Turning Your Brokerage Marketing Tools into a Profit Center

Brokerages are a for-profit business, but they're spending more money than ever before running their business. With thinning margins, it's becoming more challenging to be profitable as real estate agents are expecting more for their money. This leads to brokerages being squeezed, and they are the ones making less money as they have to find ways to monetize AND provide more value to their agents.

Most brokerages usually have one to three revenue streams to begin with. The first stream is the income you as the broker-owner are personally responsible for and can control. The second stream comes from monthly agent dues, and the last stream comes from what your agents generate and the commissions from your agent splits. Brokerages are looking for new and additional revenue streams to implement all the time.

Large brokerages need to retain their top talent while smaller brokerages are looking to attract the talent needed to be able to compete and grow. Brokerages, regardless of size, need to provide value to their agents—otherwise they will look to join a brokerage that does.

So, what are brokerages doing?

Marketing tools not only provide value to real estate agents, but they can also empower their agents to become more active by increasing their marketing output while keeping within the brokerages branding.

A common trend in brokerages these days is to provide a suite of marketing tools to agents. By providing a marketing tool that is easy to use, agents can become more active by spending less time marketing and more time doing what they do best—getting new listings and selling more properties. Depending how the product is rolled out, brokerages have the opportunity to turn their marketing tools from a cost center to a profit center.

Having the benefit of working with hundreds of brokerages every day, Amarki has learned that brokerages want to include marketing tools as either a value-add service to their agents or they want to leverage the marketing tools as a new revenue stream for the brokerage. Like all paths, there are pros and cons to each that brokerages need to consider when determining their next steps.

For brokerages looking to add value to their agents, they can:

• Roll out the marketing tool as a completely free offering to their agents with limited functionality. If the agent(s) wants to upgrade their account at any time to a paid version, they can do so on their own accord and at their own expense
• Brokerages can choose to roll out a paid version giving a larger assortment of features or capabilities within the marketing tool—but this is at the cost of the brokerage

For brokerages wanting to create a new revenue stream, they can:

• Charge their agents a nominal fee to cover the costs of administering the tool
• Roll out a paid version which includes a small markup, providing a new revenue stream

Regardless of the path the brokerage decides, the end result should provide full control of the marketing tool, including the content, templates and branding on the materials within. In addition, the agents will have a new tool to help market themselves and their properties which will benefit both the brokerage and agent.

For more information or to start a conversation about setting up a pilot program with the above benefits to your brokerage, please feel free to book a meeting using the following scheduler HERE.

Learn more about Amarki and register for your account by clicking here.

About Amarki: Amarki was built by real estate experts for brokerages and agents based on years of industry experience and firsthand feedback. We developed a marketing tool accessible to anyone, no matter the experience or marketing budget. By providing an intuitive tool that works "for" the agent, Amarki is able to remove the complexity of marketing tasks, making agents more active.