If you are a real estate agent, you need a marketing approach that works right off the bat, leading to sales in order to satisfy clients and keep your business running smoothly. Unfortunately, unless you have a killer line in referrals, that doesn’t leave much space for a trial-and-error strategy with your real estate marketing. What you need is a tried-and-tested approach to guarantee leads. Here’s how you can do it:
Related: How to Generate Real Estate Leads: 6 Ways That Really Work
Establish an SEO-Friendly Website
This is the first step to an effective real estate marketing approach. The fact of the matter is that most people will search for a real estate agent via a search engine, and if your site is appearing on page 4 or 5, or worse, then that’s not great exposure for your business. Fortunately, the solution to this problem is at hand.
Not only must you create a real estate agent website that looks great, but you also need to create a website that will attract traffic to your business and to do that, you need to impress the big boys at the likes of Google. Page ranking algorithms are increasingly sophisticated, and so the old trick of packing your texts with keywords will just no longer cut the mustard. Instead, you need to create a site that sets you out as a topic expert, mainly by creating cluster content based around your content pillars. That means setting up pages and related content on your site that delivers exactly what people on the search for a new house are looking for. Yes, that includes keywords, but also consists of relevant content in the form of blog articles, videos, infographics, podcasts or whatever creative outlet you can utilize, all linking in to your other marketing approaches of disseminating content via emails, engaging through social media, and any other forms that you choose to utilize.
Related: 7 Local SEO Tips for Your Real Estate Website
One final point here. “Once everything is all set up, ensure that you make good use of analytical tools to understand where your traffic is coming from, and how your audience engages with your content and your site. In this way you can target more specifically, turning potential leads into bona fide conversions in the form or sales,” advises Helen Chung, a marketer at Revieweal and Top Canadian Writers.
Perform Detailed Competitor Analysis
Real estate is a highly competitive industry and for that reason, having a handle on your competitors’ approach is a fundamental aspect of putting together a successful marketing strategy. What are the leading competitors doing that works, and is there any aspect of your business that differentiates you from those competitors?
Related: 3 Ways This Real Estate Agent Tool Conquers Competition
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
Increasingly, users are turning to mobile sites rather than traditional desktop versions to get what they need: again this is true across multiple sectors but if someone is out and about viewing properties, surely a responsive mobile app, or just a user-friendly mobile site, will be a reassure trove of information to them. Make sure that your site is the one they turn to for all of their mobile compatible needs.
Use Impeccable Imagery, Including Videos
Great photos and images sell houses. So, what are you doing to make sure that you are marketing your properties in a way that will get them sold, and get them sold by you? As well as plentiful killer photos of all the property’s elements, and interactive floor plans, why not utilize videos to give walk-throughs of the property, even staging meals and TV evenings within the property to give it the full lived-in effect? Go above and beyond the norm to set your real estate business apart.
Airbnb for a Trial Run
If we were buying a pair of sneakers, we’d try them on, right? If we were going to buy a new car, we would certainly take it for a test drive before we splashed out. So why don’t we actually try living in a place before taking the plunge and buying it? The same could be said for renting, although obviously the commitment is not so long term.
Giving potential buyers the chance to live in a property through a couple of day’s Airbnb is starting to become a thing in the real estate market space. Make sure you are not caught napping with the latest innovation.
That’s right, the try before you buy option is becoming increasingly en vogue within real estate circles. As long as your vendors are on board, of course, it’s a great approach to getting that sale you are looking for and an innovation which may just set you apart in your local real estate market.
This article has been contributed by Ellie Coverdale.