The Ultimate Real Estate Listing Marketing Plan (PDF Checklist)

Your listing marketing plan is the most important thing to a seller. It’s an essential guide that lays out where, how, why, and when you will promote your client’s home for sale. So, I’m sharing our 10-point Ultimate Real Estate Listing Marketing Plan to help you look like a rock star in your listing presentations. With this plan, you can confidently list any property—including luxury ones—and convince every seller that you’re the agent to get their property sold. 

Use this comprehensive list to customize your plan for each listing by adding strategies that will work best for your client, budget, property, and market.

1. Get to Know the Listing

• Identify the home’s unique selling features: Meet with your seller and discover the home’s unique features and how your sellers have benefited from them. The home features could be a gourmet kitchen or an oasis in a backyard. You’ll use these descriptions to craft your tailored real estate marketing plan for sellers.
• Consider lifestyle: Think of your target buyer and what would be most important—is it to live as close as possible to the beach? Or is it to cut down on their commute to work? Or maybe it’s the slower pace of a suburban city? When you determine the audience you’re selling to, creating marketing materials to fit that demographic will attract the right buyers. 
• Research the neighborhood: Learn as much as possible about the area around the listing, including any future developments. Note proximity to important features like highways, mass transit, airports, large corporations, and schools. But be careful to follow all fair housing laws when talking with your clients.

2. Develop Your Pricing Strategy

• Prepare a CMA: The comparative market analysis (CMA) is one of the best tools in your real estate listing marketing plan because it gives you and your clients tangible data to base pricing on. Get a baseline of value for the listing, then discuss options for pricing above or below market value.

• Discuss options with seller: Discuss all options with your seller, including expected responses from each strategy. You can price it high, allowing the market to catch up to your homeowner’s expectations. You can price just 1% to 2% below to help your listing stand out and drive the demand. Feel out what the sellers are comfortable with before deciding on a final price. 
• Local market considerations: Be sure to study your current market before deciding your pricing strategies. Research DOM, current pricing, new construction, mortgage interest rates, and changes in the community—anything that can affect how quickly your listing will sell. Add these to your real estate listing marketing plan and discuss them with your seller.

3. Prepare the House for Sale

• Clean and declutter: Help your sellers determine what should be stored, including anything personalizing the home to the owners (like pictures on the wall). Then, consider hiring professional cleaners to do a deep cleaning. 
• Repairs and touch-ups: Depending on your sellers’ reason for selling and their timeline, they may need to make a few small repairs before listing it, like a fresh coat of paint or replacing carpet. But make sure to weigh the pros and cons of paying for major repairs or renovations.
• Add curb appeal: Whether your listing needs a little pop of color in the flower bed, a good power washing, or a whole virtual makeover, spend a little time making sure your listing’s curb appeal is inviting for future buyers.

• Staging: If the house is vacant or the decor is subpar, consider staging your listing or hiring a professional staging company to add context to empty or not-so-appealing spaces. Staging is a must-have in your real estate listing marketing plan for luxury homes in particular.
• Virtual staging: If traditional staging isn’t in the budget, an alternative is virtual staging, which can also be done for vacant or furnished homes. Use a professional company like Apply Design to give your vacant listing a stunning makeover.

4. Collect Visual Assets

• Professional photography: Hire a professional photographer to create stunning images that showcase the best features of your listing. If you want to DIY, follow our tips for taking the best listing photos possible.
• 3D Tours: Invest in 3D virtual tours with a company like Matterport or with your pro photographer. 
• Promo video and virtual tours: Create walkthrough videos with music and text overlays for your marketing. You can create walkthrough videos with your phone in portrait mode that work well with social media.
• Aerial photography and video: Hire a drone photographer to capture overhead aerial images and videos for your listing, get a birds-eye view of the neighborhood, and showcase proximity to beaches, universities, golf courses, and more.

5. Create Listing & Post Everywhere

• Write a property description: Make sure to focus on the benefits and not just the features of your listing when drafting your property description. Describe the lifestyle and paint a picture using powerful descriptive words. 
• Post on local multiple listing service: Post your listing on your local MLS with images from your pro photographer. Make sure you feature the best images of your listing.
• Post on brokerage and personal websites: Share your listing on your brokerage website. If you have your own website, you can feature your listing prominently on the first page of your site. Add a CTA to get more engagement.
• Post on additional MLSs: Depending on your listing’s location, it might make sense to post to nearby MLSs to expand your reach.
• Syndicate your listing: Include permission for your listing to be syndicated to other listing portal sites like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.

• Prepare a listing book: Put together a book with information unique to your community, parks, attractions, shopping, restaurants, and more. Add more in-depth information about your listing in the book and make it attractive. It’s a great idea to include local comps in your book.

6. Conduct Open Houses

• Traditional open house: Schedule a grand opening-style open house. Sit down with your seller and decide when would be the best time. Ensure they have cleaned and arranged to be away for the open house. Don’t forget to set up Curb Hero to capture all those sign-ins from your attendees.
• Virtual open house: Schedule a virtual open house through a platform like Facebook and invite nonlocals to attend. 
• Open house by appointment: If you have a seller who doesn’t want many people in their home, you might schedule an open house by appointment only. You can be in attendance to monitor the shoppers and address any questions. The buyers should also be with their agent.
• Follow up with open house attendees: Once the open house is complete, you should have a list of everyone who attended the event. Reach out and follow up with all of them. Ask for their feedback and encourage them to address any questions to you.

7. Use Digital Marketing

• Create a single property website: You can easily build a single-property website for your listing complete with lead capture forms. Use a company like Canva for a low-cost site you can build in minutes with one of their stunning templates. For a more luxury site, check out some of the real estate-specific site builders like Sierra Interactive.
• Create ads for Facebook and Instagram: You can create targeted ads on Meta Business for both Facebook and Instagram as part of your real estate marketing plan for agents. Create your ads, set your budget, and you’re all set.
• Create a Google ad: Use Google’s massive data collection to target your audience with Google ads. Some lead generation websites like Real Geeks and Sierra Interactive allow you to capture the contact information of potential buyers for your listings.

• Create posts for Facebook: Post your listing in local Facebook groups that feature homes for sale, and share in real estate agent groups. And don’t forget about Facebook Marketplace.
• Create posts for LinkedIn: LinkedIn is primarily a professional networking site, but it’s a great location to share your intimate knowledge of real estate in your local area. It’s also a perfect place to market investment opportunities.
• Create posts for Pinterest: Use one of your professional photos, then set the destination link as your lead capture page when you create your pin so motivated buyers can quickly get in touch with you.
• Create posts for Instagram: Similar to Pinterest, Instagram posts are all about images. Sharing beautiful photos of your listing will attract homebuyers and show sellers that you take real estate marketing seriously. If you need some sweet ideas for your social media, you can check out our article, 31 Top Ideas (+ Examples) For Social Media Posts.
• Create posts for TikTok: Post a short video (set to trending music) of a unique listing feature—a swimming pool, gourmet kitchen, or a sunset from the deck—and hundreds of potential buyers can see it.
• Post on Craigslist: You may not think of Craigslist when you start mapping out your marketing strategy, but don’t discount how many eyeballs you can capture on the platform for your listing. It doesn’t work for every listing, but some will be a perfect match.
• Launch a remarketing ad campaign: One of the best strategies for efficient digital marketing is remarketing, which reengages your existing customers through email or paid ads. Set up your remarketing campaign in your Google Ads account.

8. Dive Into Traditional Media Marketing

• TV: Use the power of TV advertising to reach your audience who doesn’t spend all their time on their phones. Depending on your target demographic, TV ads may produce powerful results and are a great asset to your overall listing marketing plan.
• Radio: Place ads for your brokerage to run on popular radio stations in your area. 
• Home magazines: Every community is different, but if your community has a glossy magazine that features homes for sale, consider taking out a large display ad for your listing.

• Listing flyers: You can create flyers for your listing that highlight the features along with a QR code for more information. Leave these in your listing and your brokerage office. Use a display stand in your listing. 
• Newspaper display ads: Don’t discount the power of print newspapers! Sellers love seeing their listings in print. And newspapers have digital display ads online, too.

9. Apply Neighborhood Marketing

• Yard signs: As part of your real estate marketing checklist for every listing, you should make sure your yard signs are in great condition and represent your image professionally.
• QR codes: Add a QR code to your signage and flyers directing your potential buyers to your single-property website. Create your QR code easily in Canva for each listing marketing campaign.
• Geo-based property ads: Use a geofencing marketing company to advertise to those who come within the perimeter of your property.
• Branded directional signs: Invest in branded directional signs to stand out and attract more buyers to your open house.
• Postcards and door hangers: Use a company like ProspectsPLUS to create marketing postcards for your listing and send them out with just a few clicks.

• Circle prospecting: Get out and knock on doors around your open house to encourage people to visit. “Lookie-loo” neighbors sometimes bring referrals, so make nice with them.

10. Market to Your Sphere

• Share your listing with your office: Spread the word about your listing to everyone you already work with. They may have a buyer who is the perfect fit.
• Market to outside agents and brokerages: Share your listing with any real estate forums or groups you belong to. 
• Email blast to your sphere: Send your listing out through your entire sphere of influence. Send a single email or include your listing in your email newsletter. 
• Send a newsletter: If you have an email newsletter, include your listing as a featured listing.
• Share with local businesses: Send your listing to all of your contacts, including your list of local businesses. 
• List on a broker tour or broker caravan: Showcase your listing through your local broker tour. Create feedback forms for agents to share their thoughts on how you can improve your listing.
• Update seller weekly: Share weekly updates with your seller, even if there’s nothing new to report. Open communication is vital for a solid working relationship.

Bonus: Luxury Listing Marketing 

1. Polish your brand: If you’re breaking into the luxury market, you’ll want to make sure your brand is ultra-high-quality and promotes you as a luxury brand.
2. Produce a custom video: You must step up your marketing game when working with high-end sellers. Invest in a custom video from a professional video production company.
3. Create a high-quality brochure: By the same standard, your print marketing materials have to be next-level as well. Invest in full-color, 100-pound card stock and book-style folding brochures for your listing. When you have a high-end listing, your marketing collateral should be too.
4. Market nationally and internationally: With a luxury home, you’ll be marketing to people who may not be local. You may even be marketing to buyers looking for a coastal home or a second home. Place ads in multiple markets. You can reach out to agents in other high-end markets directly to let them know about your listing. Make sure your listings are visible in other countries, like Canada, China, India, Mexico, and Brazil. Foreign investors have been hitting the southern states, especially over the last few years.
5. Host a broker’s open: Search similarly priced listings sold in the past year. Personally invite both the listing and buyer’s agents. Serve high-end food and drinks, and maybe even provide them with a small gift for attending.

Bringing It All Together

In the current market, learning how to put a real estate marketing plan for sellers together and execute it will make a big difference in your level of success. What strategies do you use in your own real estate listing marketing plan? Let us know in the comments.