Traditional Marketing Is Dead: Effective Digital Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Real Estate Business

Here's one secret every real estate professional knows – traditional marketing strategies are obsolete in today's real estate market. The advent of the internet and social media platforms has transformed how real estate agents connect with potential clients. 

Statistics show that 90% of real estate professionals use Facebook to promote their property listings. The NAR also reports that 69% of its members have a website that's at least five years old for their business. 

Of course, real estate agents aren't tilting online marketing for the sake of it. The buying behaviors of homebuyers are influencing the switch from traditional to digital marketing. 

The data shows that 78% of potential buyers conduct research for their next home using search engines. NAR studies further highlight that 51% of homebuyers found their properties online, compared to 4% who discovered properties via an open house sign. 

With buyers using the internet more to find homes, it makes sense for real estate professionals to focus their marketing efforts on gaining more online visibility among their target audience. 

Regardless, online marketing isn't a walk in the park. With so many digital channels, it's often difficult to determine the real estate marketing strategy that would be most effective for your brand. 

If you're unsure about the best ways to sell your firm online, we've put together some of the most effective marketing ideas in the real estate industry in this guide. Dive in to learn more!  

Effective Digital Real Estate Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Firm

The real estate industry is quite competitive. As of 2022, over three million individuals had active real estate licenses in the US. Every single one of these real estate agents competes for the attention of potential buyers. 

With millions of professionals leveraging in-depth marketing strategies to gain the attention of homebuyers, your firm must go the extra mile to stand out from the competition. Here are some real estate marketing ideas to give you an edge over your colleagues: 

1. Build an Optimized Website 

A real estate website is one of the most valuable real estate marketing tools to have as a realtor. As we mentioned earlier, 78% of homebuyers began their search for a property using search engines. 

In other words, your real estate website will likely be the first contact potential clients will have with your business. However, having a presence doesn't automatically mean you'll capture leads. 

Statistics show website visitors typically spend around 15 seconds on a web page. To put this fact in perspective, you have 15 seconds to capture your target audience's attention before they click the back button. 

So your website has to be engaging enough to convert qualified leads before they move on to the next agent. How do you do this? Here are some tips: 

• Invest in a Top-notch Homepage 

Potential clients will probably encounter your homepage before any other aspect of your website. As such, you want to ensure it's functional and aesthetically attractive. Invest in high-quality images, straightforward navigation, an intuitive menu, and a compelling call-to-action. 

Of course, you also want to ensure the homepage (and every other aspect of the website) loads fast. According to Google, 53% of website visitors will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. In a nutshell, faster page load time is crucial to reaping the benefits of a real estate website. 

• Enhance User Experience

Poor user experience is one of the major reasons internet users leave web pages early. With this fact in mind, you should ensure your visitors enjoy scrolling through your website. 

Pages shouldn't feel clunky, and information should be easy to find. It's also good practice to ensure that the design reflects the values of your firm. After all, your website is the first representative of your brand online. 

While optimizing user experience, we recommend making your website mobile-friendly. Mobile devices account for the highest percentage of internet traffic. 

Many of your future clients will likely access your site using mobile phones. As such, you want to ensure they don't have a poor experience because you didn't optimize your pages for handheld devices. 

• Invest In SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most significant aspect of building a website. 53% of website traffic comes from organic search. Of course, you can also drive traffic to your website via pay-per-click advertising. 

However, SEO is a much cheaper technique to attract visitors to your web page, especially if your firm doesn't have the financial resources for paid advertising. 

To optimize your website for search engines, you must focus on on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. 

That said, real estate SEO can be complex, especially for first-timers. If you're unfamiliar with how SEO for real estate works, you may end up trying hit-and-miss strategies that fail to yield results. 

Rather than opt for guesswork and trial-and-error, it's best to hire an expert real estate marketing firm like Ardor SEO to optimize your website and blog to meet search engine standards. 

Ardor SEO is a real estate marketing agency that focuses on helping realtors tweak their websites to rank higher on SERPs. With our expert SEO team handling your company's web presence, you're guaranteed increased web traffic and lead generation/conversion. 

• Create Real Estate Listings 

Property listings are an excellent way to attract homebuyers to your website. 

Rather than take your customers through a lengthy sales funnel before they can reach out to you and see your properties, it's best to include the homes on your catalog on your website to speed up the home-buying process. 

However, you want to make your property pages as detailed as possible to give customers the information they need to determine if a home is right for them. 

Ensure your descriptions are compelling and comprehensive. Don't forget to include attractive property photos. 

We'd also recommend adding video tours to your listings, as well. Statistics show that listings with virtual tours receive 87% more views than those without.

• Build a Blog

Content marketing is a non-negotiable real estate marketing strategy if you want to grow your business and personal brand. According to the data, 72% of marketers say content marketing increases lead generation and online engagement. 

However, to reap the benefits of content marketing, you need to include a blog in your real estate marketing plan. 

Building a blog and creating valuable content for your online audience can help you build trust and establish your brand as an authority in the real estate business. 

That said, don't focus on content that's interesting to you alons. Instead, your blog should feature articles that answer pressing questions your audience has. In other words, every blog post should be customer-centric. 

2. Tailor Your Marketing Efforts to Fit Your Neighborhood 

While your online marketing strategies can attract clients from across the country, you should remember that you're a local real estate agent first before anything else. 

As such, your real estate services should primarily cater to the needs of investors in your neighborhood. 

In other words, it's best to tailor your real estate marketing strategy to attract and convert more leads from your local community. Some essential ways to do this include: 

• Create a Google Business Profile 

It's easy to leave out your Google Business Page while crafting a real estate marketing plan. After all, you already have your listings and contact details on your website. 

However, your business profile on Google is a straightforward way for investors in your local market to view your listings, ask questions, and book appointments without heading to your website. 

Past clients can also leave reviews on your business, and few things can enhance your brand's reputation like these word-of-mouth referrals. An optimized business page on Google is a local real estate marketing idea you don't want to ignore.

• Host Free Seminars for Local Homebuyers 

As a real estate agent, an invaluable part of your marketing efforts is real-time local events that enable you to connect with homebuyers from your community. 

A local seminar provides opportunities to share some of your in-depth knowledge in the real estate business with your customers as a real estate coach. 

You can teach them some tips about the real estate industry, such as how mortgages work or how to calculate the ROI of commercial real estate. 

Sharing your experience is vital to establishing trust and building a relationship with local buyers, which in turn makes you their first point of contact when it's time to purchase their next home. 

• Invest in Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing is a marketing strategy that allows businesses to create real-time opportunities for customers to experience their brand or services. It often involves unique events, such as an open house or a tour of your neighborhood. 

Incorporating experiential marketing into your real estate marketing plan gives local buyers a unique, hands-on feel of your offerings. It also builds real-time business connections that would have likely been impossible via your online efforts. 

• Partner With Local Businesses to Promote Your Brand 

Building relationships with local businesses is one of those real estate marketing ideas that real estate agents barely think about. 

You can significantly strengthen your firm's footprint in your neighborhood with a mutually beneficial business partnership that allows a local business to help you market your brand. 

For instance, you can get local restaurants or bars to use your merchandise, such as branded coffee mugs or plates, to serve customers. If you can partner with a business with substantially high patronage, you can reach hundreds of people in your community. 

• Sponsor a Local Event 

While you can host your own branded event and experiential marketing campaign, it's also quite effective to sponsor local events, such as festivals, trade fairs, street parties, and school events. 

Local sponsorships like these will usually involve getting your brand's logo on t-shirts and flyers for the event.  

These merchandise pieces typically ensure more people across the neighborhood come in contact with your real estate business. 

Beyond the marketing aspects, sponsoring a local event also establishes you as a real estate agent who cares about your neighborhood and wants to contribute to its growth – and there's nothing locals love more than businesses that want to give back to their communities.

3. Don't Ignore Your Social Media Presence 

Few things can extend your reach beyond your neighborhood and give you access to more leads than your social media accounts. 

With an engaging social media presence, you can reach out to more people from your target audience than you would have been able to offline. 

Of course, leveraging social media for your real estate business doesn't mean you have to be on every social media platform. It would be best if you did your research to determine the platforms your customers use the most. 

That said, the most popular social media applications for real estate agents are Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

If you intend to extend your reach as a professional, it's wise to include these platforms in your marketing plan. Briefly, here are some real estate marketing ideas for your social media accounts: 

• Create Relevant Content 

A crucial way to use your social media for real estate marketing is to ensure your social media posts provide valuable and relevant content for your audience. In other words, your social media presence should contribute to your content marketing efforts on your website and blog. 

Some ideas on social media content you can create as a real estate agent include: 

• Real estate investment tips and strategies
• Industry-relevant news and trends 
• Live home tours or Q&A sessions on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram
• Social media posts on new listings

• Use Hashtags to Give Your Content More Reach

You can use popular hashtags on social media to ensure more people can find your content. However, before incorporating hashtags into your content, it's best to do your research to discover the tags relevant to your target audience. You should also keep an eye on local hashtags. 

• Interact on Industry Groups and Pages 

Industry groups on Facebook and LinkedIn provide an opportunity to network and grow your brand among other real estate agents. 

As you share content across your social media accounts, we'd recommend joining local and national groups across the real estate sector and engaging other agents on their posts. 

You can also share your content on this group to grow your personal brand and establish yourself as an authority in the market. Building your network via industry groups is a crucial way to increase your referrals. 

4. Leverage Email Marketing 

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways for real estate agents to capture and convert qualified leads. 

Your email marketing campaigns will ideally begin with creating an email list. You can use lead magnets (such as free ebooks and service discounts in exchange for customer emails) to build your email list. 

That said, don't make the mistake of focusing on prospective clients and ignoring previous customers while building your lists. Maintaining contact with past clients is an excellent way to encourage repeat patronage.

Once you've built your email list, you can take your email marketing campaign further using newsletters. Your newsletter can inform prospects about new listings, an open house, or seminars/webinars. 

It can also include content from your website or subscriber-only content that your website audience has no access to. Ensure you keep the interactions timely and consistent for maximum results. 

Conclusion 

Virtually every real estate agent knows traditional marketing strategies are no longer effective at winning customers in today's market. The internet has transformed real estate marketing. If you're still stuck on the old patterns, it's time to reinvent your methods and upgrade your marketing skills to enable you to compete in today's property investment market.

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