Archive for the "Blog" Category
4 Types of Content Real Estate Marketers Need to Be Using
As the real estate industry shifts, it’s time for marketers to shift with it. These four types of content are keys to marketing real estate in the digital age.
The real estate world has seen seismic shifts over the past few decades. Yet, it has been slower to change than other industries, which have been transformed nearly beyond recognition as the Internet continues to radically alter the way business is done.
The real estate industry is primed for innovation, particularly when it comes to marketing. As technology and digital media keep growing at unprecedented rates, real estate marketers have an opportunity to start putting different types of content to use to engage potential buyers and renters.
However, many are still slow to adopt content marketing. According to real estate investor Zamir Kazi, “Far too many in the real estate space simply still don’t get it when it comes to content marketing. I see so many still relying on old school methods vs. things such as social media, blogging and so on.”
For those willing to take advantage newer modes of marketing, the opportunities are vast.
If you’re a real estate marketer, consider making these four types of content part of your strategy:
1. Educational Content
You’ve probably heard the phrase “educational content” tossed around in discussions of content marketing, particularly in other sectors. Content that educates is highly preferred by buyers across the board and supports a fundamental principal of content marketing: your most valuable commodity is not your properties, but your expertise and thought leadership.
Creating content that educates your audience — for example, a piece about finding investment opportunities for your target client-base — establishes you as a trusted source of useful information. And it means your readers are far more likely to become your clients.
2. Branded Content
Creating effective branded types of content is all about ensuring that your audience is “consistently seeing your name, style, and thoughts,” while avoiding “being too promotional and one of those spammy real estate-types,” writes Forbes contributor Steve Olenski.
James Becker, CEO and founder of Fusion Growth Partners, suggests that the “story” of a brand should be at the root of all content and marketing efforts. “An agent’s story, if expressed well, conveys in an immensely impactful way, insight into that individual’s character, passion and commitment to their clients,” he says. “The story can create an almost tangible expectation for the reader to the level of service and authentic connection they will receive as a client.”
3. Email Content
Getting email content marketing right can be tricky. Of course, step one is gathering an email list. Olenski suggests that “When you think about your email marketing strategy, your first thought should be: ‘What content or experience can I create that will make someone give me their email?’”
Once you’ve established a list of emails, you can experiment with different types of content, and refine your list, segmenting it into different buyer types. Email marketing is a great place to experiment with automation.
4. Entrepreneurial Content
“Real estate is similar to entrepreneurship in that it requires sourcing projects and adding value through the process,” writes Olenski.
For example, according to Joe Pierson, CEO of BigKeyRealestate, “Agents should try to tap into the huge income potential of people who work in tech by framing real estate as an entrepreneurial endeavor suitable for their backgrounds. This is definitely difficult for the average real estate agent to do, but could open up a wealth of new buyers to work with.”
The bottom line is that content marketing is about generating value for customers and finding the types of content that cement your reputation as a trusted knowledge-source.
Related posts:
- Using Content Marketing to Market and Sell Luxury Real Estate
- 4 Types of Content You Need to Sell Real Estate (Besides Listings)
- 4 Real Estate Marketing Trends 2018
Archive for the "Blog" Category
Using Messaging Platforms for Real Estate to Deliver Content
The 4 biggest messaging platforms now have more users than the 4 biggest social media platforms. Here’s how marketers are leveraging messaging platforms for real estate to deliver content to target audiences.
Gone are the days when social messaging platforms were just about chatting or making plans with family and friends. You might be surprised to learn that “the combined total monthly active user count of the top 4 messaging apps has grown to 4.1 billion in 2018.”
Just to put that in perspective, that’s well over half of the world’s population and — perhaps even more strikingly — dwarfs the 2.19 billion monthly active users that Facebook reported in the first quarter of 2018.
It’s official: Social messaging platforms have surpassed “traditional” social media when it comes to active users. Not only that, marketers are taking notice, and beginning to think about how to leverage messaging platforms for real estate to deliver content to target audiences.
Popular social messaging apps include, for instance, WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger.
Tip: Use conversational content on messaging platforms for real estate
As you might expect, a key element in the successful use of using social messaging platforms is to tell your story conversationally. This means tailoring your content to the specific wants or needs of your target audience, creating a compelling narrative with your content, rather than an overt sales pitch.
This kind of storytelling is fundamental to content marketing.
“Messaging and chatbots represent the next logical extension of the content marketing mission,” writes Chris Frascella of the Content Marketing Institute.
According to Thomas Husson of Forbes, “Messaging apps will introduce a paradigm shift for marketers where interactive and contextual conversations will replace ad broadcasting. New conversational interfaces will drive deeper relationships between consumers and brands.”
You may be thinking that this is all well and good for marketing products, but how does it apply to real estate marketing? The truth is, if you have a content marketing strategy in place, chances are, you have a story to tell, and these are tools to help you do it.
Chatbots
Enter chatbots, the technology to turn your content into conversations. Chances are, you’ve already come face-to-screen with a chatbot and may not have even known it.
These computer programs simulate human conversation using auditory or textual methods. Basically, it’s software that communicates with your target audience inside a messaging app. Chatbots are already changing the way businesses interact with their prospects — and with each other.
If you’re thinking that you’re about to be replaced by a robot, relax. AI technology that could take the place of human interaction won’t happen anytime soon. Chatbots are a tool, and they need to be fed content and trained by human marketing professionals.
Tips for using chatbots
The first step is adapting your content for use in a chatbot conversation.
“You can’t just duplicate existing content in your conversational scripts,” says Frascella.
While the goals for your content are the same, the way it is delivered is different. That requires a shift in how it’s structured.
It’s also important to be mindful of timing. Because chatbots require users to opt into conversations, retaining permission to access your audience in this way depends largely on content and timing. This means delivering engaging, meaningful, and valuable content at regular intervals, but not intrusively.
For more ideas on creating a chatbot, check out this post.
Social messaging platforms for real estate are opening new doors for you to deliver personalized content straight to your target audience. Make the most of this opportunity!
Related posts:
- 10 Social Media Statistics for Real Estate Marketers 2018
- Good Real Estate Marketing Gets Personal
- Social Media Trends for 2018 Real Estate Marketers Need to Know
Archive for the "Blog" Category
Must-Know Social Media Strategies for Real Estate
Social media fits real estate marketing like a glove—but only if it’s done right. These social media strategies for real estate will help you effectively tap into new sources of leads.
Real estate is a people business. That’s why you should leverage a marketing tool that is also all about people: social media.
If you have not begun developing social media strategies for your real estate business, now is the time to get started.
Consider for a minute that in 2017, 81% of Americans had at least one social media profile. And the numbers are projected to continue skyrocketing: by 2020, 200 million people just in the U.S. are estimated to be on social media.
And it’s not just your high school friends, and distant relatives who are all over Facebook—professional marketers are tapping into social media in a big way. A recent survey of marketing professionals found that 41% plan to up their social media marketing budgets “significantly” in 2018.
Social media strategies for real estate make a lot of sense. But that doesn’t mean that all social media use is good for your brand—the key is to use it the right way. As Bubba Mills, chief executive officer of Corcoran Consulting & Coaching, puts it, “Done right, social media can increase your trips to the bank. Done poorly, it can drive you to the poor house.”
These three strategies will help you ensure that social media takes your real estate business to the bank.
1. Know what’s out there
You’ll often hear people talk about “social media” like it’s a monolithic entity. In fact, every social media platform is unique, and comes with its own set of challenges and advantages. As you think about what content to post, consider what platform will best serve your own social media strategies for real estate.
Facebook and Twitter are ever-popular, and nearly any content can be tweaked to make sense on these platforms. More visual platforms, like Instagram and Pinterest, are ideal for showcasing properties or visual content like a before/after feature. To connect with target businesses or other industry professionals, LinkedIn is likely your best bet.
2. Be a resource: a key social media strategy for real estate
We hardly need to tell you social media is a nexus for the best and worst. When your prospects scroll through their newsfeeds, they wade through a tremendous amount of useless information. Your goal should be to grab their attention with a standout topic, and keep that attention and interest by providing value to your audience.
“When you write your social media posts, think of yourself as a teacher, not a salesperson,” says Mills. “Educate with solid facts and materials readers can use.” Establishing yourself as a trusted resource ensures a lasting and fruitful relationship with your audience.
3. Keep your eye on the prize
As with any marketing endeavor, a crucial first step is a strategy. Social media marketing is no different. A clear, documented social media strategy for real estate, with measurable goals and a mechanism for collecting data on its effectiveness is crucial for success. In the end, it’s all about generating leads—but it’s important not to forget all the steps on the way to this overarching goal.
Used wisely, social media can help build your brand, engage your potential buyers and renters, generate leads, and establish your reputation as a trusted resource.
Related posts:
- 10 Social Media Statistics for Real Estate Marketers 2018
- A Visual Guide to Social Media Posting Frequency for Real Estate
- Social Media Can Be a Strategic Weapon in Real Estate Marketing
Archive for the "Blog" Category
5 Ways to Generate Real Estate Blog Ideas
A real estate blog is one of the best ways to market your brand and properties. These five tools can help you generate relevant, engaging ideas.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll certainly say it again—a real estate blog is one of the best ways you can market your properties. Blogging helps increase search engine visibility, establish your brand, and drive web traffic (new leads). Maintaining an active blog also helps you build and maintain relationships and establish yourself as a trusted resource.
So, blogging is great for your business—but what happens when you can’t think of anything to write about. Content creation possibilities are endless but generating topics can nevertheless be daunting sometimes.
As usual, the internet is here to rescue you. To get you started, here are five of our favorite sources for generating real estate blog ideas.
1. Hubspot’s Blog Ideas Generator
Think Mad Libs: Give HubSpot three nouns, and its Blog Ideas Generator will give you topic ideas. This tool is a great way to focus on topics where you want to cultivate your authority and to generate blog post ideas for a topic cluster, in line with existing pillar content.
2. Google AdWords Keyword Planner
A free tool that allows you to search for a keyword related to your topic, Google AdWords Keyword Planner helps keep you on message by providing hundreds of keywords and phrases to help you generate ideas.
3. HitTail
This keyword analysis tool makes use of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools data. It determines which keywords are driving traffic to your website and suggests additional keywords you could target to optimize traffic. Use these keyword suggestions to come up with real estate blog topic ideas.
4. Alltop
Co-created by legendary business advisor and author Guy Kawasaki, Alltop aims to help you answer the question “what’s happening” in topics that pertain to your business. Essentially, it provides a list of recent posts from the most trusted blogs on each topic. It’s a great “in” on the most important conversations going on among thought leaders in the real estate industry.
5. Ubersugggest
It may not be the best tool for coming up with actual post titles, but for generating general topic ideas, you can make Ubersuggest your go-to. Enter a word or phrase, and Ubersuggest produces a long list of results containing the word or phrase followed by related phrases.
Bonus: Twitter
Yes, you read that right. Twitter can actually be a useful tool to generate blog post ideas. Try running a Twitter search using your keyword proceeded by a hashtag (#properties, for example) to get a list of tweets containing your keyword. Twitter also has the bonus of being likely the most up-to-date conversation you can find on the web.
Now, all you need to do is to compile a list of real estate blog ideas, create an editorial calendar, and get started.
Related posts:
- 10 Must-Follow Blogs for Real Estate Marketers
- 4 Types of Content You Need to Sell Real Estate (Besides Listings)
- 4 Real Estate Marketing Trends 2018
Archive for the "Blog" Category
Happy Birthday Fronetics Real Estate!
One year ago, Fronetics announced the official launch of its sister brand, Fronetics Real Estate, serving residential and commercial real estate clients.
It has been a big first year for us at Fronetics Real Estate (FRE)! We launched a year ago today, offering digital and content marketing services to residential and commercial real estate clients. It seems like a good time to step back and take a look at our progress so far.
By the numbers
We tell our clients all the time about the importance of a data-driven approach to evaluating content marketing success. In the spirit of practicing what we preach, we thought we’d share a few metrics with you, as we evaluate our own strategy at this one-year mark.
We hate to brag, but we’re pretty proud of the fact that since our launch, FRE’s organic traffic has increased by 1802%. While we can always be working to improve our SEO, this drastic growth in organic traffic tells us that our strategies are working, and people are finding us when they search real estate topics.
Additionally, direct traffic to our website has increased 101%. When it comes to social media, our traffic has increased 50%, with 48% of that coming from Facebook. In the same way we help our clients to evaluate key metrics and adjust their content marketing strategy, we’re using this one-year mark to look at our successes and shortcomings, and adjust our strategies accordingly.
FRE Named a Top 60 Real Estate Marketing Blog
Back in March, our blog was included on Feedspot’s Top 60 Real Estate Marketing Blogs & Websites for Real Estate Marketers. Particularly given that we’d only been live for 6 months at the time, we were honored to be included.
Feedspot chose the top real estate marketing blogs from “thousands of top real estate blogs in our index” using search and social metrics. They are ranked on the following criteria:
- Google reputation and Google search ranking
- Influence and popularity on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
- Quality and consistency of posts
- Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review
Who are we?
At Fronetics Real Estate, we aim to be a go-to resource for developers, property management companies, and other real estate entities when it comes to all things marketing. Though our blog is relatively new, our team has been creating and driving digital marketing strategies for real estate for many years. We’re proud of our many successes for our clients.
Fronetics Real Estate’s portfolio of digital and content marketing services includes:
- Content marketing: strategy development, content creation, and execution
- Social media: strategy, management, distribution, advertising
- Email marketing: templates, marketing emails, workflows, and newsletters
- Website development: branding, design, maintenance, and content creation
- Paid advertising: pay-per-click and social media advertising
- Sales enablement: reporting and analysis, sales content optimization, automation
Whether you have luxury condominiums, for-rent apartments, a planned community, commercial properties, or mixed-use/retail space, we would love to show you how Fronetics Real Estate can help you reach today’s prospective buyers and tenants.
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This is How Often Real Estate Companies Should Post on Social Media
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Fronetics Real Estate Blog Named Top 60 Real Estate Marketing Blog
Archive for the "Blog" Category
5 Real Estate Instagram Accounts You Should be Following
Instagram continues to lag behind other social media platforms when it comes to real estate marketing. But these five accounts have it figured out—follow them for ideas on how to use Instagram to promote your brand and properties.
Instagram remains an emerging platform for real estate professionals, and, given its overall popularity, it’s puzzling that it hasn’t taken over the real estate marketing world. With the majority of real estate searches beginning online, social media is an ideal way to showcase listings.
As the average age for other social media platforms rises, Instagram has a lower average user age, and furthermore, much of its success comes from the fact that it keeps advertising much less invasive than its competitors. That doesn’t mean that Instagram marketing isn’t effective though. It’s time for real estate marketers to take advantage of this platform.
Here are five of the top real estate Instagram accounts that are using their profiles to boost their marketing efforts.
1) realestatelegend
Who doesn’t like a good meme? Realestatelegend has garnered a loyal following by posting memes that give real estate professionals and enthusiasts a laugh. It’s a great reminder that, while we devote a tremendous amount of time and energy to educating and persuading our followers, entertaining them can sometimes be just as effective.
2) realestate_academy
Boasting over 133K followers, realestate_academy is one of the most popular real estate pages on Instagram. It makes use of the visual nature of the platform to highlight beautiful photography, as well as professional development posts and audience engagement.
3) beginninginthemiddle
Everybody likes a good before and after story! Beginninginthemiddle is the output of a husband and wife team, dedicated to low-cost/high-drama renovations. They post incredible transformations—a great reference point if you’re trying to show prospects the potential in a fixer-upper property.
4) galloestates1
Ok, so it might not be for everyone (I don’t necessarily want to see my real estate agent lifting weights), but this Beverly Hills-based realtor has one thing figured out: brand building with a personal touch. His Instagram account is engaging, and a good reminder that real estate is personal. You don’t need to post gym selfies if that’s not your thing, but Instagram is a great place to give your brand a face.
5) the_real_houses_of_ig
With a whopping 1.8 million followers, the Instagram account of The Real Houses founder and editor Kate Rumson is a visual smorgasbord of her brand. Her posts demonstrate her talents in interior design, real estate investment, development and construction, and social media. What’s most striking is the beautifully composed photography and compelling visuals.
Feeling inspired? Get Instagram-ing, and tell us about your efforts.
Related posts:
- Social Media Trends for 2018 Real Estate Marketers Need to Know
- 10 Social Media Statistics for Real Estate Marketers 2018
- How to Use Social Media Hashtags in Real Estate Marketing
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