Any tech-savvy agent knows the importance of an online presence. They understand the work that’s needed to find and grow a digital audience. In a COVID-19 world, this is an invaluable skill for realtors to have.
But what if there were more ways to get the most out of your marketing strategies? These innovative real estate marketing ideas help you optimize your digital marketing, reach a wider audience, and nurture potential leads.
1. Create a digital business card
Printed business cards are indeed effective at generating leads and increasing sales. The importance of a business card goes beyond the valuable contact information it provides. A well-designed business card can leave a lasting impression on a potential client. This makes them a small, yet significant, element of your marketing strategy.
Unfortunately, it’s also true that 88% of business cards get thrown out within a week of being handed out. Well-designed or not, it seems that their value only decreases over time, as those potential leads lose or throw away what they consider to be clutter, making your marketing investment a bust. The solution? A digital business card.
The concept of a digital business card is as simple as it sounds, as it leaves out the hassle of printing and handing out physical cards. There are various services dedicated to helping you create and design your digital business card. You can send them out across various online platforms and ensure a potential lead remembers who you are and how to find you.
2. Add a blog to your website
As a realtor, your website needs to be the go-to place for information about your services. If you already have a website, you might already have some important website elements such as:
- A beautifully designed homepage
- A killer About Me page
- Your contact information
- Information about your listings
While all of these elements are a crucial part of a realtor’s website, they might not be enough. Adding a blog to your website is one of the easiest ways to improve your real estate marketing strategy. A blog shows your customers that you are a reliable source of information. It illustrates your value and authority within the real estate industry.
Simply put, blogging works. Business websites with a blog get twice as much traffic as those who don’t. Use your unique perspective and insight into the real estate business to create quality content. Give your visitors value they can’t get anywhere else and you’ll have them coming back for more.
3. Set up virtual tours
If you haven’t already set up virtual tours for each of your listings, you need to start ASAP. Given the current state of the world, virtual tours are the most simple and effective (not to mention, the safest) way to keep your business thriving.
Creating a virtual tour is fairly easy, as it requires a high-quality camera and some basic editing skills. You can upload the virtual tours to YouTube, making them easy for your clients to access. This way, potential buyers can have a better understanding of a property without having to go to a physical location.
4. Make your website mobile-friendly
A beautifully designed website is only the first step in developing a good digital marketing strategy. Once your website has been created, it needs to be optimized for mobile devices. Fail to do this, and your website traffic will suffer, as will your marketing efforts.
To do this you have the option to hire an in-house team of experts to optimize your website for mobile viewing or you can hire a web design company. As long as you can work with professionals who understand your goal and equipped with the right knowledge and experience for mobile website optimization, then you’re all settled.
Consider that 52% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. This means that a significant part of your website visitors and potential customers are using their smartphones to learn more about you. If you want to convert your leads into sales, your website needs to provide a seamless and efficient experience to both desktop and mobile users.
5. Make your website SEO-friendly
You’ve created a beautiful website for your real estate business. You’ve optimized the design to be as mobile-friendly as possible and even added a blog to offer your customers more value. What else is there to do? SEO.
Search Engine Optimization is the foundation of any website, simply because it defines the level of success it will have. If your website isn’t SEO-friendly, search engines will have a difficult time crawling, indexing, and ranking your website. This makes it near impossible for potential customers to find you.
To make your website more SEO-friendly, start by applying these strategies:
- Conduct keyword research
- Create a sitemap
- Optimize your URLs
- Optimize your images
These strategies will help potential home buyers to find you more easily. It will also help search engines rank your website.
6. Run PPC advertisements
There are a variety of free things you can do to improve your real estate marketing strategy, but at some point, you’re gonna need to invest. This is where PPC advertisements come in.
Though PPC advertisements are considered by some an outdated way to improve your marketing strategy, they’s benefits cannot be refuted. Research shows that 79% of marketing professionals see great benefits in running PPC advertisements.
PPC ads are a way to grow your business exponentially. Depending on your focus, you can run ads that will help your website or individual listings rank in search engine results pages. Running a campaign is a lot of work, as you have to put in the time and effort to ensure its success. The results, however, are worth it.
7. Get on real estate websites
Putting in the hard work required to get a lot of traffic to your website pays off. It helps put your name out there, generate more leads, and come in contact with potential home buyers. It also provides valuable information that makes visitors keep coming back. This is all good and necessary, but your efforts shouldn’t end with your website.
The bottom line is that you also need to be where your customers are at. This means creating profiles in real estate websites such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.
These websites get a significantly large amount of traffic every day, with millions of customers looking to rent or purchase a new home soon. While you may not get the same amount of traffic to your website, you can leverage this disadvantage to your benefit by creating an agent profile on all of these websites.
8. Keep tabs on your competition
Keeping up with your fellow realtors is a necessary aspect of your marketing efforts. It helps you understand your industry as it evolves and gives you ideas for how to improve your marketing strategies. Ask yourself some important questions:
- What is my competitor doing better?
- Where is my competitor failing?
- How does my competitor market themselves?
- What keywords does my competitor always rank for?
- What online platforms is my competitor on?
- What SEO strategies does my competitor use?
To start answering these questions, simply do a web search for realtors in your area. The initial results can offer you important information as to who your major competitors are. Research what keywords they regularly rank for. Incorporate marketing strategies that work for them and take note of the ones that don’t. Analyze your own strategies and determine what the next course of action should be.
9. Get testimonials from previous clients
Approximately 92% of consumers express that they read reviews and testimonials before making a purchase. This means that your real estate business heavily depends on the positive reviews from your previous customers. So what can you do? Get testimonials.
Testimonials serve as the ultimate sign of credibility. The more people that recommend your real estate services, the more trustworthy you appear to potential customers. This is why testimonials are so important.
Set up a page within your website solely dedicated to illustrating your testimonials. If possible, it should show the name and photo of your previous client. It should also include detailed testimonials that illustrate why you’re the best option for real estate services.
If you don’t have testimonials from previous clients, don’t be afraid to ask. Reach out to your clients via email or phone and ask if they are willing to provide you with a testimonial for your website. The easier you make the process, the more likely a former customer will help you out.
10. Incorporate videos into your website
Research shows that video is the top media used in content marketing strategies. And it makes sense. People nowadays are too busy to sit down and read through long chunks of text. Video is an easier way to get someone’s attention. What does this mean for you? It means you need to incorporate more videos into your content marketing strategy.
A high-quality video helps your reach out to more potential customers, but it also helps them get a glimpse into who you are. This is a great way to set yourself apart from the competition, all with a good camera and some basic video editing skills.
Optimize your real estate marketing strategy
These 10 marketing strategies will help you improve upon the foundation of hard work you’ve already put into your online presence. Try them out and watch as you increase your reach, stand out from your competition, and gain more potential leads.
