86% of all homebuyers consult a real estate agent during the home buying process. No question about it, there’s a strong market for real estate agents. The study also showed that 93% of homebuyers use a website in their search. Clearly, it is critical for agents to market themselves and manage their online presence – including their digital advertising efforts, website, and social media.
Selling homes is more than just, well, selling homes. As a real estate agent, you are a marketer also. There’s a great deal of strategy in finding buyers and connecting with them. However, with so many different social media platforms, SEO rules, and ever-changing algorithms, it can be daunting to build an effective marketing campaign for your real estate business. Here are five of the best tips to build out your advertising strategy.
1. Know your audience
As is the case with successfully selling anything, you have to start by knowing exactly who your target market is in real estate advertising. For agents, this will vary by property and location. It’s unlikely that younger millennials want five-bedroom homes with three-car garages in the suburbs and likewise, growing families are probably not interested in one-bedroom lofts in the heart of the city.
Once you figure out who your target homebuyers are, determine where they’re spending their time online and market to them there. In order to identify the sites your audience engages with most, consider conducting polls on social media or via your text or email lists, and be sure to capture this information at open houses as well. Then access which platforms are optimal to reach that audience (whether it be Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook/Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) and then have an expert implement your online paid advertising strategy.
2. Use a blog
A 2018 HubSpot report found that businesses that use a blog as part of their content marketing strategy get 67% more leads than those that don’t.
Not only is a blog an excellent method to optimize your SEO and rank higher in the search engine results, a well-crafted blogs can help sell buyers on an experience or a lifestyle. Think outside property specs and create posts that highlight the history of a neighborhood or seasonal events, then subtly link to properties you have in that area. Remember to share your blog posts on LinkedIn and other social media profiles.
3. Don’t necessarily toss the old out for the new
Putting up open house signs still works well because there are plenty of people who enjoy driving through neighborhoods on weekend mornings in search of open houses, and cold calling is one of the oldest proven marketing strategies to gain leads.
Instead of ditching traditional advertising methods completely for a more modern all-digital campaign, combine the two. Place your signs strategically throughout the neighborhood and then go live on social media from the open house to spread the word.
4. Go live
Speaking of live video, it is a highly effective — but underused — marketing strategy to capture the attention of homebuyers. 2018 research showed 96% of people have used video to learn about a product and 68% prefer video over other mediums. Live social media videos are perfect for real estate agents, because it’s easy to give a live home tour or hold webinar-style FAQ sessions.
5. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Different segments of homebuyers have different needs, and you won’t meet them all if you stick to just one or two marketing strategies. Try diversifying your strategy, with two or three methods at a time, and make adjustments to see what combination produces the best results. You can have advertisements running on Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook/Instagram at the same time to determine what works best.
We know that as a real estate agent you wear many hats. When you’re ready, our digital marketing magicians are eager to help map out and implement your advertising strategy.