The real estate industry has undergone some turbulent times – back in 2006 membership at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) had hit an all time high of just above 1.3 million realtors before drastically dropping. In 2012, the NAR had hit rock bottom with just below a million members, but since then, membership numbers have been steadily increasing; and competition is heating up. With fierce competition, you need expert offline and online marketing skills to stand out from the crowd.

Look no further; here is a primer of some of the best ideas to bring in more clients, in addition to having your business listed at the Secretary of State NY online tool for example. This collection of ideas is centered on bringing in more repeat and referral business from clients you have served before.

Organize Your Email List

Email is a critical business tool for two reasons. For starters, unlike social media, email is decentralized, which means no one company owns it. Crowded networks like Facebook reduce your posts’ organic reach to ensure that users have a positive experience; conversely, email gives you a way of directly communicating with clients who already know you.

Second, a huge contact list allows you to take information to anywhere and plug in. To find all your current connections on LinkedIn or Twitter, simply upload your contact list. If you want to run a Facebook ad, create your target audience using the contact list.

Start the process of keeping all your new contacts in one location. Whether you will be collecting the information via phone, email, a simple spreadsheet or a CRM system, pick a system that works for you and stick with it. Next, take time to get past clients into the system and the result is a clean, centralized database on your prospects and clients that you can use to market across various platforms.

Create a Referral Program

You might have one of the best relationships with other real estate businesses like mortgage note buyers Amerinote Xchange, but one way to bring in more business is getting referrals from past clients. In fact, 92 percent of people are more likely to trust companies recommended by family and friends, more than any other form of marketing. Repeat business and referral make up to an amazing 82 percent of all real estate transactions.

If that is not enough to spur you into setting up a referral program, consider this; 91 percent of your customers are willing to offer referrals, but only 11 percent of businesses ask for them. Beyond asking verbally, build your referral leads by giving your clients somewhere they can leave them. An automated referral campaign will do all the heavy work for you.

Get Professionals

You should consider pushing your marketing troubles off your plate and optimize your current efforts by hiring a full-service online marketing company to do it for you. Why do it yourself when you could have an expert do it for you? Effectively managing your marketing efforts is a full-time job in itself.

What would you do with an extra 20 hours in a week? Of course you can buckle down and do it all on your own, but you would have to deal with your marketing issues for hours on end, instead of serving your current customers. Instead, why don’t you let a dedicated team of online marketing experts do it for you for a small fee?

Real estate agents are an important part of the home buying process, but buyers are increasingly doing more legwork online before they involve experts. This means that if you are not active, engaging and networking over the Internet, you are missing out.