What Should My Real Estate Marketing Budget Look Like?

The best way to generate real estate leads for your new condo launches is to get your name out there. But this isn’t always something you can do freely when you’re limited by your budget. So, let’s talk money. How much should you keep aside for successful digital marketing efforts? What should your budget ideally cover? What are the recommended marketing options for property agencies? Which ones help you get the best results? 

Let’s dive right into it!  

The short answer to this question is no, you don’t need a crazy high budget to put your property company out there in Singapore. Even with a tight budget, you can still have a ton of success – provided you start early, be consistent with your efforts, make proper planning, and aim at targeted as well as realistic outcomes. As long as you keep to these conditions, walking a tight budget isn’t a problem. The key is to figure out how to make the most out of your marketing budget – no matter how small.

The reason why you usually don’t get a straight answer to this question is because there’s no one answer for it. This is because your ideal budget should be based on your total revenue. Experts suggest you spend anywhere between a minimum of 5% to 15% of your real estate business’s annual revenue on marketing. Then according to how much you can afford to spend, allocate 10 to 50% of this sum solely for digital marketing. The rest can be used for your traditional marketing efforts. 

For example, if your total annual revenue is 100,000 Sing dollars, then 5 to 15% of this sum would be 5,000 to 15,000 dollars. That would be your total marketing budget. If you chose to set aside 5% of your annual income, then your digital marketing budget would be somewhere from 500 to 2,500 dollars. On the other hand, with 15% you will have 1,500 to 7,500 dollars to create an online presence. 

While this can easily seem like general advice that doesn’t apply specifically to the real estate sector, many property agencies actually use this ‘formula’ to help set up their marketing budget. This is why it’s important to remember that even in one industry, marketing budgets might vary from company to company. Don’t base your budget on your competitor’s budget, especially if their company is older because they’re likely to have more money to spend on marketing. Always spend at your own capacity to avoid overshooting what you have earned. 

After determining your budget, your next step is deciding how to use it. Your marketing expenses would usually fall into any of these two categories; 

• One-time costs (meaning expenses that are spent only once)
• Recurring monthly expenses (social media marketing is an example of this since you will have to pay monthly) 

Then, evaluate your options based on the budget you have set aside to achieve your marketing goals.  Here is what we recommend you use your digital marketing budget for; 

3.1   Web Designs And Development

Does your brokerage really exist if leads and prospects can't find you online? The majority of people who use the Internet to search information on properties for sale, would answer “no”. Why? Think about it.  If you’re looking for a Japanese restaurant to see its menu, and you find no results on Google, wouldn’t you assume the store closed down? The same goes for your real estate business. To build trust with buyers, you need to have a strong online presence. This will help show that you have successfully sold many homes and are an active agent in the industry. 

If websites are too expensive for you, you can always try building a microsite. They are smaller versions of a website, and are much cheaper for the same quality. Your microsite can include an ‘about us’ page, projects you currently have, a ‘contact us’ page, and even a section for your previous client testimonials! Take a look at what this small, but powerful site can do for you here.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements can help boost lead generation in many ways.  They are even considered one of the best and fastest methods to drive online sales. With many features like geotargeting, extensions, and more, Google ads is a recommended marketing technique to increase client walk-in rates and phone enquiries on your new launches. But that isn’t even the best part – the greatest benefit of PPC advertising is that you can start with any budget to create a successful campaign. 

3.3   Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram are the most used apps in Singapore. Can you imagine the number of leads you can get from targeting buyers on these sites?  But remember, just like any marketing technique, consistency is key here. Staying active on these apps is how you build a steady and strong social network. This will help you create successful ad campaigns, promotional offers, word-of-mouth marketing, and customer referrals, all at once! 

Content marketing makes use of blog posts with attractive videos and images as tools to increase brand recognition as well as generate quality property leads. The more frequent, informative, and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for your website or microsite to get discovered and visited by your target audience. 

3.5   Email Marketing

Email marketing is an affordable and effective way to keep your property company, agents, and listings on the minds of buyers. This means when they’re ready to buy a home, you will be the first person they look for.  

4. What marketing activities can my budget cover?

Okay, now let’s take a look at what you can do to promote your new launch condo launches with a different range of budgets; 

• If you have anywhere from 2,000 dollars and below to spend, you could hire digital marketing experts with packages that include services like microsites and google ads. Try to also make self-posts on Facebook, since your budget might not cover that. 
• From 2,000 to 3,000 dollars, you should be able to also have Facebook ads added on to the previous list. 
• From 3,000 onwards, you can have content marketing like blogs, newsletters, guides, and videos. 
• With a 5,000 dollars spending budget, you can get custom designed social media content. This means you won’t have to worry about posting schedules or content creation – they’ll be taken care of for you monthly. 

If you’re still unsure which marketing option to choose that would best suit your real estate lead gen needs and how to use your budget to its full capacity, don’t hesitate to contact our digital marketing specialists! Sell More Condos (SMC) has helped more than 80 property marketing agencies in Singapore to generate thousands of leads. With the combined efforts of our property lead system and services like microsites, Google ads, landing pages and more, we can help you earn up to 90 thousand in comms! Get in touch with our friendly staff and start right away.