Marketing your real estate business is a year-round endeavor.

From email blasts to online events and good old-fashioned snail mail, there are dozens of creative ways to create brand awareness within your market. An excellent target marketing strategy comes with a focus on each season.

Remember that the key to target marketing is to segment your market. Consistency is essential, whether you’re doing that by season or focusing on separate campaigns. Patten Title has compiled a list of ideas to help you stay ahead of your marketing calendar and ensure you can send out any direct mail campaigns at least a month in advance.

*Hint: use these tips along with Patten Title’s Business Planning for the New Year guide to set up your full yearly calendar.

• Host a Winter Webinar: Take to Zoom to teach homeowners how to prepare their homes for winter. Partner with a local handyman that can demonstrate key techniques, like wrapping pipes or flushing a water heater.
• Recipes: Send postcards with a favorite hot chocolate or holiday cookie recipe. On social media, demonstrate how to make it, then use the opportunity to hand deliver some to your clients as pop-bys!
• Winter Weather Fun: Develop a list of favorite snow day activities to have on hand in case severe weather hits.
• Show Off Your Altruism: Now is the time to encourage volunteering by showing your business in action. Use social media or your weekly or monthly newsletter to highlight places in your area that need volunteers.
• Games: Compile information about the X-Games (late January) to appeal to the whole family.
• Maintenance Schedule: Remind clients of the best times to treat a lawn or clean their gutters. Other to-do items include: inspecting a roof, getting a check-up for the HVAC system and sealing doors and windows. You can also create and send a yearly calendar highlighting these items or add reminders to your regular newsletters. Then tie this back to point #1 – you now have a list of potential topics to do live stream teachings on how to accomplish all these maintenance tasks.
• Super Bowl Fever: Take advantage of Super Bowl excitement (February)! Create lists of top party ideas, hosting trends, and include a contest for the best snack recipe.
• Rodeo Guides: Capitalize on Texas Rodeo season with guides to your area’s top rodeos, where to park, where to sit, what to wear, what to expect, and include a schedule of all rodeos throughout the state.

• Curb Appeal: Many clients receive tax refunds in the spring. Remind your audience about the importance of curb appeal with easy solutions to enhance their own properties just as the market starts to heat up.
• Spring Cleaning Checklist: Help your clients spring clean their homes with a checklist of sprucing. You can also develop a digital “spring cleaning boot camp” on social media that helps clients attack one part of their home each weekend. Take part in the challenge and engage your clients with updates from your own decluttering.
• College Basketball: Create an online contest for “March Madness” that keeps your name in front of customers throughout the tournament.
• Spring Clean Your Social Media: Prepare your social channels for the busy season by updating your profile photos, checking your “about” section, and setting your spring content calendar. This is also a great opportunity to showcase a “digital spring clean” whereby you clean out your digital products as well because no one likes a cluttered home screen on their phone!
• Time Change: Through both mail and social media, develop a cute and simple reminder for customers to move their clocks forward. This could also create a fun opportunity for creative pop-bys.
• Concerts and Texas Summer Activities: Prepare for summer with a list of local festivals and concerts in the area for music lovers. You can also offer plenty of summer vacation ideas to start planning for. Patten Title offers a whole library of pieces that can help with this.
• Referral Programs: Help your former clients with a referral program that brings in new clients. Partner with other local businesses for gift cards or services. Keep in mind the season when implementing this. Maybe as part of spring, partner with a gardening company that can offer discounted fertilizations to your clients.
• Homestead Exemption: Remind your first-time buyers to file for their Homestead Exemption.
• Hunting and Fishing: Appeal to hunting and fishing enthusiasts with info about bag limits and the costs of licenses.
• Property Taxes: Provide information to new owners about how their Texas property taxes are calculated as well as how to protest property taxes down the line.

• Plan for Hurricane Season: Help your clients secure their homes for hurricane season, which typically starts June 1 in Texas.
• #MakeMemories: All parents can use a list of fun indoor summertime activities for when it’s too hot or rainy to play outside. Create a catchy hashtag to let families share their own ideas.
• Football: Prep for the high school football season (mid-August) and the college season (late August) with schedules and tailgating tips. Partner with local media to be a part of their guide. For clients new to football, give them a quick 101 on the sport.
• Picnics: Develop a map of local picnic hot spots and hidden gems. Be sure to add a few recipes that travel well.
• Swimming: Let new locals in on the secrets of the best places to swim indoors and outdoors. Include the best splash pads and waterparks for kids. Partner with a local waterpark or see if you can provide a discount for ticket purchases.
• Summer Celebrations: No one celebrates the Fourth of July like the Lone Star State. Make sure your clients know about local festivals for July 4, Memorial Day and Labor Day. You can reuse your picnic and barbeque tips or host a community picnic of your own.
• Summer ‘Holiday’ Months: Did you know that June is National Homeownership Month or that July is National Hot Dog Month? Tap into national celebration months with social media photo contests or sharing opportunities. Your team could also try wacky events on “fun” days like Superman Day (June 12) or shark week (July).

• Back to School: Develop a list of what college-aged kids need to take to school. Targeted marketing allows you to send this list only to your clients with college students in the family (especially those with first-year attendees) while also posting it on social media for everyone.
• Set Your Fall Business Plan: Prepare for the season — and the following year — with a business plan.
• Halloween: Provide trick-or-treating safety tips for families or develop a business plan to market during the spooky season.
• Fall Festive Recipes: Take advantage of seasonal produce (like pumpkin and apples) to host a recipe contest or post your family’s favorites.
• Shopping Season: Get ahead of Black Friday with a holiday shopping guide. Partner with other #shoplocal businesses to highlight their seasonal sales.
• Energy Efficiency: Prepare your clients to keep their homes energy efficient during the holidays. (You can also be social media efficient by picking a week to post a different tip each day on your accounts and stretch out your marketing efforts.)