Getting Real With Real Estate Digital Marketing
Real estate is thriving in the digital space. However, given the particulars of the market that it’s appealing to (people looking for a property, not a very frequent return purchase), how it’s done tends to be different than most repeat consumer items. To that end, you need to make sure that you’re using the power of digital marketing in the ways that suit the particulars of your business.
Here are a few ways you can twist the trends of digital marketing to your favor.
Your journey starts on social media
While building your site is important, and we’ll cover that shortly, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of social media. Nearly 4/5ths of all adults use at least one of the social media platforms, with Twitter and Facebook being the most common of them all. However, in real estate, you can also benefit greatly from sharing property pictures through Instagram, since it is a highly visual medium. These channels can be used to share content (which we’ll cover later), as well as to provide highlights on listings with clickable links, leading to landing pages that bring potential buyers closer to that point of conversion and getting in touch.
You need an online home
If you’re looking to build a robust web presence that people can find easily on the internet, then building your own website is crucial There are already major property viewing platforms and you can make use of them, too, but taking the time to build a real estate website can help you better foster your own brand and can give the properties you list a sense of exclusivity, which can attract buyers. Professional website design is a key part of this strategy, and you should be aiming to make the website as easy-to-use for the visitor as possible, with a clear focus on driving them towards the properties that they’re looking for, or to the other services that they might require.
Get into the content game
Businesses can do a lot more with their website than simply offer access to their services. Your site can become a major marketing tool with the production of the right content. Content marketing is all about publishing helpful and valuable information that not only makes it easier for your website to get found, but also drives traffic to it from social media or wherever else you share that content. Even if you’re not immediately converting your visitors, you’re building a knowledge of the brand and trust in the expertise that you’re sharing. Content marketing for real estate is usually about helping people make the buying or selling process easier and teaching them tips on how to better navigate the market to get what they want.
Make emails your ally
Email marketing can be a tricky beast. For a lot of consumer-driven products and services, they can go ignored because, most of the time, what’s in the email isn’t something the consumer is actively thinking about. When it comes to people trying to buy a house, however? Keeping their finger onf the pulse is something they’re going to be actively doing. To that end, you should consider using email marketing campaign makers to send out updates on properties on the regular. You can also tailor you campaign to include different content for different people, with different blog posts for those who are looking to buy a house vs. those who are looking to sell or rent out property, for instance.
Consider giving virtual tours
One of the more recent marketing developments that is very specific to real estate, in particular, is that of the virtual tour. As it sounds, this is a tour of the property that interested potential buyers can take from their own computer. They can take the form of video tours hosted on the property page, or a series of carefully put-together photos that the user can click through (much like the Google Streetview experience.) There is even growing interest in VR virtual tours, though this is not the most visible option for the majority of potential buyers at the moment. Making the viewing process more interactive and responsive tends to get much more serious interest, regardless.
One of the most important parts of digital marketing is to make sure you’re keeping your finger on the pulse of any trends starting to dominate the conversation, as well. The techniques above are well-established but if you can get on a revolutionary marketing technique before your competitors, it can lend you a real advantage, too.