The Best Digital Marketing Strategies for a Real Estate Business
By Jess Cooper
January 10, 2024 • Fact checked by Dumb Little Man
The way we do business today has changed over the past years. The emergence of the internet and the development of the myriad of digital tools and technologies have affected it greatly. Accordingly, we needed to adapt to these changes to make progress. One such change refers to using digital marketing strategies. Like many industries today, the real estate industry also heavily relies on digital marketing. However, the sooner you accept that and start using it for your real estate business, the sooner you’ll see results.
If you don’t know where to start – take a look at our guide. We’ve compiled a list of things you can do within the digital marketing field to help you boost your real estate business.
1. Start with a great user-friendly website
Your online and digital success starts with a great user-friendly website. It needs to load fast, as people give up on it if it doesn’t. And real estate websites are specific as they contain a large number of photos, videos, and links. So, you should hire a professional web designer to design a responsive website that will provide your clients with all the information they need. Observe it as the window into your business. Moreover, it’s also key to keep in mind that almost half of the web browsing is done through the mobile phone, so you should optimize your website for that, too.
2. Create an email campaign
Furthermore, creating an email campaign is crucial for every business nowadays. It is an unprecedented tool for staying in touch with past clients and connecting with new ones. A perfect email campaign aims to guide your potential clients with the help of preset actions that are based on their previous engagement with you. The more relevant content you can offer to potential clients, the more likely they will open and read the email. When it comes to the real estate business, the email statistics suggest that the average open rate is around 27%, with a click-through rate of 3%.
3. Employ PPC advertising
Next, PPC or pay-per-click advertising is a great tool real estate agents can use to generate new leads. It works in such a way that the realtors pay for ads every time someone clicks on them. It is a plausible advertising alternative as it targets people who are genuinely interested in the offers you make. You can target PPC ads to individuals who have searched for certain keywords in Google or other search engines. So, in that way, only relevant people see them.
4. Work on your blog and post valuable content
It’s advisable to have a blog in order to achieve better SEO. Figures suggest that a responsive website that features a blog with quality content has 434% more indexed pages. A blog can be quite useful to your potential customers. Besides being a great way for boosting SEO, it is also helpful in building a positive online image. Moreover, if it is quality, it provides your clients with real-life, practical advice and guides related to buying, selling, or renting a property. We can even go that far and say that a digital marketing strategy isn’t as effective without valuable blog content. Sharing on social media is implied, it helps with boosting online presence. Speaking of great blog content, you should focus on writing about topics that your clients need. Think about questions and concerns they might have and try to answer them.
5. Include virtual tours
The real estate business is quite versatile when it comes to online content. It is an ideal business to include virtual tours of homes. These tours are an integral part of a successful digital marketing strategy. The videos of homes help clients see the home how it really is. It has been shown that video content generates revenue almost half the time faster (49%). So, you see why you should include it on your website. Generally speaking, buying a home is a challenging thing to do and your job as a real estate agent is to make the process as easier as possible. However, we should approach it carefully as not all virtual tours are good. What’s more, a successful virtual tour includes real, 3D, and user-friendly footage of the home and it is responsive across all devices.
6. Develop a plausible social media strategy
Developing a plausible social media strategy for real estate implies so much more than sharing listings on Facebook every once in a while. To achieve results, what you need is a fully-developed social media strategy. Things you can include in your social media strategy include listings – new or existing ones, bios of team members (if you have a team), blog posts, success stories as well as case studies. It is not easy creating a plausible social media strategy for all channels. Additionally, you can use some tools to develop and schedule social media content easily and clearly.
7. Invest time in SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is crucial for driving leads to your website. And you should definitely invest time in it. When you do it in the right way, your website shows at the top of Google search results. Which is basically what everyone is striving for. Google is often changing its algorithms, so you should keep up to date with these. You should pay special attention to keywords, as they are a base of good SEO. Other segments include backlinks, meta titles and descriptions, online directories and others.
When done right, a proper digital marketing strategy can bring great results to your real easter business. However, you should be patient, as, for all good things, time is needed to come to certain results.
Jess Cooper
Jess Cooper is a part-time journalist and blogger based in Sydney, Australia, working closely with Ben Bate Real Estate. She is an energetic, creative, and highly motivated person with plenty of interests. The most prominent areas of interest include careers and career advice, working remotely and interior design. She is very organized, has her life fully under control and likes sharing her insights with the rest of the world.