Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
All the news says Chattanooga is one of the most overpriced markets in America. Even so, the city on the Tennessee River is also projected to see huge growth in real estate sales for 2023. Chattanooga ranks as the ninth hottest market for this year according to the new rankings by Realtor.com. With opportunity in focus, we thought it's high time we looked at some of the city and region's most talented professionals. Bull or Bear market, choosing the best is always advisable. Here's one superhero and three hardworking, up and coming real estate pros in focus.
Selecting the real estate professional to take our first spot this week was a no-brainer. Doug Edrington’s family’s reputation and numbers are impressive by anyone’s standards. 1,225 five-star Zillow reviews on 392 sales in the past year is an astounding accomplishment. Add to this 452 five-star reviews on Google, and a stellar online marketing effort. The group has four thousand plus Facebook fans, and the Berkshire Hathaway agency is all over the pages of local newspapers. With a near-perfect Instagram effort, success seems like a foregone concussion.
Edrington uses the cookie-cutter Berkshire website, but who can blame him since theirs are top-notch? But, I’ll tell you. What impresses me most about Edrington’s effort is his understanding of how social media, and particularly video marketing works. Check out his LinkedIn network. Then there’s his firm's focused engagement of vlogs and Youtube real estate channels with big follower counts to get his message out. This is brilliant, compared to how most agents delve into digital media. Tom Ferry alone has more than half a million subscribers, and Edrinton got 11k views for his talk with Ferry. Bottom line, take notes real estate pros.
Sarah Ketterer of the Keller Williams Realty Downtown office has had 72 sales in the past year, and all by herself. There’s a huge difference between 300 sales by a team, and an agent hitting the bricks to pull in 72 alone. And doing so with 139 flawless reviews overall is indicative of a top-notch agent. Looking at Ketterer’s social footprint, one finds more evidence that this lady is putting in the time and effort any client would expect.
Ketterer’s Facebook strategy is almost flawless, and she’s garnered over 90 perfect reviews from fans there, which is remarkable if you know anything about Facebook. The same goes for her Instagram effort where she’s accumulated 1,717 followers. And her Keller Williams website? Well, it needs a lot of work. On LinkedIn, she’s past the 500 connections mark, which I am sure she will improve upon. She’s only been in the business for about seven years, and it takes a good deal of time to build a brand via all the necessary channels. Ketterer is also not up to speed in traditional media mentions, but she was featured by Property Spark for he Facebook efforts.
Lori Montieth is another Zillow Premier Agent running back in the pack behind Edrington. In the past year, her team sold 224 properties and she too garnered hundred of five-star Zillow reviews. Her Keller Williams website is functional, if not SEO amazing and beautiful, but she’s trying to make up for it with a nice Facebook engagement. Unfortunately, I cannot find an Instagram channel. She does, however, have a Youtube channel with no content posted so far.
Montieth’s biggest advantage seems to be she’s well-covered in local media as compared to most of the other Tennessee professionals. Her listings also show up on Patch and other regionalized media platforms, which I find innovative. The team’s fragmented marketing scheme is kind of a shame because, with a little effort, Montieth could expand her reach considerably. Still, 224 sales in a year are impressive even if garnered through networking and traditional real estate efforts.
Whitney Harvey has the look of a superstar just getting fired up. She’s engaged across social media and has gotten some notice for her efforts already. Though she’s only had 29 sales this past year, she’s done so while garnering perfect reviews from clients on Zillow. She has no Google reviews thus far, but a strong LinkedIn presence suggests she’s pushing the networking leads harder than advertising and other methods.
Harvey has only been in real estate for five years now, but her efforts mirror those of agents with far more experience. She works as an affiliate in Tennessee and is licensed in Georgia as well. She made this list because of her momentum and making all the right moves early in her career. Property Spark rated her #11 in social media for Chattanooga, I’ll wage she’s #1 in two years from now. Remind me I said this.
