If you’re not a tech geek, keeping up with the latest and greatest real estate marketing tools can be a challenge. That’s why compiled this list of the best tools available for Realtors in 2023. We also included links to in-depth reviews, buyer’s guides, and how-to articles so you can get the most from each tool.
Click on a category below to jump to descriptions and in-depth reviews of The Close’s top picks for the best real estate marketing tools of 2023:
Websites
Real Geeks
Cost: $299 per month
Learning curve: LowAs one of the earliest providers of all-in-one IDX websites and customer relationship management (CRM) tools, Real Geeks offers agents, teams, and brokerages a true turnkey solution for their online marketing efforts. There are way, way too many features to list here, but you will get a gorgeous IDX website optimized for lead generation, a powerful CRM, a property valuation tool, SMS texting, market reports, and—yeah, way too much to list here.
Visit Real Geeks
Real Geeks Review: An In-depth Look at Features & Pricing
Propertybase
Cost: Starting at $89 per user, per month
Learning curve: LowOriginally Boston Logic, Propertybase is the professional real estate team’s secret weapon. They offer killer IDX websites with mapping features as well as an integrated CRM that is designed to help teams nurture leads long term and drive more referrals and business. If you already have a website, they offer a standalone CRM that was recently revamped to be even more effective at keeping teams organized and marketing like Fortune 500 companies.
Visit Propertybase
Propertybase GO Review: The Next Generation of Real Estate CRM?
DIY WordPress Website
Cost: Free to $5,000 and up
Learning curve: HighIf you’re a bit more tech-savvy and want to get your hands dirty, then you might want to try your hand at building a WordPress website to show off your brand online. While WordPress is easy to use compared to building a site from scratch, the learning curve for non-tech-savvy agents is high. You’ll also need to pay to add features like IDX listings, which come standard with most real estate websites.
Visit WordPress
Placester
Cost: Starting at $119 per month
Learning curve: MediumIf you want a done-for-you website without the hassle of hiring a web designer, Placester is probably your best bet. Answer a few questions about your personal brand and Placester will have your website up and running in just a few hours. Even better, you get unlimited website updates. Forever.
Visit Placester
Placester Review: Is It Really the Best Real Estate Website Builder?
Luxury Presence
Cost: Starting at $500 per month
Learning curve: LowIf you’re ready to step into sophistication, Luxury Presence provides an all-in-one solution from website, to social media and content management, to SEO optimization. With gorgeous, award-winning website design to integrated marketing solutions, Luxury Presence will elevate your real estate business to the next level. You’ll get a show-stopping, high-converting IDX website optimized for lead generation capture that integrates with your favorite third party platforms.
Visit Luxury Presence
Sierra Interactive
Cost: Starting at $399 per month
Learning curve: LowReady to take your lead gen to the next level? Sierra Interactive offers stunning IDX websites that integrate with a powerful lead generation solution. They will manage your digital ad campaigns, driving traffic to a fully integrated CRM. Sierra Interactive’s powerful AI tool then interacts with and pre-qualifies your leads for you. Sierra Interactive is more than a website – it’s a fully integrated marketing system.
Visit Sierra Interactive
Social Media Tools
PorchLyte
Cost: $47 per month
Learning curve: LowFounded by Tracey Henning, a Realtor with 27 years of experience, PorchLyte offers agents social media posts, lead magnets, video scripts, blog posts, and training to put it all together into an unstoppable social media presence. She also runs an exclusive Facebook community to share referrals and swap social media strategies.
Close readers can claim seven days of ready-to-go customizable social media templates from PorchLyte for free.
Visit PorchLyte
Coffee & Contracts
Cost: $54 per month
Learning curve: LowAnother Realtor-founded company, Coffee & Contracts offers agents gorgeous and trendy templates for Instagram. Founder Haley Ingram calls it “Your $54-a-month Marketing Manager,” and we couldn’t agree more. Hiring a social media manager who keeps up with the latest trends as Haley does would easily cost you 10 times what she charges. Assuming you could even find one! Close readers get $15 off their first month using promo code THECLOSE.
Visit Coffee & Contracts
Hootsuite
Cost: $29 to $599 per month
Learning curve: LowHootsuite is the social media software that 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies trust to plan, create, and schedule their social media posts to maximize views and engagement. Hootsuite lets you store frequently used assets like images and logos so you can create and schedule social media content for multiple channels like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more from one app.
Visit Hootsuite
Buffer
Cost: Free to $99 per month
Learning curve: LowLike Hootsuite, Buffer also lets agents plan, create, and schedule social media posts. They also have a cool feature that lets you add the first comment to your Instagram posts to entice your followers to engage and include more info about your post. The best part is that, unlike Hootsuite, Buffer offers a limited free version that lets you manage three social accounts and schedule up to 10 posts. Most teams will probably opt to upgrade to the Pro plan for only $15 a month, though.
Visit Buffer
Tailwind
Cost: Free to $9.99 per month
Learning curve: LowSpend lots of time on Pinterest or Instagram? Then an app like Tailwind is right up your alley. Tailwind lets you schedule social media posts for Pinterest and Instagram but also helps you discover key influencers to work with on Pinterest and trending hashtags to post with on Instagram. Even better, Tailwind has a free trial that lasts forever, so you can use a limited version of the app without paying a dime. Of course, if you want to upgrade, Tailwind is only $9.99 per channel, per month. So if you only want to use Tailwind for Instagram, you’re in luck.
Visit Tailwind
Marketing-focused CRMs
Speaking of automating relationships, a great customer relationship management (CRM) tool can do just that but on an even higher level than your phone, albeit with a less personal touch. That said, you can use it to automate text messages and schedule phone calls, so there’s a pretty good argument that your CRM is even more important than your phone for marketing. Here are two killer CRMs for individual agents and teams.
LionDesk
Cost: $21 per month
Learning curve: MediumLionDesk is a lightweight, affordable, and easy-to-use CRM that has everything you need to start organizing and automating your relationships, and with transaction management thrown in for good measure. Even better, you can get set up with LionDesk starting at just $21 per month—less than half what other CRM companies charge.
Visit LionDesk
LionDesk CRM Review: Is It the New King of the Real Estate CRM Jungle?
IXACT Contact
Cost: $33 per user, per month
Learning curve: MediumWhen it comes to bang for your buck from a CRM with great marketing tools, IXACT Contact is hard to beat. For just $33 per month, IXACT Contact users get marketing extras like social media automation, a beautiful agent website, and an automated monthly e-newsletter. Agents even get “concierge” setup help and unlimited phone support to make sure they’re getting the best return on investment (ROI).
Click here to learn more and start your free five-week trial to check out this marketing-focused CRM.
Community Engagement Tools
Parkbench
Cost: Varies by ZIP code
Learning curve: LowWhen it comes to building relationships with local businesses that will get you tons of referrals, there’s only one game in town: Parkbench. Parkbench is the only real estate marketing tool that gives you a turnkey solution to building relationships and nurturing them to generate referrals.
Visit Parkbench
How Parkbench Drives Community Connection & Generates Leads
Graphic Design Tools
Lab Coat Agents Marketing Center
Cost: $59 per month
Learning curve: LowLCA Marketing Center is like Canva on steroids. It gives you all the super-easy-to-use design tools Canva does but is only for real estate agents. That means you won’t have to struggle to force restaurant templates to work for your flyers. The designs are also top-notch and very professional-looking.
Visit Lab Coat Age nts Marketing
Adobe Photoshop
Cost: $20.99 per month
Learning curve: HighOf course, if you want to get really serious, then Adobe Photoshop is a no-brainer. It is and has been the choice of every serious graphic design professional for more than 20 years now. Facing stiff competition from the likes of LCA Marketing Center and Canva, prices have gone down dramatically. The learning curve is high, though, so Photoshop will require an investment of time and effort to pay off.
Visit Adobe Photoshop
Real Estate Graphic Design: The Ultimate Guide (DIY Tools & Tips)
Canva
Cost: Free to $30 per month
Learning curve: MediumDesigned as a Photoshop replacement for the non-tech-savvy, Canva is a must-have for agents who don’t have the time to learn Photoshop, or just want to create great-looking visual assets right away. It works a lot like Photoshop—the only difference is that it doesn’t offer nearly as many features. Instead, you get thousands of predesigned templates that you can customize and make your own.
Visit Canva
Canva for Real Estate Agents: The Ultimate Guide
Kapwing
Cost: Free to $20 per month
Learning curve: LowHave you ever wondered how we make all those hilarious memes (our mothers think they’re funny) that we share on social media? The answer is our secret meme-making weapon called Kapwing. Kapwing offers tons of meme templates that you can quickly and easily customize, as you can with Canva. Kapwing also lets you make and edit videos, add subtitles, add music to videos, and more.
Visit Kapwing
21 Real Estate Videos Top Agents Use To Generate & Nurture Leads
Unsplash
Cost: Free
Learning curve: LowVenture capital-backed Unsplash is the best source for royalty-free images online. Full stop. This is where we get 99% of our stock photos for The Close. The only drawback is that the selection of images is limited compared to other sources. The quality is higher, though, so this should be your first choice for royalty-free photos.
Visit Unsplash
Video Production Tools
If we have to explain why video is a crucial real estate marketing tool in 2022, you might just be living on another planet. Video is no longer a bonus—it’s increasingly the primary way your leads will interact with your brand.
Rode VideoMicro
Cost: $59
Learning curve: LowThis tiny little video microphone will make your videos sound professional instead of crummy. Sound is even more important than image quality when it comes to video production. After all, your audience isn’t watching your videos to see what you look like. They want to hear what you have to say. If you buy anything to improve your videos, this should be it.
Visit Rode VideoMicro
21 Real Estate Videos Top Agents Use To Generate & Nurture Leads
DJI OM 5
Cost: $159
Learning curve: LowOnce you have your audio sorted out you’re going to need a tool to make sure your video is always crisp, clear, and in-focus no matter what you’re shooting. The DJI OM 5 is the perfect tool for the job. The OM 5 can be used as a tripod for recording educational videos or podcasts at your desk, and a handheld stabilizer for recording listing videos or neighborhood tours. Think of it as a professional-grade selfie stick.
Visit DJI OM 5
Instagram Stories for Agents: 12 Easy Ways to Drive Engagement
Lumen5
Cost: Free to $149 per month
Learning curve: MediumLumen5 is the easy way to make professional-looking explainer videos with text, stock video, and more. Lumen5 has templates for social media as well as prosumer-level tools to help you create videos that look like they came from a Hollywood studio.
Visit Lumen5
Animoto
Cost: Free to $15 per month
Learning curve: MediumAnimoto is a drag-and-drop video editor that is designed for small businesses. It’s easy to use and gets you slick, professional-looking results without the hassle. Perfect for making quick listing videos, promotional videos, or anything else you want to make that needs to look and sound great.
Visit Animoto
Teleprompter Pro
Cost: $7.99
Learning curve: MediumIf you’re using scripts for your videos (and you should be), then an app like Teleprompter Pro will make your life much easier. Teleprompter Pro works just like the teleprompters politicians and actors use, but it works on your laptop, IPad, or even with professional teleprompter machines. It takes some getting used to, but once you start using one, you’ll never go back. Instead of just winging it and having to edit out all your uhhhhs and ummms, you can just read your script like a pro.
Cost: $7.99
Learning curve: Medium
If you’re using scripts for your videos (and you should be), then an app like Teleprompter Pro will make your life much easier. Teleprompter Pro works just like the teleprompters politicians and actors use, but it works on your laptop, IPad, or even with professional teleprompter machines. It takes some getting used to, but once you start using one, you’ll never go back. Instead of just winging it and having to edit out all your uhhhhs and ummms, you can just read your script like a pro.
SEO Tools
Ahrefs
Cost: $99 per month
Learning curve: MediumOver the past few years, Ahrefs has managed to wrestle the throne away from Moz and become the most accurate and most useful search engine optimization (SEO) tool on the market. It lets you take the guesswork out of deciding which articles to write by showing the keywords with the most traffic and the lowest difficulty to rank for. Don’t tell them I told you this, but you could theoretically pay for just one month and research your entire content runway for the year. If you’re more serious about SEO, then a monthly subscription makes more sense.
Visit Ahrefs
Semrush
Cost: $83 per month
Learning curve: MediumIf you want to get serious about beating the competition, then Semrush is an invaluable marketing tool. It lets you spy on the competition and figure out what keywords they’re ranking for, how much traffic they’re getting, and who is linking to them.
Visit Semrush
SMS Marketing Tools
SlickText
Cost: Free to $139 per month
Learning curve: LowSlickText lets agents send bulk text messages for new listings or open house details, schedule texts, add pictures, and set up opt-in text messaging lists to increase engagement automatically. If you start using SlickText to market to your clients and sphere, be ready to give your thumbs a workout.
Visit SlickText
EZ Texting
Cost: $39 to $119 per month
Learning curve: LowEZ Texting lets real estate agents build SMS lists that people can subscribe to by texting a keyword to their numbers. You can also use EZ Texting to create SMS polls, drip campaigns, and more.
Visit EZ Texting
Over to You
Are you using a killer real estate agent marketing tool we forgot? Let us know in the comments or join our Facebook Mastermind Group here.