Content Marketing and the Real Estate Industry

By Ben Allen, Guest Contributor

Real estate is a bit of a strange industry when it comes to marketing. Seventy-five percent of a real estate agent’s business comes from word of mouth and referrals, so if an agent can’t make connections with people, they can’t earn a living. Yet, over time the real estate industry has changed, especially thanks to new technologies.

​So, that means that tactics like content marketing, mainly designed to attract new leads, isn’t very effective, right? Well, yes and no. Good content marketing can still bring in new leads, but it can also help boost your word of mouth and referrals from existing customers. Here are some tips to producing content that can do both.

Two Different Purposes For Your Content
Since most of a real estate agent’s business comes from referrals, improving those leads needs to be a focus. But, you also need to try and find leads yourself. There are some people who either don’t trust recommendations from others or simply want to find their own agent.

That creates two different purposes for content marketing to fill. One is to help bring in more referrals, and the other is to attract new leads to you. Each of these purposes requires very different tactics and types of content, since both groups they target are at very different points in their lives. It’s important to build unique strategies for each group so that they can both succeed.

Creating Promoters With Content
A promoter is somebody who goes out of their way to actively talk about and support your business. Ideally, this should be a customer, but it could be anybody who likes your business.

The best way to transform customers into promoters is to do a great job for them. But often that isn’t enough. People might like your work but forget about you weeks later. Sure, as visitors come see the house, they might ask who their agent was, and your customer might tell them that you were a good realtor. But over time, they lose that feeling and might even forget your name. So, when it comes time that somebody they know needs a good realtor, they might not even remember you and won’t give that referral.

So content’s role is to help keep you top of mind. It can help you connect with customers on a regular basis and continue to impress them with your expertise.

Producing Content That Helps Promoters
Let’s talk about what kind of content you should produce for your promoters. First things first: good content strategy is all about helping your readers. They have problems they are looking for solutions for online, and you need to provide them.

Now, the most common factor among all of your customers is the thing they bought: a house. (or condo, commercial property, or whatever you focus on). The content you produce should help with problems they might encounter after they have bought a house.

Having a good variety of this helpful content can make sure you connect with as many people as possible. Topics can include home improvement or maintenance, lowering home costs, local events in the area, or decorating tips.

Whatever you produce to make customers become promoters, just make sure it is useful to them. Depending on what type of markets you work in, that can be different than the suggestions above. It needs be the kind of stuff they would want to read and share online.

How You Stay Connected
Here’s the thing. You could create wonderful content for people you have worked with, but if they can’t see it, it’s pointless. How you promote your content to them is just as important as the content itself.

The two most available tools you’ll have are email and social media. It’s likely that you have email addresses from tons of clients since it’s a normal thing to acquire when you start helping somebody find a home. After the buying process is done, ask if they would like to join an email list for things like newsletters or update emails from you.

When you do this, have examples of your helpful content ready so they know what to expect. That way, you could stay in touch with them on a regular basis. You could even segment your customers into different email groups that better match their type of home and their situations.

Social media is wonderful for connecting on a more frequent rate. Instead of having to put two or three articles in a monthly email, you can post links to content on a daily basis for them to see. It feels less annoying since people are on social media to find content. You can even reply to comments customers have and continue your relationship with them.

Attracting New Leads
Traditionally, content marketing is designed to attract visitors to a site who can then transform into leads and eventually customers. This approach, while not the most profitable, is still viable for real estate agents. You just need to know what people are searching for, especially in your local area.

The best place to start with your content is by identifying and addressing pain points people have that lead to buying a house. Some people might not have even considered buying a home, even though they are a perfect candidate. These people are encountering problems in their current living conditions, like frustrating landlords, not enough space in their current home, what to do if they live in an unsafe neighborhood, and high rent.

Your top of the marketing funnel content should address these kinds of issues your target market has. From there, you can help influence them that buying a house is the best solution for them and that you are the best real estate agent to do that.

Of course, this influencing should be done over several pieces of content and in a gradual manner. It should almost feel to your visitors that it was their idea to buy a home, you just provided the information that got them there. Then, they’ll be more likely to choose you as their agent since you were the expert helping them out with great content.

As you produce more and more content, you’ll better adapt your strategies for your target audiences and customers. Not only will you get more leads from your past customers, you’ll also get more leads from your own marketing efforts.

Have a question about content marketing you want answered? Let us know in the comments below!
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