In the last ten years, you may have experienced a major transformation in the real estate industry. People buy houses differently, most of the time they start by doing some online research and some of them are driven to buy because of trends that visualize their dream home.
From generating new leads to completing successful sales, the real estate industry is now becoming more reliant on digital marketing. As a real estate agent, adapting to the digital shift in the marketing landscape must be your top priority.
In this article, we’ll give you some of the key points to kick start your digital marketing strategy:
Identify Your Goals
Goal setting is very important. This will drive and guide your digital marketing strategy. Goals will let you know which specific audience to target, where will you find them, how will you communicate with them, and what will make them convert to buy or avail your service.
Conversion or Sales Funnel
Setting up a goal is one thing but creating an effective sales funnel is another thing. The sales funnel will guide your target market into becoming your customer. It starts with awareness. Next, you engage your target market and generate leads. Then follow through and always connect with them. And finally, you convert them into a sale.
This may sound easy, but it’s not. You need to design your sales funnel in such a way that your target audience will be drawn into it. You keep on testing which method is effective and will generate the most qualified leads.
Social Media
Your desired target market are active on social media. Having a social media presence will help your real estate business gain increased awareness and credibility because they are able to connect with you. This is the best way to establish your brand because most people will turn to social media to know more information about their potential real estate agent.
Your website will be a virtual showcase of your brand along with your listings. It should be packed with features that could help you generate leads. You want your website to reflect on yourself and on your brand.
Your website should have an IDX, or Internet Data Exchange, in place. This allows your visitors to search through a database of properties in real-time directly on your website. The biggest use case for IDX is integrating your MLS listings into a property search feature.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of building your website’s rank and gain more visibility in any search engine platform. SEO is not a one size fits all approach and it is a continuous process.
The basic concept of SEO is by providing timely and relevant content. The more helpful the content is to your desired target audience, the higher your website will rank on the search results page.
SEO rely on performing keywords. You need to know what your audience is searching for specifically so you can create relevant content for them and attract them to your website.
Blogs
Consistent content posting that is relevant will help you become a figurehead in your industry as well as in your community. When you want to boost your digital presence, content marketing through blogging provides some of the longest term results.
You can create a following of prospective home buyers through blogging rich information that helps your audience with anything that concerns the real estate industry and your local community. You can also creatively draw them to your sales funnel and those followers in becoming a sale.
Stay Connected
A good salesperson knows that the follow up is crucial to maintaining good relations with clients, new and old. Majority of any real estate business comes through networking and referrals, so it is necessary for you to always maintain relations with past clients. You never know when their friend, relative, or coworker will be in the market for a home. Thankfully, if you’ve maintained your website and social media, you are going to be within arm’s reach.
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When it comes to honing your real estate digital marketing strategy, what matters is that you have persistence. You won’t get a huge following overnight. But keep in mind that you are designing a funnel for the future.
Remember that people would rather do their own research rather than immediately flock towards a real estate agent, so you need to get their attention. This means they need to find you on their playing ground.