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Digital marketing channels are a gold mine of qualified leads and as the number of customers looking for homes online grows realtors have a hugely accessible market right at their fingertips. But often enough some of us dive in headfirst with the expectation that leads and conversion will follow but instead get a healthy dose of reality, drawing the breaks on your momentum.
To combat this here are 3 digital marketing strategies that will help expand your reach, generate more qualified leads, and grow your network all in the palm of your hands.
Expectation: More web traffic = more conversions
Reality: Nurture each lead down the sales funnel
Let’s draw an illustration that you’ve just launched a beautifully crafted website, your pay-per-click campaign is in full gear and you’re seeing a respectable boost in web traffic after launching, an exciting milestone for sure. However, these numbers do not necessarily define your success, more web traffic does not directly correlate with more customers.
Current best practices teach us that brand awareness doesn’t really mean anything unless you a) know your best-fit audience and b) drive them to convert.
This is why it’s important to encourage your website visitors to take the next step – whether that’s signing up for a subscription, joining an email list, declaring their interest in a listing etc. Your ultimate goal is to nurture each lead down the sales funnel to become a conversion, bringing you closer to that big-ticket sale.
Additionally, tweak your bids, you can learn a lot from your website data using Google Analytics and try to glean what your web tracking shows about how your paid media is functioning. Are people bouncing from your site after clicking an ad? It’s possible the ad is not relevant–or they’re the wrong type of audience.
Expectation: Create viral content that breaks the internet
Reality: Carefully build out content that helps or informs your audiences
Aiming for viral content is a perfectly fine ambition but don’t underestimate the value of a carefully crafted content plan that speaks to your audience. If you focus on being the solution to your customers’ problems, they will come to you. You should aim for consistency and regularity over time: a consistent tone of voice and content that reflects your brand’s image and values; across your channels will yield long term success compared to sporadic output.
Another thing to keep in mind is to not misunderstand the advantage of paid ads, while they give you more access to the user, it does not improve the quality of your ads. A potential customer will only click on your ad if the ad is attractive to him/her.
What other types of content can you work on? Here are some examples:
Video Content
Create your own real estate channel on YouTube to list properties.
Share “virtual tour” homes for sale to your website and social media channels.
Create videos of the neighborhoods in which your properties are located to give prospects a real sense of the area.
Share testimonials of happy clients that you’ve helped
Visual Content
Infographics highlighting recent surveys or statistics from the real estate industry.
Property photos, whether collaborating with a professional photographer or mobile phone to shoot images of your listings
Build trust with your audience by sharing staff photos, behind the scene images or the gritty side of real estate that’ll fascinate your audience for sure
Expectation: Cross-posting content to multiple platforms is sufficient
Reality: Each digital platform requires a unique message to fit in with what the target audience expects
There are unique audiences across different platforms digesting and engaging content distinct to that particular platform. Whether it is social media, websites, emails, blogs or a landing page; the message needs to be optimized so that the target audience finds value in what they see and interact with.
Things like caption length, image formatting, and vocabulary differ by platform. Sharing the same post on every one of your platforms creates room for errors, like unintentionally welcoming your followers to retweet you on Facebook, or Pin your post on Instagram.
Likewise, you may lose part of your caption, or tag a handle from one platform that doesn’t exist on another. For example, Instagram allows you to link your profile to your other online media accounts, and naturally share each post (alongside its subtitle and hashtags) with each of them. In any case, these posts don't generally turn out correctly on their platforms.
On the other hand, your ads might suffer the same, for example, if you have 2 types of customers (perhaps you work with both lower-end and luxury buyers) it’s absolutely critical that you sculpt your campaign to be personalized for each of these audiences. An ad that would appeal to a budget-conscious consumer may go completely unnoticed by a high-end shopper. Writing unique posts for each platform might require a little more time and effort upfront, but it’s worth it.
More marketing advice and strategies for real estate agents
Check out some of our top real estate marketing articles and step up your digital real estate marketing strategy!
How To Supercharge Your Real Estate Website To Maximize Leads & Sales
How to Set & Achieve Your Digital Marketing Goals For Your Real Estate Business