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Get Personal: the Human Side of Real Estate Marketing

by Katie Russell | Oct 1, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

Using emotion in your real estate marketing to appeal to buyers can help you sell homes more easily and effectively. 

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Highlights:

• Emotions often strongly influence buying decisions when the time comes to purchase a property.
• There’s a big difference between listing facts about a property and using an emotion-driven, storytelling style that will appeal to potential buyers.
• If you want to take your real estate marketing efforts from dry to extraordinary, using emotion is the most effective tactic for connecting with potential buyers.

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Real estate marketing comes in a number of forms. As a marketer, you may go out of your way to create a stunning website, maintain social media pages across a range of accounts, and even send out advertisements to help drum up interest in your available properties. If you want truly spectacular marketing for your available properties, however, there’s one key way to take your efforts to the next level: get personal.  

Appealing to the Emotions 

Buying a home is a very personal decision. Many people are eager to make a move: to find the perfect home for raising a family or start a new life with a partner. Emotions often strongly influence buying decisions when the time comes to purchase a property — and as a real estate agent, your marketing should take advantage of that. By appealing to your buyers’ emotions, you can often sell houses faster.  

Try some of these strategies: 

Take a look at the property from an emotional perspective.  

Imagine who might be seeking to live there. Is the property a single-family home? An apartment building? The perfect space for a business just starting out? Once you have a good idea of who might want to purchase the property, create a clear buyer persona. Imagine what is important to those individuals and how they could be influenced to fall in love with the property.  

Include the appeal to emotion in your ads.  

This is especially effective on your social media ads and emails, but it can be used anywhere. Use your imagination and encourage potential buyers to picture themselves in the property. Include imagery that can help buyers imagine what it might be like to live there. This might be as simple as taking a walk down the convenient sidewalks out front or watching the kids play in the backyard.  

Use the right language.  

You have a good idea of what buyers want to know about the house: the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the size of the garage, and whether it has a fireplace, for example. There’s a big difference, however, between listing those things as facts and using an emotion-driven, storytelling style that will appeal to potential buyers.  

Effective Marketing: Appealing Through Others 

Your marketing efforts help you connect more effectively with your buyers. But it isn’t just your advertisements that will showcase your properties. Take time to get to know the neighbors around your properties. Often, they can be your most effective tools. Do they have a friend or family member looking for a place to live and who would consider one of your listings?  

The neighbors are also an incredible source of information. What makes them love living here? By chatting with the neighbors, you don’t just encourage them to share information about the property with potential buyers, you also glean valuable information from the exchange, which helps you market more effectively. 

If you want to take your real estate marketing efforts from dry to extraordinary, using emotion is the most effective tactic for connecting with potential buyers. Buying a home, in particular, is a very emotional decision for most buyers so take advantage of that emotion as you create your marketing campaigns to help them fall in love with your listings.   

Related posts:

• 3 Social Media Mistakes Real Estate Companies Still Make
• Using Messaging Platforms for Real Estate to Deliver Content
• Infographic: Real Estate Social Media Marketing Strategies

 

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How to Use Social Media Hashtags in Real Estate Marketing

by Elizabeth Hines | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media | 0 comments

Strategic use of social media hashtags can help increase your property’s visibility and grow organic reach on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

You’re likely to be vaguely aware of hashtags, at least in your personal social media life. But perhaps you’re not intimately familiar with how they can play into your real estate marketing strategy. Whether you #lol at it or not, using social media hashtags wisely can actually be a major boon to your social media marketing efforts.

What is a social media hashtag?

Before we dive into too much detail, let’s take a moment to establish what exactly a hashtag is.

While you may remember it as a pound sign (or “sharp” sign, or number sign), this symbol’s meaning has radically changed in the past 15 years. In fact, its new definition has even been added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

A hashtag, according to the OED’s American counterpart, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet).”

Essentially, the hashtag has two concurrent functions: It places content within a specific area of interest or keyword, and it facilitates a search for it.

How to use hashtags in social media marketing

You may already see how using hashtags can help your social media content’s visibility.

Hashtags automatically function as links. For example, if a user interested in San Diego real estate clicks on #sdhomesforsale, all public posts labeled with that hashtag will show up. This is true of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Using hashtags in your social media content allows you to:

• Categorize your content
• Draw attention quickly and easily
• Drive conversions
• Harness the power of topics on social media
• Increase visibility
• Grow organic reach

Hashtag dos and don’ts

As you start experimenting with adding hashtags to your social media posts, here are a few dos and don’ts to think about:

Do:

• Use relevant terms
• Research trending topics as you chose your content
• Create your own hashtags to match your brand
• Make sure the audience setting on your posts is “public”

Don’t:

• Use too many hashtags per post. Too many hashtags make your post look unpleasant and difficult for your followers to read.
• Repeat your hashtag multiple times in the same post
• Use hashtags that are too long or confusing to for readers (Tip: if you have a long hashtag, try capitalizing the first letter of each word)
• Put spaces in between words within a single hashtag

To help get you started, here are a few hashtags that real estate marketers might want to use. These are just a jumping off point! Getting creative can be fun.

• #photooftheday
• #realestate
• #properties
• #househunting
• #homesearch
• #justlisted
• #broker
• #realtor
• #igers (short for Instagrammers)
• #throwbackthursday and/or #TBT
• #transformationtuesday
• #behindthescenes
• #photoshoot
• #videogram
• #videooftheday
• #interiordesigns

Which social media hashtags are you using in your real estate marketing?

Related posts:

• Social Media Can Be a Strategic Weapon in Real Estate Marketing
• 4 Real Estate Marketing Trends 2018
• Why You Should Always Respond to User Reviews

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Social Media Can Be a Strategic Weapon in Real Estate Marketing

by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 5, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media | 0 comments

Real estate marketers should embrace social media as a strategic tool for brand positioning, reputation management, and market intelligence.

Is your business cheating itself out of a major marketing advantage? It’s all too common for companies in the real estate industry to be stuck in traditional marketing methods that don’t reflect how modern buyers and tenants are searching for properties: online.

The real estate industry is built on relationships, partnerships, cooperation, networks, and communication. Being social is a key part of forging a successful real estate marketing strategy. It’s time for the industry to embrace the tools that social media platforms offer.

In addition to starting their searches online, buyers and tenants often write reviews about properties and agents online on social media sites and user-review sites like Yelp. Increasingly, your prospects will evaluate you based on what they read on sites like this.

So what can you do to leverage these resources? Real estate marketers can meet buyers and tenants where they are by using social media as a tool for brand awareness, lead generation, reputation management, and market intelligence.

4 ways to use social media as a strategic weapon in real estate marketing

Here are four ways you can make social media a strategic weapon for your business or property.

1) Distribute content and communicate

Social media is a natural way to communicate news and updates with your followers. Distribute your content as well as third-party curated content to share information with them. You’ll establish your brand as a valuable resource and enhance your property’s position within the marketplace by doing so.

2) Gain market intelligence

Potential buyers and tenants are online, sharing news and information with friends, colleagues, and — it turns out — you! So are your competitors, brokers, potential business partners, and important people in the community that have influence over various aspects affecting your property. There’s lots of valuable information that you can mine from social media. Use it to your advantage.

3) Control the conversation

Something people are talking about online? You and your property. Be an active participant in that conversation as a means to facilitate reputation management and to promote good customer service.

4) Listen and respond

Relatedly, taking the extra step of reading and responding to comments, posts, and reviews is what really makes social media such a valuable tool for the real estate industry. This way, you engender lasting and meaningful relationships with your buyers or tenants — and there’s no better way to build your brand and grow business than that.

Related posts:

• This Is How Often Real Estate Companies Should Post on Social Media
• When Traditional Real Estate Marketing Methods Stop Working, Try Digital Marketing
• 5 Tips for Building a Successful Real Estate Social Media Marketing Program

 

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Top 6 Effective Digital Marketing Strategies For 2019

by Katie Russell | Oct 22, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

As a real estate marketer, you want to be at a competitive advantage. To sell properties faster, here are six digital marketing strategies to get your properties in front of your competitors. 

When it comes to real estate marketing, the same concepts apply. Everybody wants to know what the competition is doing differently. To drive sales, you have to look at your performance and make changes where necessary.  

The trick is to look at key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversion rate, market share growth, purchaser rate, and social media engagement as benchmarks to measure your progress. But there is more to real estate digital marketing than just looking at your website traffic. 

Here are six of the top digital approaches that work for real estate. 

1. Optimize your website 

As of July 2019, there are 4.33 billion active internet users, most of whom come from the United States. This means almost everyone, including those searching for luxury developments, is using the internet to do research and find properties to purchase. Therefore, the importance of having a professional website cannot be emphasized enough. In fact, many luxury real estate firms are using digital media to show their properties online. 

Recent data from the National Association of Realtors backs this up: 

• 90% of real estate firms have websites to show their property listings.  
• Over 50% of home buyers looked online for properties in 2018 

With the traditional real estate market increasing its online presence, optimizing your website is crucial to get ahead of the competition and reach more potential buyers. The result? More sales. 

2. Be easy to reach 

With a professional and well-optimized website, users will want to reach you. Make sure you include all your contacts on social media pages, website, and emails. Your contact information should remain consistent whether it’s on a business card or social media accounts — you’d be surprised how often this is not the case! 

3. Have a video marketing campaign 

Of all the digital formats, videos have the highest engagement rate, making video marketing one of the most effective digital marketing strategies to showcase your services, increase brand awareness, and lower cost per lead.  

Videos on Twitter get an average of more than six retweets, while Facebook users view 100 million hours of video content daily. Video content can drive organic search traffic by 157%.  

4. Start blogging 

Do you want more prospective visitors to your website? Then start a blog or breathe new life into that dormant one on your site. A business blog is an essential and inexpensive marketing tool for driving traffic to your web pages and improving search engine ranking.  

However, did you know only 44% of people update their blogs, yet there are over 329 million monthly readers? So, while other companies are relying on traditional marketing strategies, you can capitalize on this competitive advantage and use a blog to provide value to customers and build trust. 

5. Use social media as part of your digital marketing strategy 

You need to be where your prospects are. That means you need to build a strong presence on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and many others. The easiest way to promote your brand is to through your social media account. According to Forbes, having a LinkedIn company page increases brand awareness and helps to promote your services to potential clients. With over 500 million users, LinkedIn is also the most effective social media platform for securing professional audience engagement. You can also use all the other social media accounts to communicate with your followers and boost your online presence directly. 

6. Optimize for local SEO 

Even after optimizing your website to reach a broad audience, you should also focus on local traffic. A targeted approach allows those looking for properties nearby — let’s say in Boston or surrounding areas — to get the luxury development listings that match their needs and goals. Use Google Analytics to find out if locals are visiting your site and add your company to local directories. Other ways to optimize for local SEO is to use a local number, encourage customers to leave reviews, and having geo-targeted content. 

As of 2019, there are more options to market real estate business than ever. Whichever digital marketing strategy you prefer, you should be branching out and using the most effective ones for your business. Remember, your real estate digital marketing goals should be tailored to maximize your visibility online, bring in new businesses, and keep you ahead of the competition. 

Related posts:

• Real Estate Marketing Leads: 4 Myths (and How to Disprove Them)
• DIY Digital Marketing Strategy for Real Estate in Four Easy Steps
• Developing Your Real Estate Brand with Video Marketing

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6 Luxury Real Estate Trends to Keep an Eye On

by Katie Russell | Sep 17, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

From security and privacy measures to wellness amenities, here are six luxury real estate trends for marketers to take note of. 

Smart home technology, high-level amenities, and emphasis on security — those are just some of the luxury real estate trends that will shape the market this year and beyond.  

 Here’s what you need to know, boiled down to a 5-minute read.  

Overview of the luxury real estate market trends in Boston 

The luxury real estate market is changing rapidly due to technology that allows for increased consumer mobility. More and more buyers are able to tour homes virtually, giving them access to properties around the clock. Affluent buyers have started to expand the ownership of property beyond their historical locations, branching into new areas and even across state lines. 

And let’s not forgot about millennials. While Baby Boomers still possess more current wealth, younger buyers continue to grow tremendous spending potential. That is why they have become a crucial market segment for luxury real estate agents. 

Luxury real estate trends to look for 

Similar to other industries, the real estate world is driven by demand. In fact, the nationwide average selling price for luxury properties increased towards the end of 2018 despite increased mortgage rates. But several factors remain constant: the trends and features that come with high-end homes. Here are the most popular trends. 

1. Smart homes 

Connectivity and convenience go hand in hand in luxury real estate. A home equipped with the latest in digital technology is a statement of wealth and modernity. The smart home does not only benefit the environment but deliver financial benefits to the owner as well. For all the developments with smart locks, smart thermostats, and more, we are only seeing the beginning of the smart home revolution. 

2. Advanced security

The affluent home buyers spare no expense to ensure their lives and items remain secure. From hiring architects who conceal houses to scraping their properties off the grid, this market segment invests heavily in security.  And more advanced features and products will hit the market in the next few months. 

3. Focus on privacy

In addition to security, buyers at this price point also value privacy — and they are willing to spend big bucks to achieve that sense of complete seclusion. If you acquire a home for $5 million, you do not expect it to be visible to neighbors or have anyone from the street walk to your front door. Buyers want homes with gates, hedges, and walls, but not that big chain link fence. Aesthetically pleasing privacy features add a different layer to it. 

4. Guest suites

Most luxury buyers are embracing the trend of guest suites. The suite does not have to be detached. It can sit right off the garage downstairs or be equipped with an en-suite bathroom to be used by visiting family or friends, as well as the live-in maid or nanny. Buyers also prefer extra space and rooms for home offices, workout rooms, or a gym. 

5. Swimming pools, particularly smaller ones

A pool is one of the key expectations in any luxury property. However, few people want the pool to take up the entire backyard. Instead, home buyers may opt for a smaller plunge pool or a “glorified jacuzzi.” With the construction of big homes on small lots, the trend makes perfect sense.  

6. Amenity-rich homes

Customized libraries, wine cellars, yoga roof decks, serenity spaces — affluent buyers have moved beyond private gyms. And developers are responding accordingly, adding wellness amenities to new projects. Eco-friendly features have also begun to play a more significant role with buyers specifically searching for LEED–certified buildings.  

What trends have you noticed in luxury real estate?  

Related posts:

• Using Content Marketing to Market and Sell Luxury Real Estate
• The Role of Social Media in Luxury Real Estate Marketing
• 5 Luxury Real Estate Brands that Use Content Marketing to Sell Property