Towards the end of 2017, we surveyed close to 300 real estate agents across North America, checking in with nearly 200 of those Realtors to find out where they plan to spend their marketing budgets in 2018.
We broke the agents into three cohorts based on GCI:
- GCI under $100,000
- GCI between $100 - $300,000
- GCI above $300,000
Then we asked them whether they intend to spend less, the same, or more in several areas of marketing to figure out where their investments were going to go. Here's what we discovered:
Web Platform Spending
At least one in four Realtors plan to spend more on their web platform in the 12 months following the survey. In contrast, only 1 in 10 Realtors intends to spend less. That means the vast majority of Realtors are planning to spend about the same on their web platform this year.
Interestingly, agents making over $300,000 are significantly more likely to spend more in the coming months.
SEO & Paid Online Advertising Spending
We noticed very similar spending intentions for SEO and paid online advertising spending. Most agents plan to spend the same, some plan to spend more, and very few plan to spend less.
There was also a distinct pattern between GCI and the intention to spend more, where Realtors are more likely to spend more with each jump in GCI group.
Social media spending
One of the most fascinating results of the survey on real estate marketing trends was the intention around social media. Regardless of GCI, almost every Realtor in the group plans to spend the same or more on paid social media, with very little distinction between each group.
This may indicate that social media is an effective and influential channel that real estate agents are finding genuine value in.
We saw similar results in supporting activity on social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. In fact, this was the one marketing category where the most real estate agents planned to spend more; 19% of survey respondents intended to increase their social media budgets within the next 12 months.
Link between GCI and spending intention
One common thread throughout all of the survey responses was that people in the two higher GCI categories are planning to spend the same or more in all real estate marketing channels. This suggests that the most successful agents find their current investments valuable and believe they will continue to be lucrative in the coming year.