As the real estate industry becomes increasingly competitive, it is more important than ever for real estate professionals – including builders, real estate agents, and real estate brokers – to stand out in the digital space, making an impression on their most valuable audiences. This blog post will explore five effective digital marketing strategies for the real estate industry, including tips for organic social media marketing.
1. Create Valuable Content for Your Audience
Content marketing is one of the most important ways to attract and retain your target audiences, and it is critical to provide content that offers value for those active in the market for a new home. Start by brainstorming desired topics, such as trends or tips that will provide helpful or useful information to those embarking on a home buying, selling, or renting journey.
According to the Content Preferences Survey Report, 71% of survey respondents said that they read a blog to learn more as they went through their buying journey, 64% also listened to podcasts, 76% looked at infographics, 79% read case studies, 66% attended webinars, and 49% watched videos. View this as your opportunity to establish authority and showcase your expertise in the real estate industry while creating positive, emotional brand associations.
Developing a worthwhile content strategy starts with creating a calendar of what you’ll post and share about your business. Start by sharing a brief history of your brand, how you started in the real estate industry, and what you want your customers to remember about you or your company. Share the advantages of working with you to find the right property. This content plan can expand on showcasing the properties you build, buy, or lease.
2. Don’t Forget About Organic Social
Now that you have a great content strategy, it’s time to think about how you will share it with your audiences. Remember that you’ll not only need to share this content, but you’ll also need to consider how to attract your audience’s attention with your visual content strategy; not everything is about creating fun Reelz and TikToks (although those are important, too!) Ultimately, organic social media marketing for real estate businesses needs to be highly visual, so you may want to consider working with a professional photographer to take photos and videos of your properties, yourself, and your “plans” as they relate to your content.
Your content should bring meaning to your users and be easily read and understood by all. Consider using a Canva account with a few select templates that match your brand. Add images and real-life captures of properties, home staging, or pictures of yourself if your content is about you. Use these visual materials when posting on your social channels, and don’t forget to include hashtags, as these may help increase your searchability and engagement.
Most real estate professionals face two big pain points when it comes to marketing their business: the first is maintaining consistency in their marketing strategies, and the second is creating unique and meaningful content. If you’re one of the many professionals in the real estate industry facing these challenges, we recommend consulting with a professional.
3. Improve Your Website’s SEO
Improving your real estate website’s search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial aspect of any well-rounded marketing strategy. With an SEO plan, you can increase your site’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more organic traffic, resulting in improved online visibility and, ultimately, more leads.
One of the most critical components of an SEO strategy is solid keyword research. By identifying the specific search terms that potential real estate “shoppers” are using to find your specific real estate services, you can optimize your website’s content to match these queries. This involves incorporating relevant keywords into your website copy, headings, and meta descriptions to improve the website’s relevance and visibility on SERPs.
Ensuring your real estate website’s structure is search engine-friendly is also essential. That includes optimizing page titles, URLs, and meta descriptions and improving site speed, mobile responsiveness, and overall user experience.
Improving a real estate website’s SEO can also lead to more effective local marketing. By incorporating local keywords and phrases, you can better target potential customers in the area.
4. Employ Geofencing
For businesses that aim to reach audiences in a specific area, geofencing can be a powerful digital marketing tool. Essentially, geofencing advertising technologies enable businesses to create virtual perimeters around specific geographic locations, such as a particular neighborhood or city, and then target individuals within those areas using relevant and personalized advertisements.
Think about a new subdivision being built in an area near an apartment complex. The builders could target the apartment residents with a personal advertisement promoting the benefits of homeownership and explain how their agency can help them build the home of their dreams. Additional data layers can be added to the geofencing locations to ensure each message reaches the right type of individual from a demographic and interest-targeting perspective, assuming the locations/audience pools are large enough.
Geofencing also allows for greater flexibility in advertising to reach individuals attending certain events or who have visited certain locations, such as a home and garden show or a local real estate office. From there, the business can reach potential clients already interested in the industry and may be more likely to engage with their advertisement.
You can couple geofencing with other digital marketing strategies, such as social media and email marketing. Real estate businesses can create a more cohesive and effective marketing campaign by targeting individuals already engaged with their brand.
5. Influence Audiences from Their Inboxes
Audience-targeted email marketing is still one of real estate’s’ most effective digital marketing strategies, mainly because it can bring real estate professionals closer to their target audiences. Email enables real estate businesses to nurture potential relationships and share valuable information.
Here are some ways email marketing campaigns can help a real estate business’s digital marketing strategies:
- Increased Reach: Email marketing campaigns enable real estate businesses to reach many people quickly. By creating targeted email lists for each focus aspect, real estate businesses can send personalized messages to the right people at the right time.
- Brand Awareness: Email marketing campaigns help to build brand awareness by sharing valuable information with audiences who are in the market to buy or sell their homes, which helps establish the business as a thought leader in the industry.
- Nurturing Relationships: Email marketing provides an opportunity to build relationships with potential clients. By sending out regular newsletters or updates, businesses can keep subscribers informed about the latest news and trends in the industry, thus positioning the business as the expert they should turn to.
- Lead Generation: Email marketing can be used to generate leads by including calls to action in emails. These calls to action can include links to landing pages or sign-up forms for showings, openings, or other valuable content.
- Cost-Effective: Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective forms of digital marketing and can provide a high return on investment compared to other forms of marketing, offering a wide and targeted reach.
Work with a Partner who Knows the Real Estate Industry
At AffinityX, we offer a range of digital marketing solutions tailored to the real estate industry, from website design and development to search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and more.
Whether you are an agency or a media company, we can help you design tailored digital marketing strategies that align with real estate businesses’ goals and target audiences while helping their brands shine with stunning, brand-customized creatives. Ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level? Get in touch with us today to learn more.
