Realtors can leverage multichannel marketing to multiply lead generation and ROI

The real estate market is super competitive. According to the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO), over 3 million real estate licensees exist in the United States alone. With these numbers increasing each passing day, realtors must seek ways to market their services and attract paying clients.

But with different marketing routes available to real estate agents, taking the "trial and error" approach on distinct alternatives might bore a hole in your finances. As such, it'll be best to follow a tested and trusted route — multichannel marketing.

With multichannel marketing, you can attract customers and improve your brand's awareness using different platforms and strategies. Once your multichannel marketing funnel clicks, your realty agency will be at the forefront of impeccable customer support and lead generation.

In this guide, we'll define multichannel marketing, its major advantages, and top channels to explore. 

Ready? Let's get started. 

What Is Multichannel Marketing?

Multichannel marketing, as its naming suggests, is a marketing technique that utilizes diverse channels such as email, digital advertising, organic search, and PPC (pay-per-click) to reach prospects regardless of where they are.

As a realtor, most of your multichannel real estate marketing endeavors will occur online. However, it could include some offline alternatives, including direct mail, billboards, and promotional materials at retail stores. 

One notable advantage of multichannel marketing is the exposure it brings. Also, most customers intuitively expect that you use this medium to improve your business's appeal and authority. 

Due to the relevance of multichannel marketing, most realtors are toeing this line to increase their reach and contact more prospects. In fact, some are taking things further via omnichannel marketing. 

Multichannel Marketing Vs. Omnichannel Marketing: Similar or Different?

Omnichannel and multichannel marketing appear so similar that various authors confuse one another. But they're different. While both advertising methods leverage various online channels, they differ in application.

Omnichannel marketing interacts with its audience via multiple channels — a trait it shares with multichannel marketing. However, omnichannel marketing is targeted at delivering an integrated experience to customers.

While multichannel marketing concentrates on 'scattering' content across various channels, omnichannel marketing seeks to create a consistent experience for each customer by 'knowing' them.

The omnichannel approach streamlines and links different channels to provide a smooth, consistent, integrated customer experience. It also seeks to reach each audience member via its multichannel sales system uniquely.  

Multichannel marketing spreads the message across various platforms and encourages the audience to assent to a call to action. You can see multichannel real estate marketing as a 'highway to lead generation and conversion,' the sole goal of every agent. 

Although omnichannel marketing has apparent benefits, it can be complex and time-consuming. For context, it's technical and requires hiring proficient hands, an expense many businesses can't afford. 

Summarily, the multichannel marketing route is better. Why? Prospective and existing clients respond differently to various marketing approaches and platforms. With multichannel marketing, you can utilize multiple channels, targeting each audience member willing to patronize your brand. 

Implementing multi channel marketing can help real estate businesses reach their audience based on their prospects' unique preferences.

Why Should You Leverage a Multichannel Marketing Strategy for Your Real Estate Business?

Applying a multi channel marketing strategy to your real estate agency helps you effectively deliver your message across different channels. It also lets you reach a wider audience, leveraging new customer grounds you previously missed.

Multichannel marketing helps you build awareness and equity for your brand. As more customers engage your brand across various channels, the chances they’ll remember and trust your business increases. 

Stitch Labs, an inventory management software company, reported that retailers selling online on two channels saw a 190% revenue increase compared to those selling on only one.

In a similar report by SAP, 74% of companies assessed said that applying a multi channel marketing strategy increased their sales. 67% said it improved customer loyalty, and 62% affirmed that multichannel marketing gave them a competitive advantage. 

A successful multichannel real estate marketing strategy ultimately leads to higher conversion rates and ROI. 

And here's why it makes a lot of sense. 

Three-quarters of shoppers browse online for goods and check websites like Amazon, Wayfair, Shopify, or Etsy to see if their items can arrive in a few hours or days. 

Similarly, interested homebuyers are searching on sites like Realtor.com or Zillow to preview their options. 

Notice one thing? These individuals haven't looked out for any brands, agents, or brokerage. Rather, they're going through listings.

By implementing a multichannel marketing plan, you're multiplying your online visibility and the chances of raising your ROI by a wide margin.

Quickly, let's explore the benefits of applying a multi channel strategy to your real estate brand:

Multichannel marketing is important to increase your business's reach and ROI
  • Increases Revenue and Sales

Multichannel marketing provides a faster route for real estate businesses to achieve real estate success. Customer data shows that 47% of customers who interact with their favorite brands on at least ten channels will patronize them at least once weekly. 

But if they use less than five channels, that figure reduces to 21%. Another report shows multichannel campaigns generate 24% more ROI than single channel marketing. 

Expanding into more channels and trading platforms lets you meet more people on the customer journey who've been searching for your services or products. As such, you can attract them to your business and increase your sales revenue. 

  • Drives Consumer Engagement

Multichannel marketing helps you build your brand's presence across many channels to connect with your audience, regardless of their location. A report states that 30% of the time, consumers start their search for products on Google. And in just a few clicks, they're exposed to various options and online channels. 

Realtors must understand their customers' behavior across various platforms to capture a decent percentage of the tech-savvy and information-ridden consumer market. That way, they can curate unique multi-purpose content that drives consumer engagement and yields optimal results. 

For instance, your advertising campaign can adopt a different approach on some online and offline media. You could use high-quality images and short clips on Instagram, while your Twitter handle could host trends and contests around the housing industry or your brand. Doing this correctly drives increased consumer engagement — and multichannel marketing does just that.

  • Multiplies Your Campaign Potential

With multichannel marketing, you're not limited to a single market (online or offline). You aren't just running radio ads at 4 PM when your audience is listening. Your brand can place adverts on offline and online media — which could mean simultaneously leveraging a walk-in office and well-optimized online presence. 

This spread gives your potential buyers, sellers, or other agents who may patronize you various opportunities to do so. With multiple channels for communicating, consulting, and negotiating, your clients have different choices during brand engagement.

Additionally, being available on multiple platforms means you're visible on various devices, including PCs, laptops, and mobile devices. It also means your customers can access your listings from anywhere in the world, 24/7. As such, you can expand your clientele while driving revenue and consumer engagement.

  • Gives You a Competitive Edge

The internet receives an unending barrage of information by the minute. Each content upload seeks the attention of a finite audience. With so many options, the competition against other businesses in your niche is intense, and multichannel marketing lets you maximize opportunities as soon as they appear.

Multichannel marketing grants you a competitive advantage, especially on channels where your competitors need more online presence or are absent. An effective strategy includes thorough competitor analysis to gain valuable ideas for your multichannel marketing campaign. 

With multichannel marketing, you can beat your contemporaries using visibility (online and offline) and adding knowledge from their success or errors to position your brand as the go-to company in the property industry.

Implementing multi channel marketing broadens your business' reach to many more clients and markets
  • Broadens Your Reach 

Every real estate business aims to attract as many clients as possible — a feat that's challenging with single-channel advertising. 

So, instead of concentrating on making your walk-in office the most customer-friendly, comfy, and professional-looking realtor space in town, multichannel marketing also lets you create a user-friendly website alongside an engaging realtor Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter brand page. 

Gen Z and younger millennials in your audience might not find emails trendy enough. However, you can reach the older individuals in your subscription list via a well-crafted email message or newsletter. 

The goal is to appeal to various customers' possible taste(s) to drive leads ultimately. So, with a well-researched and executed multichannel marketing strategy, you'll reach your clients the way they want to be contacted. Additionally, you'll also allow them to purchase, consult, or negotiate with your brand where, when, and how they desire.

  • Each Channel Complements the Other

In multichannel marketing, each marketing channel complements the other to higher effectiveness than they would display in a single campaign. 

For context, you can send an initial email with high-quality visuals to your subscription list, followed up by an SMS hosting an exclusive 5% discount code.

Retargeting customers who interacted with your pages can re-stimulate their possible intentions to patronize your brand. 

For instance, if you already ran Facebook Ads, you'd have costumer data on accounts that viewed or interacted with your content. Leveraging multichannel marketing means you could send a follow-up graphically-inviting  direct mail to these leads and offer them freebies if they oblige to your call-to-action

When multiple channels work together toward a single goal, the result usually outweighs the obtainable in a single channel marketing campaign.

Top Channels to Explore in Your Multichannel Marketing

Every popular multi-marketing channel is specific to certain situations, meaning they could be effective in one case and ineffective elsewhere. 

An effective multichannel campaign explores the merits of each medium while cementing their potential gaps with more effective partner channels.

Realtors can explore these top channels to execute an effective real estate marketing strategy: 

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing lets realtors send visually-appealing messages with quality content to their target audience. This marketing channel gives you a chance to address and engage your clients personally.

You can also recommend various products and offer information on discounts and promotions while flaunting your brand's visual identity. Furthermore, consider celebrating your audience's birthdays or sharing testimonials of your past clients.

Email marketing is great and most importantly, cost-effective. According to an HubSpot report, the ROI attached to email marketing efforts is 3600%. So, for every $1 spent, you'll get $36 in return. 

2. SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is another leading channel that helps you reach your target  audience quickly. This marketing route has a 98% open rate, with 95% of SMSs opened in three minutes or less. 

Additionally, competition in the SMS channel is way lower than in other media, letting you outsmart the competition should your audience fancy your content.

SMS is a great way to share discount codes or promotional content about new listings or rental properties in the neighborhood. While you can direct your audience to your websites or blogs via SMS, you can't share visual images directly. Thus, use other channels to reemphasize your brand's visibility. 

Exploring different social media platforms is a great multichannel marketing strategy to drive leads and multiply your ROI

3. Social Media Ads

Coming only behind WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger is the second most used messaging app worldwide. However, less than 1% of businesses advertise on the platform, giving your Facebook page the traction it needs to reach more people and grow your leads.

However, while Facebook Messenger provides visual capacities and an impressive open rate and time, it's ridden with strict marketing guidelines. For instance, businesses have a 24-hour window for sending marketing messages after converting a consumer.

Twitter hashtags are another vital part of your real estate marketing strategy. However, use the right hashtags, as they can be the difference between 20 and 100 post engagements. 

By learning from popular Twitter posts in your neighborhood, niche, or industry, you can identify some highly effective real estate hashtags to try.

On Instagram, post high-quality pictures and videos to project your brand in the best light. Consider throwing some contests on Instagram to award the most post engagements or reposts over a specific time. 

Your goal with multichannel marketing is to fill a large chunk of online and offline media, so you're the first port-of-call or among the firsts when someone needs services related to what your agency offers.

Only a multichannel marketing strategy can help your real estate business benefit from the positives of each channel while still mitigating their weaknesses.

Conclusion

Leading real estate agents know that the best marketing campaign yields positive long-term results. As such, most have turned to multichannel content marketing to educate, inform, and entertain their audience across multiple channels. 

Modern buyers shop online using a dynamic and multidimensional approach. To remain competitive in the saturated real estate market, realtors need a multifaceted digital marketing campaign to mirror a typical customer journey. 

But multi-channel real estate marketing goes beyond leveraging various platforms. It involves creating quality, intuitive, and user-focused content to connect with multiple parts of your audience's daily lives. 

Although multichannel marketing might seem great, creating a related strategy isn't always smooth sailing. If you'd like to create a strategy that converts and attracts your prospects, consider engaging the expert marketing services of Ardor SEO. Our experts will help you create a multichannel marketing funnel that'll generate leads and transform them into paying customers. Contact us today!

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Omnichannel and Multichannel Marketing?

Both marketing strategies engage their audience via multiple marketing media. However, omnichannel marketing coordinates and interlinks these channels so customers can have a tailored and unique experience. 

Meanwhile, multichannel focuses on "scattering" contents across various channels to encourage your target audience to yield to a definite call to action (CTA).

Why Is Multichannel Marketing Important?

One channel is usually not enough to create a vibrant marketing strategy as customers tend to favor different channels. Multichannel marketing aggregates various platforms to increase your brand's campaign potential and reach.

What Multichannel Examples Can I Adopt?

Here are two examples of multichannel marketing:

  • Sending an initial graphic email to your audience, followed by an SMS with an exclusive 5% discount code.

  • Running Facebook ads to get consumer data on accounts that viewed or interacted with your content and sending a follow-up email offering freebies and discounts if they facilitate a transaction via your CTA.

About the author 

Kris Reid

Kris Reid, the Coolest Guy in SEO, is the CEO of Ardor SEO. His expertise lies in helping real estate professionals get more leads and customers to predictably grow their business. Get to know Kris and learn more about our team here.

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