There are two important factors at play when it comes to real estate online marketing. The first thing is the competition. The competition among real estate firms these days is undoubtedly fierce; the market as we know it today is highly-saturated. The second thing to note is the consumer’s buying process. The process that buyers go through prior to sealing a mortgage deal with loan officers has shifted significantly as potential buyers have become more capable of doing serious leg work online to assess real estate companies.
With these two factors in our midst, the only way for real estate firms to attract, convert, and close deals with their target clients is to have a strong online marketing strategy in place. To start off, you need to have a handful of effective lead generation tactics to generate the ideal quantity and quality of leads. Here are some items to give you a perfect head start:
Email marketing
An email marketing campaign is an indispensable tool for reaching out to your leads and connecting with them on a more personal level. Client response to emails is said to increase when recipients get emails that are informative, engaging, and personalized. This should not be hard to do. Since the email recipients have signed up to your list, you can easily categorize them according to their buyer profile as well as the previous interactions you had with them.
In addition to increasing engagement, email campaigns are also a great way to nurture client relationships and build customer loyalty. In fact, some marketers use email campaigns to upsell or cross-sell offers with their clients.
PPC
Pay-Per-Click campaigns (PPC) works well for real estate companies who want to generate new leads. These are paid ads spread out by search engines like Google. If you are on the lookout for potential clients who are searching for the specific products and services that your company offers, you may want to consider PPC. PPC is an excellent lead generation tactic because it is highly-targeted—you can show ads exclusively to potential buyers based on their online searching behavior, geographic location, and the device they are using to make online queries, among many others.
Blogging
Blogging works wonders for realtors when it comes to increasing their website’s search rankings. Through relevant, informative, and engaging content that speaks to the realtor’s target clients, blogs help buyers discover pertinent information about the problem or pain point they are seeking to address and likewise, explore the most viable solutions.
Website
A website is more than just an online catalog of your products and services. It carries your brand and gives you the perfect opportunity to communicate your value proposition to your target customers. Through a website, buyers will have a more in-depth understanding of what your real estate company is offering and how your products and services can help them solve their problems or explore the opportunities they want to pursue.
A mobile-responsive website effectively taps leads that are making queries using their mobile device. To make a website more useful to all your target consumers, make sure it is mobile-friendly.
Social Media
Making your brand’s presence known on social media is a great way to enhance your brand’s online visibility. While posting on Facebook can certainly make a difference, there is no substitute for a social media strategy that has an active presence on different social media platforms that your target clients are frequenting. Social media marketing and community management also allow realtors to nurture leads by engaging with their potential leads and current customers.
Digital Marketing Checklist
A digital marketing strategy that zeroes in on the needs of your customers is indispensable in effectively generating leads. Once you have ticked off consumer research, the next thing on your plate is a digital marketing checklist. Here’s the list we’ve put together to get you on the right track:
MAKE THE CONTACT PROCESS EASY
The Contact Us page on your website is very important. Even if you followed the best online marketing practices to a fault, you still won’t be able to close a sale if your buyers are not able to contact you. To that end, you need to make sure that your contact process is fast, easy, and uncomplicated. You can start by covering the basics—make the layout of your Contact Us page easy to navigate. Placing Call-To-Action buttons (CTA) and links strategically is also recommended.
DO ONLINE PROMOTIONS USING LOCAL IMAGES
Using images is undoubtedly an important factor in attracting the right customers. However, it is not enough to simply pick random images from the real estate industry and place them on your online marketing collaterals. To make the right impression to your potential buyers - and to make sure you are tapping the right target market—promote your brand online using local images.
Create useful content offers
Marketers for real estate firms don’t just create and market content on the fly. Rather, they need to see to it that the content offer they are producing is relevant and useful. Otherwise, it will defeat the ultimate purpose of the content offer—which is to serve as a lead magnet. If your content offer does not contain information that your potential buyers are interested in, they won’t likely download your content offers in exchange for their personal information.
In relation to content offers, it is also advised to plan these offers well so that you may come up with a material that speaks to your target customers. Dig deep into your buyer persona’s pain points to understand where they are coming from and which questions they want to get answered. As soon as you are able to put together a useful and relevant content offer, promote it strategically by placing powerful CTAs and landing pages that drive conversions.
HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER
A crappy photo will definitely work against your favor when you are trying to sell the property, especially since property acquisition is one of the more expensive purchases a person may spend in his or her lifetime. As such, it’s easy to expect them to be meticulous about taking their pick. In addition, photos with a low-resolution which are shot at odd angles do nothing to encourage buyers to find out more about a property.
To pique the interest of a potential buyer, hire a professional photographer who can show the best features of the property you want to sell through captivating snapshots.
MAKE YOUR BRANDING CONSISTENT
Some buyers choose realtors based on their brand’s value proposition. This is why it is imperative that your real estate firm’s brand reflects all your online assets.
When you create and implement your online marketing strategy, pay attention to your brand’s positioning and take extra measures to keep the important elements aligned throughout all the channels and platforms you will use in your strategy. Do not deviate from your brand’s visual identity by choosing colors that do not go well with your brand.
USE CLIENT TESTIMONIALS AS SOCIAL PROOF
Potential clients will take their time to research your company before they seal a deal with your real estate firm. They would likely seek information from your previous customers to gather feedback which can help them decide whether your company is a good fit for them or not. On that note, it would help if you make clients testimonials easily available for them to review. Post your client testimonials on your website and on your social media pages as social proof. This is an effective technique to help you gain your customer’s trust.
HAVE A REFERRAL PROGRAM IN PLACE
Aside from the deal you closed with your clients, you can also use your exchange with them to generate more leads. A referral program can help you do just that. Sit down with your online marketing strategist and confer on the best ways to cook up a referral program. Make sure you provide incentives that are hard to refuse. By giving your current clients an offer that is difficult to say no to, you can tap into their personal network for more leads while promoting customer loyalty at the same time.
A tip for marketers: Before launching a referral program, check all the promotional materials for marketing alignment. Also, check if the fine print is clear and concise to avoid issues once the program has begun running its course.
BE STRATEGIC WITH YOUR SOCIAL ADS
It’s relatively easy to do social ads these days. However, before giving your ads a final go, remember to look into the specifics your social advertising plan. Also, do not trust a novice social advertiser to manage your ads. Review the content and the targeting scrupulously. Lastly, assess the performance of the ads after a specific timeframe and make adjustments as necessary.
As a realtor, you need to understand the role of consumer research and modern lead generation tactics in attracting, converting, and closing contracts with property buyers. To make sure you are tapping and pursuing leads based on your identified buyer personas, hire experts who understand your consumers and how the right set of lead generation tactics can help you reach your conversion goals.
At Gohan Concepts, we ardently support modern marketing methodologies to successfully generate leads and drive conversions. If you are interested in creating an effective digital marketing strategy for your real estate business, book a consultation with our team or visit our website.
References:
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/04/16/real-estate-marketing
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/8-ways-realtors-can-use-digital-marketing-to-boost-sales