Real Estate Marketing - the Digital Age

Half of all home buyers used the internet to find their homes. Technology has changed how the world does business, especially the real estate world. For most home buyers, they may start their home search with a decorating magazine full of unique ideas. But the next step is to look online for what is out there and available. They do this before even talking to a realtor. The old ways of doing things, such as contacting a realtor first and looking through newspaper ads, is now long gone. Effective real estate strategy must include the technological advances of our time. It can not be looked at as the enemy or ignored altogether. The following list offers some suggestions for strategies on how to improve your marketing channels and use technology in the best way possible.

The first thing that should be developed is creating a landing page so that your mailing list, email list and others can find you. The second thing to do is to create those mailing lists and email lists. These can be used for not only mail but also across your social media channels too. Once you have your lists with email addresses, physical addresses and phone numbers, you will have a variety of choices for your targeted marketing. Create a website with one page dedicated to getting more contacts and their information. Just add a form that a visitor fills out with all of their vital information on that landing page. In order to get someone to sign up, you will need to make them an offer that they just can’t refuse. Give them something to download or access to a service.

Once someone has filled out the form and sent you their information, then ask them for a referral. Bringing family and friends on board makes your approach much more human and personal. A large portion of real estate transactions happen because someone referred a friend., If someone sends you a prospect, send them a thank you by way of a gift card or some other type of reward. The right thank you gift can drive a person to repeat referrals.

Having a Review page is another way to build a positive reputation and following. These days, you check reviews before you go to the doctor, the gym or a restaurant. Realtors are a part of the online conversation. Put a review system together and encourage your positive encounters to make a statement. These reviews when found on your website, will help people make a decision before contacting you. Also have review pages set up on Zillow, Yelp and Facebook. Let people know that you have these pages ready and encourage them to make a comment.

Even though making a phone call seems “old fashioned” these days with everyone using digital messaging, picking up the phone and calling people on your lists is still the best way for a personalized encounter. With a nice chatty conversation, you can get referrals and even sales. They are the closest you can get without sitting in someone’s living room! Phone calls can make an impression, one that lasts. Make a phone call to those on your lists that you think may be interested in a new listing you have. You can send them an email, but a phone call can convey your enthusiasm for the listing and for you thinking about them. Sometimes you may run into a for sale by owner property. You can call those people and ask if you can help them out. If they are having no success in their endeavors, you would be the first in line to pick up their listing. Also call all recent clients and make sure that everything is going well. Ask them about their new home and any projects that they had talked about doing. You can ask them for referrals and tell them about your review pages.

Make sure that you set up a system for all activity tracking. Google analytics can be utilized for this job. Integrate all phone tracking programs into an overall view. A call tracking platform will make things easy by listing where calls are coming from. It can also monitor and alert you if someone filled out a form on line or if someone asked a question. Follow up can then be done quickly and efficiently. Some call tracking programs can let you know which marketing product that the call was generated from. It can track if the call came from a brochure, postcard or print ads and allows you to get a true understanding of where you marketing dollars are best spent.

And finally, the best way to embrace the age of technology is to become social! It is almost a rule that you need to be very active on social media. Facebook is the place to start and it is easy to set up both a personal page and a business page. Fill them both with pictures of the homes you have sold and those that are your listings. Make your header picture filled with your contact information. You will also want an Instagram account. This social network is fantastic for pictures. Post pictures of interiors and gorgeous gardens and exteriors. Instagram has a setting for location based business that you should use. Instagram’s location services — you can geotag posts to a specific area, and have that feed into a map of other geotagged posts for that location. If you have multiple listings in a city or region, Instagram is an excellent way to provide prospects with a simple and easy-to-use map of available properties in their area. It is a great platform