In most parts of the country, there is certainly no shortage of real estate agents. This means there can be a significant amount of competition to get your property seen by potential buyers. While there is some benefit to in-person community outreach, there are more effective tools at your disposal today.

An increasing number of buyers are utilizing the internet to identify properties for sale. A strong real estate digital marketing campaign empowers you to reach buyers in a personal and impactful way. It also tends to make for a more efficient sales process by utilizing viewing and information tools that are convenient for buyers and sellers alike. Whether you run an agency or are a private seller, you’ll generally find that digital marketing is accessible, too.

So, let’s dive deeper into this subject. How can you utilize digital marketing campaigns for real estate?

Planning and Organization

One of the benefits of digital marketing is its accessibility. In many ways, it’s relatively straightforward and affordable to utilize. However, this doesn’t mean it’s wise to improvise your approach to it. Solid planning is essential to give your real estate campaigns their best chance of success. 

Perhaps the most practical way to approach this is to make a checklist of all the documentation you need to run your marketing campaign. Some of the must-haves here include a guide to your in-house marketing processes and a clear outline of your brand messaging standards. These both help to ensure consistency throughout your projects. A marketing calendar also helps you to plan in advance what materials will be produced, released, and utilized to create the most positive impact.

An essential part of your planning and organization is adopting processes that allow for agility. Unexpected challenges will arise and if you’re lucky some tools will be more successful than you had previously considered. Some of your most promoted properties may even have sold early on, meaning they’re no longer a useful part of the campaign. As such, your campaign timeline needs to include periods of assessment. Pinpoint dates for your team to get together to assess data and make any changes that are necessary.

Local SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing. In real estate, it’s usually not useful to utilize a generalized approach targeted at a wide audience. For the majority of real estate marketing campaigns, you should focus on local SEO efforts. This is the process of optimizing your materials to capture online searches for services in a specific geographical area. 

Start with researching and utilizing relevant keywords for the specific area you’re targeting. You may already have some insights here based on the types of properties trending in your location or amenities others are prioritizing. You can utilize these to bolster and drive your content creation process for your website. It’s also wise to work with prominent and relevant local websites to place backlinks to your materials.

If your real estate agency has a national or multi-city scope, make location-specific landing pages. This allows you to place links that are most relevant to the consumer demographics you’re seeking to capture. Ensure your keywords are used here but also make certain the page has high-quality information about the location itself.

Video Marketing

Video is frequently cited as a key focus in online campaigns. Firstly, it’s one of the more engaging forms of content. Viewers can be entertained and informed by a video in a more passive yet impactful way. It can also make for more impressive marketing material than a static advert or a property listing. Not to mention that there are various opportunities to assert your brand messaging via video.

For real estate campaigns, your focus is likely to be on providing virtual tours. This plays a practical role in providing convenience to busy home buyers. Not to mention that it can widen your scope by allowing people from out of town to view a property they may otherwise not have had easy access to. 

However, it’s worth noting that many real estate businesses get this wrong by just providing a boring walk-through video. Your digital marketing campaign can stand out from the crowd if you get a little creative in your approach. Yes, include the key points, but also tell a story. Help people to see not just what’s for sale but also what their lives could be like in the property.

Raising Your Profile

It is increasingly important in digital marketing to build authority. If your real estate agency is recognized as a forerunner and expert in your field, this informs a range of areas. Firstly, it builds trust directly with consumers. But your authority can also feed into other areas of your digital marketing. It highlights you as a credible source for others to link to. This in turn can raise your search engine ranking.  

Your efforts here can begin with creating blog posts in different areas of your expertise. These posts could deal with topics that are important for other realtors and the general public. Make sure you cite other credible sources to bolster the authority of your blogs. You need to create a regular schedule for these and update older posts with fresh information when circumstances change.

It can also be effective to cross your area of expertise with others in your field. Create a podcast where you interview those in the same or adjacent fields. Work with influencers to collaborate on creative content. You don’t need to target expensive celebrity influencers here. Micro-influencers (those with between 10,000 and 50,000 followers) tend to have a significantly higher engagement and conversion rate than macro or mega-influencers. Your efforts here both draw more eyes to your digital materials and bolster your credibility. 

Informing Alongside Selling

An important point of consideration when it comes to digital marketing is quality. Your campaigns are often less likely to be successful if they’re purely focused on getting your listings exposure to sell them. This might seem counterproductive, as the focus of real estate is so often about converting as swiftly and efficiently as possible. However, a focus on quality makes for stronger campaigns.

When building your marketing plan, commit to providing value to those utilizing your marketing materials. This is something Google in particular has been stringent on. To appear high in rankings and results, your materials must be able to offer your consumers something other than a buying opportunity. Usually, this involves your content answering questions or providing reliable guidance.

So, build your campaigns around these priorities. Get to know what those searching for real estate in your area need, other than links to properties. Start to develop a customer journey that brings people in by providing them with genuine support. From there you can direct them toward properties or connections with agents. 

Conclusion

Digital marketing isn’t just a tool for large corporations. Even local real estate businesses and private sellers can use it to expedite the sales process. It’s vital to plan ahead here and utilize key techniques like SEO. Content that is both creative and solidifies authority can make an impact, too. Remember that the most effective approaches aren’t just about sales, but providing value to consumers. With an informative and well-strategized approach, you can boost the success of your real estate process.