Real Estate Redefined: The Benefits of Digital Marketing
Real Estate Redefined: The Benefits of Digital Marketing
With the advancement of technology, digital marketing plays an important role in the overall growth and development of the real estate business. Nowadays, buyers tend to depend on various online platforms to connect with realtors. Thus, having a good digital marketing strategy will be extremely beneficial for real estate agents.
Let’s explore how digital marketing in real estate is beneficial.
Understanding digital marketing in real estate
Digital marketing for real estate tends to use the power of the Internet in order to sell properties and promote real estate business. Real estate agents can cater to a larger audience group with the help of effective digital marketing strategies instead of using traditional marketing methods. This paradigm shift in marketing strategy for real estate business happened due to two factors.
First, there was an increase in intense competition among sellers due to the rapid growth of the real estate business. According to recent research, in the year 2023, the value of the real estate market is projected to reach US$39.16 tn. This value is expected to grow at an annual rate (CAGR 2023-2028) of 4. 26%. This is likely to result in a market volume of US$48.24 tn by the end of the year 2028. Effective real estate digital marketing services will not only promote the real estate business and create brand awareness but will also help the real estate business stay ahead of its competitors.
Conversely, due to the advent of the internet, there has been a significant change in the overall behavioral pattern of real estate customers. As mentioned in the Times of India, nowadays more than 90% of home buyers tend to utilize online media to find properties that meet their requirements. From advertising properties to closing deals online, real estate agents are able to gain a good online presence along with a bigger client base with the help of effective real estate digital marketing strategies.
Various benefits of digital marketing in real estate
Now let’s take a look into some of the reasons why real estate digital marketing services are important.
- Dependence on search engines for information
In today’s digital age, everyone is turning to search engines for any piece of information. Nobody wants to waste their time by asking for information from a friend or a random next-door neighbor when he or she can easily get that piece of information at their fingertips. People can now get authentic information within a few minutes on their laptops, iPads, or smartphones.
As a result, it is important for a real estate digital marketing agency to establish a good online presence to boost its overall brand visibility.
- Easy performance tracking
Traditional marketing methods such as flyers, banners, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, etc might look like the real big deal but the question is are you able to track their performance? Are you able to check the actual engagement rate with that particular promotional piece? No way right? You cannot monitor the total number of people who have actually viewed your advertisement per day.
However, with the help of various online real estate marketing strategies such as pay-per-click (PPC), real estate agents can easily keep track of the performance of an advert, check the number of views and clicks, and know where they are coming from to assess the overall success rate. These data act as a guide to formulating effective digital marketing strategies for real estate.
- Helps to reach the target audience easily
Not everyone will pay attention to all the banners and posters that a real estate agent tends to put around in the town. On top of it tends to become even more challenging if he or she is trying to reach people beyond their locality. This is when digital marketing in real estate comes into play. Effective digital marketing allows real estate agents to reach target audiences who are beyond their locality thereby giving them greater exposure- all in just a few clicks, so it is a win-win situation for everyone.
Digital marketing tools such as paid ads help real estate agents narrow down their target to a specific set of audiences in a particular area who are genuinely looking for properties and not just some uninterested random market. In short, their advertisement can reach the right set of audiences with the help of digital marketing for real estate.
- Online reviews are very important
Reviews can be considered testimonials from previous clients. Positive feedback helps to establish trust and credibility with prospective customers who might be interested in trying out your services (say real estate) for the first time. For any business organization establishing credibility and building trust tends to become very important. First-timers are often skeptical when it comes to choosing a product or service especially online. They might prefer to hear from someone who had already availed of that service or used that product beforehand so that they are satisfied with making the right decision. Old customers can share their experience on the company’s official Google page. This real estate marketing tool will help to clear the doubts of new customers.
- Become more creative
Agents have the freedom to be creative with the help of digital marketing in real estate. They can think out of the box concepts and explore different demographics in order to spice up their marketing campaign. This uniqueness tends to differentiate them from their competitors and helps them to grab audience attendance.
For instance, real estate agents can use “Ask me about anything” or “Poll” features on Instagram in order to an honest feedback from the customers.
- Going economical
One fun fact is that a real estate company can save an extensive amount of money with online real estate marketing. For instance, by going digital a business organization can save the cost of printing traditional flyers, banners, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, etc. In addition, they can also save the environment by going paperless. Amount saved on printing can be utilized on various social media such as Instagram and Facebook ads.
- Leveraging the power of video marketing
Video content can be considered one of the most effective real estate digital marketing tools for lead generation. Real estate agents can create engaging videos in order to share valuable information with potential clients, show the interiors and exteriors of the properties they want to sell, and use them for marketing. A relevant, informative, and updated video gives them an edge over their competitors as videos tend to rank higher on search engines.
Also read: Why API in Digital Marketing is so important for your business growth?
Different digital marketing strategies used in a real estate business
Now let us look into some of the proven strategies that a real estate agent can use to generate more leads.
- Create email campaigns
Emails can be considered one of the most effective real estate marketing ideas. It helps real estate agents connect and engage with potential leads while making sure that your existing customers remain interested in your service.
A good email campaign tends to be a simple and cost-effective way by which real estate agents can engage with potential and targeted customers in order to generate traffic for their websites. In order to generate higher click rates, they need to send relevant and tailor-made emails with catchy subject lines.
- Design a user-friendly website
Imagine opening a website to get some information only to close it in a few minutes as it was taking too long to load. Frustrating isn’t it?
Not having an easily navigable and responsive website can make users bounce off the website, which in turn might cost the real estate agents sales and leads.
The official website should be dynamic and mobile-friendly for effective digital marketing in real estate. In today’s digital age majority of real estate website visitors come from mobile sources. Hence, it is important that the website is properly optimized for mobile use for a greater user experience.
A mobile-friendly website should ideally include the following features:
- Faster loading speed of the website
- Responsive pictures that are fitted to mobile screen size
- Adding a live chat feature. This feature allows the clients to be connected with the real estate company 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and give necessary feedback.
- Digital advertising using the Pay-Per-Click tool
Pay-per-click or PCC can be considered an important tool for digital marketing in real estate to directly target potential leads. Pay-per-click or PCC algorithms tend to target those who have actually searched for terms related to the service from Google or similar search engines.
With the help of Pay-per-click or PCC advertisements, real estate agents are able to generate potential clues based on advertisements that customers pay for each time the ad is clicked.
- Hosting virtual tours
Over the past few years hosting virtual tours by real estate companies has become an important tool for real estate marketing that not only helps to generate faster revenue but also allows the client to simplify their overall home-buying process.
It can be understood that buying a house can be a stressful process and as a result, customer needs a real estate agent who can help ease the house-hunting process. With the advent of digital technology, virtual and augmented images are the talk of the town right now. Customers tend to prefer virtual tours over actual ones these days- does not matter if it is a full movie with commentary or a 3D rendering of a home listing.
Some of the points to keep in mind in order to create a successful virtual tour-
- Use actual footage of the house and avoid excessive digital illusions.
- Videos should be engaging and responsive, both on desktop and mobile devices.
- Design a user-friendly 3D tour.
- Draft effective real estate posts for social media.
According to a recent report on Forbes, around 70% of landlords believe that good virtual touring is very important in the overall leasing process, and around 78% agree that effective digital marketing strategies helped cut deal times by reaching qualified tenants easily.
- Give time for SEO
In today’s technological age, search engine optimization (SEO) can be considered an important real estate marketing tool that will help drive traffic to a website. By implementing the right SEO strategies, a website or a web page will tend to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, it should also be kept in mind that search engine algorithms keep changing almost every day. Hence, it is important to keep oneself updated in order to develop effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Keywords can be considered an integral part of search engine optimization (SEO). Keywords are the words that are used by the user to search for information online.
Thus, it is always advisable to do good keyword research and include high-search volume in the articles and blogs.
Some of the other SEO elements are as follows –
- Real estate posts for social media.
- Online directories
- Backlinks
- Include title and meta descriptions, readability, snippets, etc.
- Update blogs and articles with the latest information at regular intervals
Various places to post marketing content online
Some of the places where a real estate agent can post their content are as follows-
- Social media sites
Real estate posts for social media can be considered an effective digital marketing strategy. A real estate agent can create a profile on all the latest social media sites, build their online presence, and connect with the target audience by posting important property listings and real estate-related content. Being active on various social media platforms tends to boost engagement and build a strong brand value.
- Email newsletters
Email news is an effective way by which a real estate digital marketing agency can follow up on their loyal customers. With the help of personalized newsletters, they can not only share valuable content but also build stronger connections with their client base who have actually shown interest in their service.
- Blogs
Blogs are a great platform in order to build a strong connection with target and potential audience groups. By providing relevant content in the blog, real estate agents can build brand awareness, build trust, and generate new leads along with real estate marketing.
Final Words
Digital marketing in real estate can be considered an effective method by which a real estate agent can sell properties and grow their business. The focus should be on creating effective and interactive online content by leveraging various digital marketing tools and strategies to generate more leads, increase the visibility of the real estate company on the internet, and stay ahead of competitors. So, the best digital marketing service can enhance the overall ROI of real estate businesses in today’s world. Look for experts who can help you in bringing digital transformations to your real estate business.