Archive for Katie Russell
How to Increase Leads with Chatbots
Real estate brands are all too familiar with the challenges of generating leads. Here’s how chatbots can help by improving user experience and engagement.
Highlights:
- Within one day of adding a chatbot to our website, we had a meeting set up with a prospect. That was in the first 24 hours.
- Using a chatbot for your properties means that your real estate brand is working even when you aren’t.
- Conversational chatbots help build trust in your real estate brand while creating a positive customer experience.
We have talked a lot about the popularity of chatbots and how to implement them into your digital marketing strategy. But beyond the initial set up, have you really squeezed the juice out of this automated tool to help increase leads?
We decided to dive into the chatbot pool and our firm’s results speak for themselves. Within one day of adding a chatbot to our website, we had a meeting set up with a prospect. That was in the first 24 hours. This prospect turned out to be our next client and the initial connection was all made through the chatbot.
Lead generation with conversation
Buying or leasing a property is a huge decision, one which usually involves a range of emotions. One of the best ways to connect with potential buyers is through a thoughtful and informative customer experience.
Chatbots can help bridge the gap between your brand and potential buyers. Conversational chatbots help build trust in your real estate brand while creating a positive customer experience. They typically handle conversations with clients that are at the top of the funnel — generally people you don’t know and who might be unsure of whether they are actually going to buy/sell the property.
An article in The Startup on chatbots for real estate concludes they bring many benefits:
“The bot can be programmed on tasks like collecting basic information in the form of asking relevant questions and generating relevant answers resulting in an e-mail capture. Additionally, the chatbot can even transfer the conversation to a human agent, if need be.”
Other lead generating opportunities with chatbots
Real time answers 24/7
Questions about your new property or specific amenities? These are questions that chatbots can immediately answer. Don’t leave prospects waiting for you to return their email or form submission. Bots can answer questions about your property instantly.
The other benefit of using chatbots? They don’t need sleep! Real estate questions don’t always arrive at convenient times. Using a chatbot for your properties means that your real estate brand is working even when you aren’t. Prospects can get their questions answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Virtual tours
Nurture prospects with catchy images of your property and amenities. With the click of a button, your chatbot can offer prospects a virtual tour of your property without ever leaving the page. The impact: prospects leave the chat armed with informative and helpful information about your real estate brand.
Tracking
Most chatbots automatically log interactions with leads that engage with your bot. Once you’re ready to engage with prospects, you can easily access past interactions to know where the prospect is in the sales funnel, as well as key preferences they may have expressed in earlier conversations.
Follow up
Real estate brands are constantly juggling marketing tasks. Use chatbots to help alleviate your workload with follow–up automation. Users can identify how they want to be contacted or specific questions they need answered, taking the guess work out of the follow up process.
Real estate brands need to experiment with chatbots for the ease and convenience of automation, along with the positive audience experience. But to get the most out of your chatbot make sure you’re tracking your success and tweaking interactions along the way.
Need help setting up your chatbot? We’re here to help.
Related posts:
- Using Messaging Platforms for Real Estate to Deliver Content
- Good Real Estate Marketing Gets Personal
- Social Media Trends for 2018 Real Estate Marketers Need to Know
Archive for Katie Russell
Push Notifications: Why Real Estate Marketers Need to Start Using Them
Push notifications can help accelerate your digital marketing efforts so that your property gets in front of prospective buyers and renters faster than would happen organically.
Highlights:
- Using push notifications can get your message in front of prospects instantly.
- Websites are now capable of leveraging this technology. Push notifications are delivered to a mobile device or desktop even if the user isn’t on that website.
- Be aware: overly pushy or too frequent notifications can increase user opt-out numbers.
“If you build it, and they will come.” Kevin Costner’s legendary line in “Field of Dreams” could also be said about digital marketing. Or rather, publish quality content, and buyers will come to you. But, digital marketing takes time to show results. There’s not much you can do about that.
Or, is there?
Using push notifications can get your message in front of prospects instantly. Pair quality content with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, and you will be in a position to drive more traffic to your website, create more brand visibility, and sell or lease more properties.
Don’t believe in the power of push notifications? Here are some undeniable stats to prove it:
- Push notifications boost engagement up to 88%
- 70% of adults enabled push notifications from their favorite brands
- 65% of users return to an app (or website) within 30 days when push is enabled
- The average click rate for push notifications is 7.8%
- 50% of customers find web browser push notifications useful and readily give their permission to the website that they would like to hear from
So, what is a push notification?
A push notification is the delivery of information to a device from a server where the request for the transaction is initiated by the server rather than by an explicit request from the client. What does it all mean? It’s basically a fancy way of saying you can push content to audiences on their phone (or computer), even when they’re not using the device, but there is a caveat — viewers have to opt into these notifications in order to receive them.
And don’t worry if your real estate marketing strategy doesn’t include an app. Websites are now capable of leveraging this technology, called browser push notifications. These types of notifications are delivered to a mobile device or desktop even if the user isn’t on that website. And since Americans look at their phones 52 times a day on average, it gives you a lot of opportunity to get your property in front of them.
Don’t be pushy
Beware of overly pushy or too frequent notifications, which can increase user opt-out numbers. And refrain from using push notifications as a sales pitch. Rather than forcing your properties on users, be the expert advice they are seeking. Help them envision themselves in one of your properties.
According to PushAssist, “sending multiple push notifications can enhance your page views, but won’t boost your sales. It could also result in high bounce rates. Moreover, this may annoy your users and even worse may reduce interest in the products and services you offer.”
Don’t fall into the habit of the “spray and pray” approach when it comes to push notifications. Thoughtlessly bombarding users with generic messaging will not attract quality leads. Instead, be thoughtful and deliberate with your communication. Offer your prospects valuable messaging with a personal touch to encourage action.
If you can successfully navigate push notifications with sharp messaging and timing, your real estate brand can greatly benefit from this digital lead generation tool.
3 benefits of push notifications
1. Increased user engagement
When used wisely as a part of your digital marketing strategy, push notifications can increase user engagement. But remember, it’s quality over quantity. Your notifications should be direct and to the point. They should address the needs of your prospects and encourage open communication. Using push notifications to encourage users to interact with your real estate company helps drive brand awareness and lead generation for your properties.
2. Drive action
Push notifications are an effective way to create a sense of urgency around your property. This urgency, in turn, drives website traffic and increases conversion rates. Try sending messages with an undertone of “act now” on topics such as the latest amenities that buyers can’t live without, local restaurants and activities, and updates on high-demand buying and leasing opportunities.
3. Time efficiency
Let’s face it, writing emails and blog posts is time consuming. Marketers know how much time it takes to research topics and keywords, write the actual copy, and edit, proof-read, and distribute. With push notifications, marketers can quickly and efficiently create messaging that instantly arrives on a user’s phone or desktop, saving hours every week on creating content that may or may not even reach your readers. And since users must opt into push notifications, you have prospects that are genuinely interested in your properties.
Is your real estate brand already using push notifications? Have you seen an increase in web traffic or conversions? We’d love to hear about your experience.
Related posts:
- Marketing Automation for Real Estate Marketers is Key to Lead Generation
- Start Your Property’s Social Media Program in 6 Steps
- 5 Marketing Automation Ideas for Real Estate
Archive for Katie Russell
5 Benefits of a Real Estate Blog
Having a real estate blog is a cost-effective and efficient way to grow your brand. Here are 5 benefits of maintaining an informative, valuable blog.
Highlights:
- Blogs provide real estate brands the opportunity to educate, inform, and even entertain readers through content.
- 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs
- 80% of our website traffic comes from blog posts that are over six months old.
We get asked all the time, “Do I really need a real estate blog?” And the answer is: yes! The follow up question is “Why?” And the answer is simple: it works!
On a basic level, blogs provide brands the opportunity to educate, inform, and even entertain readers through content. They are an effective and relatively cheap tool to help grow your real estate brand. Search engines even consider blogs—and blogging frequency—when ranking pages.
I often tell our real estate clients to think of blog posts as opportunities. Every time you post, you create a chance to be found, to be liked, to be shared, and to be linked to other sites.
Still not convinced? Here are 5 of the top benefits of having a real estate blog.
5 benefits of a real estate blog
1. Get more traffic to your website
According to HubSpot, companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website than non-blogging companies. Not only that, but 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs. These stats highlight how a blog can help your brand become a trusted resource for your audience—resulting in more website traffic and increased leads.
2. More visibility in search results
Search engine algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated. As they do, your site’s content becomes increasingly important.
Your content helps inform search engines about your site, improving your rank in relevant search queries (people who are searching for properties or real estate companies like yours). As you choose content for your blog posts, be mindful of the search topics for which you want to rank highly. Every time you publish a post, you create a new chance to reach someone looking for a property like yours.
3. More engagement on social media
Blog content is ideal to share (and link to) social media marketing campaigns. It can help undecided leads learn about your properties and sway them in a positive direction. Sharing your blog posts on your social media accounts helps give validity and authority to your company, as you disseminate content you created yourself.
4. Establishesyour industry expertise
When you blog about topics you are confident and knowledgeable about, it shows. You set yourself up as an industry expert. Create posts about the latest real estate trends, best practices, and neighborhood and community events to showcase your market knowledge. Your posts will be helping inform readers, while also establishing your brand as an industry expert.
5. Works even when you aren’t
Did you know that is takes up to two years for a blog post to see 99% of its impressions. In fact, we find that 80% of our website traffic comes from blog posts that are over six months old.
Why is that? Because, as with many things, blog posts improve with age and continue working even when you aren’t. Search engines give value to older content that has had more time to accumulate social shares, likes, and referrals from other web pages. The more relevant a blog post proves itself to be to readers over time, the higher it will rank in search engine results.
You hardly need more convincing, right?
Related posts:
- 4 Ways a Blog Can Help You Sell Real Estate
- Drive More Traffic and Generate More Leads with Your Real Estate Blog with our Editorial Calendar Template
- 5 Ways to Generate Real Estate Blog Ideas
Archive for Katie Russell
How Digital Marketing for Real Estate Can Help Sell Properties
Digital marketing is the newest way to brand real estate. Here are the best ways to begin a digital marketing strategy for real estate that will help reach prospective buyers and tenants to ultimately close deals.
Increasingly, marketers are realizing the benefits of digital marketing for real estate over traditional types of marketing. From cost savings to increased lead generation, digital marketing can do wonders for your real estate business.
Real estate professionals are starting to catch on. According to Placester’s 2018 Real Estate Marketing Strategy Survey Report, 42.1% of real estate professionals surveyed plan to experiment with developing new types of content. And a whopping 94.1% plan to focus on creating new and unique content for their websites.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is a new way to brand real estate through digital content and social media. A form of inbound marketing, digital marketing focuses on audiences finding you, allowing you to establish your brand as an industry leader, and let interested audiences come to you and your properties. This way, you draw in leads through interesting and engaging content.
Blog posts, social media, infographics, white papers, and videos are all types of content that you can use to market your brand. Blog posts that talk up the neighborhood in which your property is located, infographics that explain the purchasing process, or a white paper on how to search for an apartment are just a few examples of effective real estate content marketing.
How does digital marketing for real estate help you boost sales?
Particularly when it comes to luxury real estate, content marketing can help you in all kinds of ways. Most notably, it can:
- help you connect with qualified buyers;
- broaden your brand awareness;
- drive traffic to your property website;
- communicate real-time updates to potential buyers;
- generate leads;
- nurture leads; and
- sell your properties.
Where do I start?
If you’re looking to get started with digital and content marketing, FRE’s Director of Strategy Jennifer Yim recommends starting with social media and a blog.
“These tools can help you reach prospective buyers and tenants, nurture leads, and close deals,” says Yim.
Digital marketing is a new approach to an old strategy—one that’s putting real estate marketers in charge of the way potential buyers interact with their properties.
Need help getting started? Give us a call.
Related posts:
- Infographic: Content Marketing Statistics Every Real Estate Marketer Should Know
- 4 Types of Content Real Estate Marketers Need to Be Using
- How to Use Guest Posting as Part of Your Content Strategy
Archive for Katie Russell
Survey: Social Media Use in Luxury Real Estate
We want to hear from you!
Take our luxury real estate marketing survey.
Luxury real estate doesn’t exactly sell itself — if you’re a real estate marketer, you’re well aware of this fact. The relatively limited customer base and competitive marketplace make it crucial for luxury real estate brands to set themselves and their properties apart.
When it comes to marketing luxury real estate, social media can be one of the most effective tools in your toolbox. Since real estate is inherently personal, even at the corporate and luxury levels, marketers can use social media to cultivate productive relationships with leads. The problem is, there is a lot of misinformation out there about best practices in social media marketing for luxury real estate.
That’s where you come in. We need your help to get the latest information on how real estate companies like yours are using social networking to move luxury real estate. We want to know: which networks are you finding to be the most helpful in generating leads? What’s working? What’s not?
If your company markets luxury real estate, we invite you to take the survey. It should take less than 5 minutes of your time. Responses will be reported in aggregate, and no identifiable information (individual or company) will be shared with anyone.
Responses are due June 30, so act now so your voice is heard. Provide your email address, and we’ll share the results so you can see how your company compares to the industry at large.
Please contact [email protected] with questions.
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