As an entrepreneur, your success relies on how well you get your name out there. But do you have a marketing strategy in place to keep your pipeline moving?
That’s what the National Association of REALTORS®’ updated Marketing Strategy and Lead Generation course aims to solve. Launching Dec. 1, the reimagined course gives you the tools to develop a strategy that grows your business and feels authentic to you.
The self-paced class gets you to think strategically about which audiences to prioritize in your marketing; for example, past clients and referred clients, which NAR research says accounts for roughly 28% and 22% of a typical agent or brokers’ business. And because no one wants to waste precious time and money, you’ll learn how to track and evaluate what’s working, so you can adjust your strategy.
In addition to modernized content, the course has undergone a top-to-bottom user experience makeover to become less text-heavy, more interactive, rooted in exercising real-world skills and hosted on a platform that provides consistency and reliability.
It's been a year-long journey to get here.
The Journey to Better Courses
When NAR's education department, the Center for REALTOR Development (CRD), charted how it was going to improve its educational offerings the team decided that data would guide its decision making.
With 19 credential and competency courses, even determining which classes to prioritize first, was a data-driven expedition.
The team looked at several factors. They assembled diverse focus groups to assess which topics had the highest market demand, analyzed past enrollment and revenue data to understand performance and looked at how much effort would be needed to modernize the content and presentation of each course.
Giving themselves an ambitious Dec. 1 deadline, CRD landed on their starting lineup: Pricing Strategy Advisor, Accredited Buyer’s Representative®, At Home With Diversity®, Seniors Real Estate Specialist®, Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource and Marketing Strategy and Lead Generation.
The marketing course became the test case.
Originally launched in 2019, the certificate course was updated every other year and had recently gone through legal review, making it a prime first candidate.
"It became imperative that we start small to build out the process, but also update a course which is strategically important," says Sneha Pandey, who is leading CRD's course modernization effort. “Through focus groups and research we found that 33% of REALTORS® said building their business through branding, reputation and lead generation was a top priority.”
Next, the team completed a full audit of the training, annotating issues with flow, usability and practical application. They also engaged a third-party subject matter expert to review content and provide relatable real-world examples and applications.
Consulting Industry Experts
Ashley Ogden has a knack for generating revenue.
At Zillow she oversaw its largest marketing revenue segment that drove over $80 million a year back to the company, at inventory management company Cin7 she developed new marketing strategies to generate business, and while working at RentSpree she helped grow a partner's marketing campaigns by 351% year-over-year.
"If you had to sum it up in one word, [what] I'm known for is conversion," says Ogden, who now works at HomezAi and Mentorical.
She was tapped by CRD to provide feedback and real-world lessons and examples to enhance the marketing course.
From there, a third-party vendor—which underwent its own rigorous selection process based on speed, cost, track record and vision of the course— took CRD's audit notes and Ogden's lessons and impressions to create something engaging, interactive and "actionable."
"It really focuses on the modern-day market and it's really actionable on what users need to do right now, especially as we head into this stage of AI and social media and all these different technology features that feel a bit overwhelming," Ogden says. "Users know exactly what to walk away with and take action on so they can start generating business right away."
She particularly enjoyed the flow which she says "kept me on my toes" without information dumping.
"All of a sudden we're in this era where a lot of brokerages and agents are becoming full media teams and they haven't had to do that strategy before," Ogden says.
Besides learning about getting found through search engine optimization and AI optimization, she says the course "really focuses on how we need to engage with our different clientele."
What Next?
By December 1, this process will be replicated with five more courses. And that's just a fraction of NAR's education overhaul.
The association is simultaneously standardizing instructor qualifications, migrating its pages and content to a better platform and working to launch an app early next year.
That goal of a modernized education engine will be a big topic at NAR's NXT conference early next month.
Attendees will hear directly from the team, have the chance to ask questions during networking sessions, and get a sneak peek of the new courses and platform at the expo. The first verified instructor training course will also take place in the days leading up to the conference.
