If you’re a realtor, then you know that the real estate market is one of the most competitive industries out there. In Canada, there are now more real estate agents than ever – one real estate agent for every 245 people over 19, to be exact! With numbers like that, being a real estate agent can often feel like an uphill battle.
Thankfully, you now have a secret weapon at your disposal: online marketing.
For realtors, online marketing is the perfect way to better target your audience and grow your business. With an effective online strategy, you’ll put yourself head and shoulders above your competition and find success like never before.
So let’s get real for a minute (pun fully intended) and talk about how you can craft the perfect online marketing strategy and conquer the real estate industry once and for all:
- Responsive Website
Regardless of the industry that you’re in, your business should definitely have a website. If you’re getting serious about online marketing as a real estate agent, then you need to put a lot of thought into your site; specifically building a user-friendly and responsive website loaded with relevant, high quality content.
What does having a responsive website mean? Responsiveness means that visiting your site is a seamless experience regardless of which web browser someone is using or whether they’re on mobile or desktop. With the rise of smartphones, having a responsive website has become super important in determining your business’ success online. If your page takes too long to load or doesn’t show up properly then you’re going to be turning people away right off the bat.
- SEO
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, plays a huge role in online marketing. By pushing your website to the top of search results, SEO can help you generate organic traffic and attract potential leads. More than ever, people are heading to Google to find a real estate agent and if your website is one of the first results for real estate-related searches, that means you’ll be one of the first choices for buyers and sellers looking for a local agent.
So how do you put together an effective SEO strategy? SEO is a fickle beast, but these tips should give you a solid foundation to build your long-term strategy on:
A good place to start is by making sure that you’re using popular real estate search keywords on your website. Put yourself in the position of a potential client – what would they be plugging into Google if they wanted to find an agent or a house for sale? Optimize your site to include these terms and phrases.
Content is also extremely important for SEO, so you’ll definitely want to have a blog on your website that’s regularly updated with quality content. Google pays close attention to the amount of unique, relevant, and engaging content on your site when determining how to rank it, so make sure that you’re creating compelling blog posts that include (but aren’t stuffed with) keywords relating to real estate and your local area.
- PPC
PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is an extremely useful form of online advertising that can help you maximize lead generation and get right in front of your desired audience. Want to increase traffic to your website? Of course you do. PPC is super effective and, with the right targeting, can give you a huge return on your investment.
PPC allows you to bid on certain search keywords and have your customized sponsored search results show up when those keywords are searched for on Google. Imagine being able to get right in front of potential leads when they’re looking for condos in your area – that’s the advantage of PPC.
If you’re thinking about investing in real estate PPC, you’ll need a value offering that can entice your leads to give you some of their personal information right away. This data can be used in the long term for future remarketing and email marketing to help move your leads down the purchasing funnel.
- Email Marketing
A huge part of the real estate industry is building personal relationships with your current and future clients. Email marketing makes it easy for you to maintain your connections and nurture them, so that past clients will come back and potential leads will convert.
With regular newsletters, you can show your personality and also that you’re an expert in your field. Provide your subscribers with valuable content that they actually want to read – this can include household tips, real estate news, or even current events in your city. You can also use email marketing to send out new listings, special offers, or even updates about homes that have been recently sold.
Email marketing is great because, just like any other useful marketing tool, it’s measurable and targetable. With the right software, you’ll be able to keep track of exactly how many people are opening your emails, clicking through to your site, and converting. Email also lets you target specific demographics in your database with tailored messaging to reflect their personalities and needs.
- Social Media
We all love social media, but real estate agents absolutely adore it! Social media marketing has opened up tons of new ways for you to build your brand, reach your audience, and interact with your community. Let’s face it, people aren’t spending their time staring at the ads on bus stop benches anymore, they’re on their phones and laptops looking at Facebook and Twitter – so you want to be able to reach potential leads where they’re actually hanging out.
With paid ads on Facebook and Twitter, you can pop up in your audience’s newsfeeds to generate leads and web traffic in a non-invasive way. These targeted ads can be customized to reach the exact people that will actually be interested in you.
Social media also gives you a great channel to reach out to your community and build relationships. You’ll be able to provide awesome customer service by answering concerns and questions in real time or even reach out to influencers in your area and network with the other movers and shakers in your local real estate industry.
Are you fun? Do you have a great personality? Obviously! Social media gives you the perfect platform to show off the real you and showcase your personality. This will humanize you to potential clients and build the trust needed for them to take the plunge and contact you. You can also take advantage of your newly acquired social media soapbox by building up your reputation as an expert. Give out real estate tips, comment on industry news, share the fantastic blogs that you’ve written for your website – all of these things will make you shine like the real estate star that you are.
Need a hand putting together your online marketing strategy? Contact us. It’s kind of our thing.
