30 Real Estate Marketing Tools Every Agent Needs for 2023

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 we updated this list of the best tools available for agents and brokers in 2023. We also included links to our in-depth reviews, buyer’s guides, and how-to articles so you can get the most from each app, service, or piece of software we cover. 

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:

Real Estate Marketing Tool Category	Best Tools
Websites	Real Geeks, Propertybase, WordPress, Placester, Luxury Presence, Sierra Interactive
Social Media Tools	PorchLyte, Coffee & Contracts, Hootsuite, Buffer, Tailwind
Marketing-focused CRMs	LionDesk, IXACT Contact
Community Engagement Tools	Parkbench
Graphic Design Tools	LabCoat Agents Marketing Center, Adobe Photoshop, Canva, Kapwing, Unsplash
Video Production Tools	Rode VideoMicro, DJI OM 5, Lumen5, Animoto, Teleprompter Pro
SEO Tools	Ahrefs, Semrush
SMS Marketing Tools	SlickText, EZ Texting
AI Marketing Tools	ChatGPT, Copy.ai

Websites

Real Geeks

Cost: $299 per month

Learning curve: Low

As 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

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Propertybase

Cost: Starting at $89 per user, per month

Learning curve: Low

Originally Boston Logic, Propertybase is the professional real estate team’s secret weapon. The company offers 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

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DIY WordPress Website

Cost: Free to $5,000 and up

Learning curve: High

If 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 significant. You’ll also need to pay to add features like IDX listings, which come standard with most real estate websites. Finally, while designing it yourself may be free, you will need to pay for hosting (starting at around $5 per month) and domain registration costs (starting at $10 per year for low-demand URLs).

Visit WordPress

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Placester

Cost: Starting at $119 per month

Learning curve: Medium

If 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

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Luxury Presence

Cost: Starting at $500 per month

Learning curve: Low

If you’re ready to step into sophistication, Luxury Presence provides an all-in-one solution from website design to social media and content management to SEO optimization. With gorgeous, award-winning website design and integrated marketing solutions, Luxury Presence will elevate your real estate marketing to the next level. It’s definitely on the pricier side, but you’ll get a show-stopping, high-converting IDX website optimized for lead generation that integrates with your favorite third-party platforms.

Visit Luxury Presence

Sierra Interactive

Cost: Starting at $399 per month

Learning curve: Low

Looking 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 artificial intelligence (AI) tool then interacts with and prequalifies your leads for you. Sierra Interactive is more than a website—it’s a fully integrated marketing system.

Visit Sierra Interactive

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If you’ve been waiting for an excuse to go all-in on social media this year, you could do worse than reading the latest National Association of Realtors (NAR) technology survey. They found that a whopping 46% of Realtors said they got their highest-quality leads from social media. While creativity and consistency matter most when it comes to success on social media marketing, the right tool will save you time, money, and headaches.

PorchLyte

Cost: $47 per month

Learning curve: Low

Founded by Tracy Henning, a Realtor with more than 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. Tracy 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

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Coffee & Contracts

Cost: $54 per month

Learning curve: Low

Another 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: Low

Hootsuite 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 such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more from one app.

Visit Hootsuite

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Buffer

Cost: Free to $99 per month

Learning curve: Low

Like Hootsuite, Buffer also lets agents plan, create, and schedule social media posts. They have a cool feature that allows you to 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 $15 a month, though.

Visit Buffer

Tailwind

Cost: Free to $19.98 per month

Learning curve: Low

Spend lots of time on Pinterest or Instagram? Then an app like Tailwind is right up your alley. You can use Tailwind to not only schedule social media posts for these two platforms, but also to discover key influencers on Pinterest and trending hashtags on Instagram. Even better, Tailwind has a free limited version of the app. 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’ll cut your bill in half.

Visit Tailwind

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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.

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LionDesk

Cost: $21 per month

Learning curve: Medium

LionDesk 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 most other CRM companies charge.

Visit LionDesk

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IXACT Contact

Cost: $33 per user, per month

Learning curve: Medium

When 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. They even offer a free five-week trial to help you better understand whether this marketing-focused CRM will work for you.

Visit IXACT Contact

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Parkbench

Cost: $3,500-$6,500 a year on average

Learning curve: Low

When it comes to building relationships with local businesses that will get you tons of referrals, there’s only one game in town. Parkbench is the only real estate marketing tool that helps you create a hyperlocal website that will build relationships with leads and nurture them into becoming clients.

Visit Parkbench

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Love them or hate them, graphic design tools are a must have in every real estate agent’s marketing toolkit. The ones we picked here take the guesswork out of creating beautiful graphics for your website, social media, and print.

Canva

Cost: Free to $30 per month

Learning curve: Medium

Designed as a Photoshop replacement for the non-tech-savvy, Canva is perfect for agents who don’t have the time to dive into the deep end and 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

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LabCoat Agents Marketing Center

Cost: $59 per month

Learning curve: Low

LCA Marketing Center is like Canva on steroids. It gives you all the super-easy-to-use design tools Canva does but is specifically 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 LabCoat Agents Marketing

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Adobe Photoshop

Cost: $20.99 per month

Learning curve: High

Of course, if you want to get really serious about design, 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

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Kapwing

Cost: Free to $20 per month

Learning curve: Low

Have you ever wondered how we make all those hilarious memes (hey, our mothers think they’re funny) that we share on social media? The answer is a 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

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Unsplash

Cost: Free

Learning curve: Low

Venture capital-backed Unsplash is the best source for royalty-free images online. Full stop. This is where we get most 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

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If we have to explain to you why video is a crucial real estate marketing tool in 2023, 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.

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Rode VideoMicro

Cost: $59

Learning curve: Low

This tiny little 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

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DJI OM 5

Cost: $159

Learning curve: Low

Once 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 as well as a handheld stabilizer for recording listing videos or neighborhood tours. Think of it as a professional-grade selfie stick.

Visit DJI OM 5

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Lumen5

Cost: $149 per month

Learning curve: Medium

Lumen5 is the easy way to make professional-looking explainer videos with text, stock video, and more. The company also offers 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

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Animoto

Cost: $15 per month

Learning curve: Medium

Animoto is a drag-and-drop video editor 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

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Teleprompter Pro 

Cost: $7.99 per month

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. It works just like the teleprompters politicians and actors use, but it’s compatible with your laptop, iPad, and even 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.

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Ahrefs

Cost: $99 per month

Learning curve: Medium

Over 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

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Semrush

Cost: $83 per month

Learning curve: Medium

If 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

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If you haven’t added text messages to your marketing tool kit yet, you might be leaving money on the table. A study by SMS Comparison found that 90% of people prefer text ads to cold calls or emails. Another study found that text messages have a whopping 98% open rate compared to just 33% for real estate emails.

SlickText

Cost: $139 per month

Learning curve: Low

SlickText 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

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EZ Texting

Cost: $39 to $119 per month

Learning curve: Low

EZ 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

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Since artificial intelligence (AI) technology seems to be changing faster than a new agent answers calls from unknown numbers, we knew we needed to include AI marketing tools in this update. We promise to keep you as up to date with the latest developments as humanly possible.

Cost: Free-$20 per month

Learning curve: Medium

The most recent version of OpenAI’s chatbot software, ChatGPT 4, might just be the most powerful real estate marketing tool ever created. Yes, it still sometimes gets the facts wrong or even makes them up. But with the right prompts, you can use it to write entire email drip sequences, property descriptions, ad copy, e-books, or pretty much anything else you’d want to write—in 30 seconds.

Visit ChatGPT

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Cost: Free-$36 per month

Learning curve: Medium

As powerful as ChatGPT 4 is, when it comes to writing and optimizing copy for your website or Facebook ads, Copy.ai is a better choice. Here’s why. In order to use ChatGPT effectively, you have to know exactly what you want and how to ask for it. While that might work fine for a listing description, writing persuasive ad copy is a little trickier. Copy.ai makes it easy by allowing you to choose proven copywriting formulas like the AIDA model before it generates a response.

Visit Copy.ai

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Methodology: How We Chose the Best Real Estate Marketing Tools

Even though our team has more than 50 years of combined real estate experience, choosing the best marketing tools that will work for most agents was not easy. To add a degree of objectivity to our personal ratings, we looked at five key criteria: 

• Utility: Does the tool solve a common marketing problem for most agents? 
• Pricing: Is the tool affordable? If not, does it offer working agents a good return on investment? 
• Ease of use: Can the average Realtor learn how to use the tool quickly and easily? 
• Network effect: Is it popular with agents? Is there an active community that gives agents support and best practices to use the tool? 

Over to You

Are you using a killer real estate agent marketing tool we forgot? Let us know in the comment section below or join the conversation on our Facebook Mastermind Group here.