Word-of-mouth is definitely their marketing go-to. They (and their friends) prefer recommendations, so if you can start with one great client, and build from there – you’ll start to gain a positive reputation (not the bad repuation you’ll get from going door-to-door in a nice neighborhood).
References :

Opinion: Knocking on doors is good. Your gimmick is bad.

It’ll be difficult, but certainly not impossible, to compete with the Realtor who has staked out that community as his "farm."

You will have to establish a relationship with those in the community. That’s why I said knocking on doors is good. So is direct mail. So is community involvement…even though you don’t live in that community. The trick is to get the potential sellers to think of you–and to trust you–when they need to sell a home.

Set up a marketing program. Let’s say personal contact with every household every 6 months through door knocking. That’s an average of 6 houses a day.

And do some sort of volunteer thing in the community twice a year.

Include in your marketing program some sort of contact every month. That can be a postcard, a letter, a door hanger, a telephone call (watch out for the CANSPAM Act), or something else. Make the information useful or informative. Like "Here’s what’s sold in this community lately." Include the personal contact and the volunteer effort. So, in the course of a year, there are two personal visits, two volunteer efforts, and eight letters/door hangers/postcards, etc.

Your managing broker can probably help with some other ideas.

But the key is to be consistent in your message and your contacts. You want the people living in the community to think of you.

Hope that helps.
References :

buyers.

he can get listings all day long……who is he SELLING TO?

Also MAYBE it will help you to not become a dual agent but
instead, a buyer’s agent only!

BUT AGAIN that brings us back to "who are the buyers for those
houses?"

where are they coming from?
References :
RE broker