The holiday season is a great time to ramp up your real estate marketing efforts for some easy lead generation.

We've compiled a list of seasonal marketing ideas to help real estate agents end the year strong new connections and sales. 

Holiday Cards or Thank You Cards

A tried & true classic that is budget friendly and shows not only your SOI but also your past, present, or future clients that you are wishing them the best during the [ insert holiday theme here ].

If you’re wanting to give your SOI or clients a little end of year gift and have a reson to pop by and say hi, this is also a great delivery method to do so.

A Year In Review

It’s always nice to reflect on our personal and business success over the past year. 

If you’ve collected photos of home sales, photos of clients you’ve worked with, new business partners, a new real estate brokerage you’ve joined, new team members, or business and personal milestones you hit this year, try a year in review video collage thanking everyone for their support. 

If you're looking for something more personal that is short and sweet, even a simple video of you thanking your friends, family, and clients for their support this year is also a great way to conclude your year.

Start early on this project for best results and strive to post and share in December.

Final Closing Statements

Every client you worked with this year that closed a home will need a copy of their final closing statement for their upcoming tax filing. This is a great time to send this value piece to your clients with a thank you.

An electronic copies of the final closing statement is good, but a follow up hard copy in the mail is also recommended for this. Easily attach a thank you flyer, a request for review if you didn’t receive from them already, an offer for market reports to track their home value (think market update automation from services like Homebot, HomeIQ, or Sierra Interactive), a gift card, etc.

Real Estate Newsletters

Real estate newsletters are an underrated form of communication with your SOI and real estate prospects. If you’ve been thinking about starting up a newsletter, now is the best time.

October, November and December offer up lot’s of events and topics to share in a newsletter which can help you get used to the format and content creation leading into the new year and beyond.

Here are a few services you can look into for delivery and/or newsletter templates:

•  Mailchimp
•  Constantcontact
•  Fastnewsletters
•  Readytogonewsletters
•  Prospectsplus
•  Getresponse
•  Stocklayouts
•  Aweber

Give Back to the Community

Getting involved in your local community is not only a great way to talk to people, but also makes you feel good and helps to make your real estate career more fulfilling.

While this can be done throughout the year, the last few months of the year are the optimal time for getting involved with community service and charity.

November and December are prime months for food and/or toy drives.

Simple concept:

• Create a flyer/door knocker to pass out into your farm areas. This isn’t about selling homes or self promotion. This is about the cause. A non prominent, simple logo and/or contact info for questions is sufficient
• Promote the charity of your choice
• State that you will be back on a certain date to pick up the donation items (cans, non-perishable food items, toiletries, jackets, clothing, toys, etc.)
• Drop off the items to the charity
• This is a good way to kick off your marketing efforts in a farm area or reinforce your presence in the area from past marketing efforts.

Client Appreciation Event

This can be big or small depending on your budget. 

For a smaller budget, think about a pop by event at a local frozen yogurt shop or similar. Somewhere they could pop over and say hi and also receive a treat for the family that won’t break your bank account. You can usually host something like this for just a few hundred dollars.

If you have a small client base, you can use an event like this to gain likes on your social media in exchange for the “free” treat your providing to anyone else that comes in during the event time slot to try and connect with new potential real estate prospects.

Run Contests

Ideal for Instagram and/or Facebook.

Here are some basics for running a successful contest:

Choose a Prize - If you’re running the contest locally, try gift cards to your favorite local businesses. Bakeries, frozen yogurt shops, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. all work well for this and you’ll be supporting local businesses. Focus on gift cards that will be needed during the next couple of months. Tag businesses on your social media as you pick up the cards as a thank you and to also build interest in your contest.

Make Changes to Your Business Page - You will need a page to promote and run your contest. You can either create a new contest page or try making a few changes to your current page to promote the contest. Change your cover photo to be an image of the contest and the prize they will win. Be sure to title the contest (within the image works great). 

Simple is best… Enter to win a $$$ gift card basket from (your name Realtor® or your team name)

Entry & Prize Info: Include a short paragraph with information about your contest prize, how to enter and any rules or restrictions. To keep it simple, you can add a link to your website or other source (even a Google Doc is fine) with the full rules, restrictions, and/or entry instructions.

Create an Entry Submission Form: An entry form for a Facebook photo competition includes a box to upload an image and fields prompting visitors to submit personal information. Keep the submission requirements easy ( Name, Phone number, Email ) for best results. The form also includes an “Enter Competition” button (called a “Call-to-Action button”).

Share Buttons & Facebook Comments: Make it easy to share your contest with friends by including share buttons directly on the competition page.

Promote & Share Your Contest: This is a great “reach out” to your SOI as well as past clients and any prospects you have in your database. This is also vital for your contest to be a success!

Promote your contest by:

• Email - single message or through your newsletter or both
• Texting - short message with link to the contest page
• Website/Blog - Create a banner and/or have a dedicated page
• Advertising - Boosted Facebook post or lead ad
• Google My Business - If you have one, create a “new event” or “What’s new” posting
• Facebook Groups - If you are active in some local Facebook Groups, make a post about your contest within the group (check with group admin to see if allowed)
• Online Contest Listings - Here’s a link to 19 of them CLICK HERE 
• See if the local business you purchased your gift card(s) from will allow a small flyer or similar promoting your contest so their patrons can win a “free gift card” to their favorite place.
• End of the Contest: When it’s time to end your contest and choose/announce the winner, try these easy tactics.
• Create a video (or at least a photo) showing you choosing the winner. This increases the chance of those entrants who lost entering your next competition.
• Send a planned series of emails to your competition's entrants thanking them for entering and inviting them to enter into your next contest. This helps to create relationships and (eventually) nurture them into customers.
• Ensure you’re posting your plans for future competitions on Facebook as soon as your competition has finished (when entrants are still engaged). 

While the end of the year is a perfect time of year to run a contest or two, you can continue into and through the new year with either monthly or quarterly contests to help keep your SOI and real estate prospects engaged with you and to build your pages followers.

Contest Ideas:

November – Here are a few ideas that aren’t all Thanksgiving related.

• Favorite seasonal recipe (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Photo contest of Thanksgiving dinner spread (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Movember before and after photo contest (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (19th of November) with a nomination contest
• Veterans Day nomination contest that asks your customers to put forward their favorite Veterans for the chance of the nominated Veteran to win the prize.
• Things I’m Thankful for (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)

December - Here are a few ideas that aren’t all Christmas related.

• Best Holiday light display (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Best Holiday tree (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Ugly sweater contest (all entrants get a chance to win)
• New Years resolutions (all entrants get a chance to win)
• Favorite seasonal recipe (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Nomination contest that asks your customers to put forward a family in need for the chance of the nominated family to win the prize.
• Gingerbread house photo contest (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Best Santa Clause impression (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)
• Best holiday craft (all entrants get a chance to win or most votes/likes wins)

Plan your season marketing 30 days ahead of the month you want to implement for best results!