In real estate, marketing is a key part of your business. To succeed as an agent, you have to successfully market yourself to potential clients and show them why they should hire you for their real estate needs. An issue many businesses (not just real estate) are dealing with in the modern market, is the proper use of the internet. In an increasingly connected society, the channels of marketing have shifted towards the internet. Make no mistake, without a proper online presence you will not reach your full business potential. Here are four key areas to focus on when marketing online, why they work, and how you can use them to grow your business.
Your Website And Blog
First and foremost, you need a website; no business in the modern marketplace can truly succeed without one. However, websites are a bit more complex than just designing something over the weekend and uploading it to the internet.
- Smartphone Friendly: When designing your website, remember online access is becoming increasingly mobile and smartphone use continues to increase. In most cases, mobile traffic has already overtaken desktop. That means your website should be easy to use, no matter how it's accessed. Also, make sure potential clients can search properties easily and effectively.
- Make Yourself Easy To Find: Place your contact information (name, email, phone number, etc.) on every page on your website. This makes you easier to contact.
- Social Media: Add social media sharing buttons on your website; this makes information sharing far easier as social media communication has become highly valuable for interacting with customers.
- Blogging: Regular content creation drives visitors and draws people to your website. So write a blog on a wide variety of topics and update it 2 to 5 times a week. Industry information, market news, and how-to guides are all valuable information that pulls in readers. Writing about local areas and neighborhoods is a good idea as well.
Nurturing Leads
Modern lead nurturing is a combination of time-tested techniques as well as modern technology. Nurturing your leads requires constant interaction and direct contact. Keep these tips in mind to keep potential leads engaged and interested.
- Check In Often: When you have a lead, check in as soon as possible and follow up with them. This means daily contact such as emails, phone calls and text to gauge their interest. Repurpose exisiting content by sending useful information such as recent blog posts.
- Focus Your Marketing: When generating leads, you should base this off a customer profile. You develop this profile by reviewing your existing leads and clients and seeing what traits, real estate property, and material they are looking for. You can learn more about creating buyer personas in our free eBook here.
- Use Automated Messages: You can automate generalized contact emails and have them mailed out automatically. This can include general follow-ups and announcements about new blog postings, news, or events. The key is to keep people engaged.
- Follow Up Post-Sale: After a sale, follow up a month and then a year later. These follow-ups help build long-term relationships and nurture future leads. Remember, you can generate a lot of business through referrals from satisfied clients!
Email Is one the most common modern communication tools and nearly everyone has an email address. By leveraging your email account, it can become a successful part of your marketing campaign. However, it takes more than just having a business email address to make it successful.
- Build A Recipients List: Leverage premium content such as eBooks and home valuation tools to help build your email list. Also, don't forget other channels such as LinkedIn, your existing contact database and those you meet in person.
- Use Your Signature: Your email signature is an excellent way to communicate important information. Make sure your email signature has your contact information, business hours, and other important basic facts.
- Use Multimedia: Emails don’t have to be just text. Modern email software allows you to insert images and video. Make use of multimedia to more successfully communicate a message or drive interest from prospects.
- Integrate Social Media Accounts: Lastly, in either the header or signature section have link buttons displayed for all your social media accounts. Much like with your web page social media integration allows for easier communication and widespread sharing of information.
Online Advertising
In the modern marketplace, commercials and print advertisements are increasingly ignored. Because of this, online advertising has become highly valued for reaching potential customers.
- Target Market: Before launching any online advertising campaign, you need to focus on which target market you want to reach. Your target market can take several factors into account (age, location, yearly income, family size, and more) and because of this your advertising plan and methods will differ depending on whom you’re trying to reach.
- Use Third Party Vendors: Marketing is very complex and requires years of experience to be successful. If you are looking for the most out of your online advertising budget, consider hiring an expert to oversee it.
- Budget: Advertising is a business expense and should be treated like one. When calculating your advertising budget, focus on not only the amount spent, but also what you’re getting back in return for this investment... or your ROI.
- Youtube: Youtube gives you a free platform to host simple online ‘commercials’. Simply record a video of a specific property, give a brief tour, and highlight its features. This can be done in just a few minutes and recorded with a smartphone.
Final Thoughts
As the above shows, growing your business is no easy thing. However, by focusing on increasing your online presence, engaging with customers, and seeking out new ones, you take your business to all new heights!