Real estate digital marketing: 7 topics you should focus on to boost your business

Although real estate itself is a solid asset class, over the last few years, the real estate industry has undergone multiple adjustments driven by a shifting buying dynamic. All the more so in today’s recessionary market climate. Among the new challenges real estate agents face are changing consumer expectations and property search styles. Not to mention environmental imperatives and an uncertain political and economic climate.

With fierce market competition, growing your real estate business is tough if you rely on old ways of going about your visibility and brand awareness efforts. Real estate agents worth their salt need to master their digital marketing strategy to differentiate themselves in a saturated market, increase awareness and generate new leads. Here is a brief guide on what to tick off your list to ensure your real estate digital marketing strategy is well rounded!

1. Think about your buyer profiles

The first very important step is to have a think about your typical buyer profiles: creating personas that you are trying to target will better guide your marketing and content creation efforts and enable you to stay focused. From homeowners or first-time buyers looking to buy a new home to families and downsizers, map out who your audiences are, what they do, what their interests and pain points are, their average salary, and other characteristics that might impact their decision-making processes. A deep knowledge of your target audiences will drive your roadmap and efforts, and ensure that you are focusing on the right marketing ideas.

2. Make sure that your real estate website is optimised and user-friendly

Your website is your virtual storefront, allowing you to easily develop a highly professional, relevant and search-optimised presence. It should be designed so that users immediately know where to click and find the information they need.

You have two options for designing your site:

• You can choose to hire a professional web designer or a marketing agency
• You can also work on it yourself, using solutions like Wix or Squarespace
  
  

More than half of browsing is done on a mobile device – it is thus crucial for you to make your website as mobile friendly as possible. Make sure to pay attention to the load time as well - according to a recent study by Google, if a page load time increases from 1 to 3 seconds, the probability of having the user leaving the page right away increases by 32%.

Another useful idea is to include a live chatbot on your website. Your real estate business should feel highly people-centric, and offering a chat function can help reinforce that aspect, showing customers and prospects that you are available whenever they need to ask questions. Investing in live chat software also allows potential clients to book meetings without having to call you directly.

Make sure your mobile-friendly website includes the following relevant and targeted content to catch prospects and clients with the best experience:

• Regular and up-to-date new listings
• Pieces of advice, how-to guides, etc. that are tailored to your audience. Links to relevant industry services such as moving companies, lawyers, and home inspectors

3. Optimise your website and content for SEO

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is critical to drive real estate customers to your website. If you work on your SEO strategy, your website (blog articles, landing pages, etc.) will show up higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) during specific searches. Here are a few easy steps you can take to improve your SEO:

• Publish content, for example on a blog: A real estate agent’s digital marketing plan is incomplete without useful and handy content. Starting a blog is not only a proven way to improve your SEO, but it is also an engaging way to build a positive reputation online. You can offer your clients tangible advice on buying or selling a property, address their most pressing questions and pain points, or write about specific popular locations. Make sure to include relevant keywords in your content marketing strategy – this will help your articles appear higher in search results.

• Because content is such a valuable asset to a good SEO strategy, make sure that you update your blog and other pages regularly. This also influences your rankings!

• Make sure to optimise your meta titles and descriptions

• Backlinks are important: consider partnering with other companies and exchanging links. The more relevant websites link to yours, the better!

4. Offer virtual tours

In this saturated market, it is the real estate professional’s responsibility to make the home buying process and selling journey as seamless as possible for clients. Virtual tours of a home are wonderful services to include in your real estate digital marketing efforts. Offering these types of marketing services will help you convert seller leads into customers more easily, and facilitate the marketing phase for their properties. Pay attention to the following aspects when choosing a virtual tour company:

• Making sure that the tour is easy to navigate ;
• Ensure that the solution is interactive and responsive across mobile and desktop, on all browsers.
  

5. Create a social media marketing strategy

Real estate professionals often post listings on their social media platforms every once in a while, however, a full-fledged social media strategy is what truly yields actual results. Key content types to post on your social media channels include:

• New listings
• Testimonials
• Most recent blog posts
• Video content
• Case studies
• Success stories
• Team bios

It is very important to post across the channels your audiences use. The most popular ones in real estate are Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok for B2C, LinkedIn for B2B, and YouTube. Digital tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite help you be more efficient in planning and executing your social media calendar.

One rule of thumb for developing a social media marketing strategy for your real estate business is to share a variety of content, and to do so on a regular basis for the algorithms to pick up on it and make your content more visible. Make sure to make room for people to comment on your content and do not hesitate to interact with your followers, as this is a great way to grow engagement and get easy referrals.

6. Develop an email nurture campaign

Email marketing is the bread and butter of a successful real estate online marketing strategy. Mastering email campaigns is invaluable to engage with new leads and stay relevant with past clients. Implementing a high-quality campaign will funnel potential clients through predefined actions based on their audience profile and previous engagements with you.

According to Smart Insights, the average open rate of emails for real estate businesses is around 27% with a click-through rate (CTR) of 3%. The more relevant your content is to a client (homebuyer or homeowner), the higher your open, click and conversion rates will be. When drafting the content (and the subject line!), you really need to try to make it as appealing and valuable as possible. Here are a few ideas of content you can build email marketing campaigns around:

• Educational content addressing some of their most pressing questions and pain points: how-to blog articles, ebooks and similar resources,…
• Content related to their location or neighbourhood

For your existing customers: consider sending them up-to-date data on their properties as well as market insights on their neighbourhood to engage them, stay top of mind and possibly win a few additional sales mandates

7. Consider paid advertising

Ad campaigns, or Pay-Per-Click – also known as PPC – advertising can be a great addition as part of digital marketing campaigns to create awareness or generate new leads. PPC is a great option for real estate companies seeking potential customers who may specifically be interested in their offering, as they only pay when someone clicks through their ad. What’s more, PPC ads can be targeted toward individuals that have already searched for correlated keywords on a search engine. Once again, try to leverage hot topics and relevant content that will make your target audience want to know more: local content, market insights, real estate data, etc.

Next steps for your online marketing efforts: measure and repeat!

So now, it is nearly time to put your real estate digital marketing plan into action. You can start by working on your website, posting on social media and producing relevant content. One key aspect to take into account is the fact that marketing requires time, dedication and consistency. Do not get discouraged if your first blog article does not get much visibility, or if you don’t win many followers on social media! Focus on the topics that you believe will be most relevant for your audience and your business, measure the results, adapt and repeat!

We hope these pointers are helpful and will lead you to greater success! To learn more about how you can build and optimise efficient digital customer journeys and marketing funnels, download our ebook on the topic, linked above.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to learn more about how to leverage real estate data in your marketing strategy, or if you would like to learn more about our software solutions for real estate agents.