As a realtor or property investor, you may have experienced a major shift in the last ten years. Clients are beginning to buy houses in a different way, often beginning with online market research and a clear vision of precisely what they want out of their future home.
For best-in-class realtors, digital marketing has come to the forefront of their marketing efforts. From generating new leads to completing successful sales, the real estate industry is now reliant on digital marketing.
84% of real estate professionals utilize social media for their business. And if you don’t stay up to date with the following trends, you are bound to be swallowed up in a highly competitive and digital industry.
Email Marketing
We live in an information goldmine era! Data is literally gold! The more leads and connects you can drive will determine your success. It is important that through every platform you have a face on, you are focusing on forms and collecting your audience’s information. With email lists you can create custom audiences to market specifically to. You can run campaigns to these specific groups and retarget leads. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to market.
Check out our resources to see different tools that will help your email campaigns.
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%. However, the more relevant your content is to a client, the more likely they will be interested in opening the email to see what you have to say.
Website Optimization
Is your website working for you like it should be? People may underestimate the power of having a user friendly website in any industry, not just Real Estate. Your website can make or break your digital marketing campaigns. It is your first impression and the center to your digital presence. The more quality traffic you have on your website, the more conversions you’ll get, and the more leads you’ll drive.
Start by testing the speed of your website. Google ranks websites by speed and if your website speed is below average, you are missing out on easy leads. Another thing you want to ensure is the amount of forms/input fields you have available on your site. Every page should be focused on gathering customer information for your campaigns, whether that’s phone numbers or emails.
Bonus Tip: Consider implementing a live chat on your site. This allows visitors to instantly ask questions and receive answers. Why do you think the most successful retail stores urge their employees to ask all customers if they have any questions? Because an astounding amount of visitors will leave without receiving help if they aren’t greeted. Many times the stores have what they are looking for too!
In the same way you don’t want visitors leaving your site without taking some form of action. Make sure it’s super easy for all visitors to find answers and receive help.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
There are a number of differences between social media advertising and PPC. The biggest difference being the intention of the audience. Many times on social media, viewers are not searching for whatever your ad may be about. These ads are very interruptive and eye catchy. For PPC, especially search engine ads such as Google Ads, viewers are specifically looking for what your business has to offer. They have a specific question they need answered.
When using keywords right and budgeting correctly, you can exponentially grow the amount of leads you get from PPC. This is a very effective tool Real Estate Agents can use to drive more leads.
For more information on PPC contact us.
Virtual Tours
We live in a digital era. With new trends and safety precautions, more individuals are requesting virtual tours than ever before. Implementing this tool on your listings is professional and advantageous. Not only do these tours share video content – which generates revenue 49% faster for marketers than non-video users – but a potential client can get an idea of what a home really has to offer them. Talk to us about aspects of a quality virtual tour.
Facebook Ads
Earlier in this post where shared the power of PPC campaigns. There are still advantages to running social media ads. Facebook Ads are the cheapest form of digital advertising, currently. If you are hoping to reach a volume of people or a specific demographic, interest, or behavior group. Facebook Ads will benefit you the most.
Creating an effective digital roadmap will set you up to be the most effective with Facebook ads. The goal is to turn strangers into prospects and prospects into clients. There is always a strategic way to run ads and mix them with landing pages to boost your conversion rate.
Content Marketing
With digital marketing and online advertising becoming so popular, many viewers have recognized the patterns and know how to avoid being bombarded with ads when their online. Ads are not always attractive. What is attractive is information. Utilizing blogs, webinars, and other forms of content to reach people can pull you the most quality leads.
GoToWebinar is a webinar hosting tool designed to make creating and hosting webinar events easy, and it is extremely user-friendly from both ends of the operation.
Be creative with your content. Use your personal image, talk about what you’re passionate about, teach your audience useful habits. People searching the web have a plethora of gurus and experts to choose from, but one thing they won’t stray away from is somebody who is transparent.
Listing Lifecycle
When you are running advertisements on listings. You want to implement an effective roadmap here as well. The typical cycle takes a listing through the stages of: Coming Soon, Just Listed, Open House, Price Reduction, Just Sold. Putting a property in front of your audience’s faces multiple times will create repetition and will boost your conversions.
Your listing lifecycle may not be identical to ours, but you need to make sure you are pushing repetition through your campaigns. Very often the group that converts the highest in digital marketing campaigns are your retarget groups.
Implement these 7 skills effectively and watch your campaigns take off! Contact us with any questions and concerns. Also check out our list of marketing tools that will help automate your digital marketing experience.
Blessings,
Paul Bernard II