpful agent by offering the right resources at the right times that will
encourage leads to move through the sales funnel.
This is also a great time to analyze your current methodology for attracting and qualifying
leads so you can determine if you’re conversing with the right people for your area.
Implement marketing automation so your messages reach leads at the optimal times and so
you can deliver prompt follow-up to all of your leads.
Develop an engaging newsletter that highlights listings, relevant content for your leads, and
your brand’s messaging.

5. Decreasing Cost Per Lead
Reaching financial goals also requires a means to streamline the amount you’re spending,
and you certainly don’t want to blow your advertising budget on the first 30 leads who
come your way. To minimize the cost per lead for your real estate marketing, focus on the
areas that need improvement. Attempt to streamline your ad spend by:
Developing long-tail keywords approaches for advertisements so you’re attracting buyers
and sellers with specific needs.
Optimize your website with those same long-tail keyword phrases to increase the level of
organic traffic to your website.
Implement website optimization trackers and use Google Analytics to determine what’s not
working on your pages and use that data to fuel site changes.
Look at your ads’ Quality Scores and find new ways to optimize your ads and landing pages
to increase views, clicks, and conversions.