People are spending more time online. In fact, the average American spends 24 hours a week online, surfing the web. That’s 151% growth since 2000 when people only spent about nine hours a week online.
When it comes to marketing your business, all of this time spent online means digital strategies are the best options for real estate advertising.
When you hear “digital real estate advertising,” Facebook ads might be the first thing to come to mind. The truth is, running ads is only one way to manage real estate advertising.
Since audiences differ from niche to niche, you need flexibility and more ways to get in front of the right people and attract your ideal clients.
To get you started, we’ve found five examples of digital real estate advertising strategies that use different online marketing channels to get you noticed. Let’s take a look.
1. Use social media to target unique audiences
Facebook and Instagram aren’t just for advertising and posting pretty pictures. With 2.27 billion and 1 billion active monthly users respectively, both platforms offer a tremendous opportunity to advertise to different types of audiences.
Since social media is free to use, choosing the right strategy guarantees your advertising gets you noticed by a larger segment of your audience.
You can use Facebook to post new listings:
Or use Instagram to attract buyers looking for luxury multi-million dollar properties:
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Chances are you use more than one social media channel. As a result, your real estate advertising strategy should start with defining how you’ll use each platform. For each channel you use, think about:
The types of content you’ll share: You don’t have to post the same content across all platforms. For example, post open house pictures, walk-throughs, and special offers on Instagram, and post events and reminders, client testimonials, industry news, and your successes — like awards and the number of homes sold — on Facebook. This way, the content caters to specific audience interests on each platform.
How often you’ll post: Studies show that for the best engagement on social media platforms, you should post at least once a day — for example each week post about a new series, like how to prep for an open house, to have a constant stream of content available. When you post, invite people to leave comments and ask questions. When they do, respond quickly because they expect you to. In fact, 39% of people want a response within 60 minutes on social media.
Your goals: Think about what you want your posts to achieve. For example, do you want your posts to increase lead generation, convert more leads to clients, or get more engagement from your audience? Depending on your goal, your social media sharing should include posts that match these goals.
For each platform you use, learn how to get your content seen. For example, do hashtag research for your niche audience, and test and place different hashtags in each of your posts as a way to get traffic to your page and eventually your website.
Plus, when it comes to sending traffic to your website, keep in mind that Instagram and Facebook use the same Advertising Manager. This way, you can use a tool like HomeSpotter to automatically get your listings seen by people on Facebook and Instagram. Just upload a listing to MLS, and we’ll take care of the rest by creating ads and lead pages and give you a dashboard to track lead engagement.
The key to advertising on social media is to think inclusively to prevent targeting discrimination. Facebook has already removed thousands of targeting options, but you still need to think about how to target people with relevant ads without leaving anyone out based on factors like their political beliefs, religion, and ethnicity.
2. Use automation to improve customer experience
One of the benefits of digital advertising is the option to automate processes. As your business grows, automation makes it easier for you to focus on things like closing sales and guiding first-time buyers through the buying process without worrying about manually creating ads or sending individual messages to all new leads.
Automation lets you focus on your strengths as an agent so that so that you can focus on building lasting relationships.
There are tools like Boost and our messaging feature available to help you manage your client base more efficiently.
For example, use Boost to automatically create Facebook and Instagram ads that are optimized to target different types of audiences every time you post a new listing.
Boost also creates branded lead pages for each new listing so that you can track audience engagement:
You even have a dashboard to quickly track all of your ads to see where your leads come from and how your ads perform.
3. Optimize your website with a lead magnet
People coming to your site are trying to solve an issue — they’re either looking for a new property to buy or they want to sell their existing home.
In order to cater to these needs, you have to understand them and offer a quick and easy fix. One way to do this is to offer free downloadable content in the form of a lead magnet.
Lead magnets are a powerful real estate advertising tool because they’re action-oriented and offer people something they can use immediately. The quicker people experience value — their aha! moment — the sooner they realize you offer the best solution.
An effective lead magnet offers some kind of valuable content in exchange for a person’s contact information — usually their email address. With an email address, you create an email nurture campaign that consists of five to seven emails.
The first email should include the free content followed by a series of emails that introduce you and highlight your services. Emails should also provide ongoing support and value — like links to relevant blog posts, industry news, special events, and more.
To create a nurture sequence that solves the issue website visitors are experiencing, segment your email list based on where people spend the most time on your site.
Add different types of lead magnets to different pages on your site so you know who your buyers are vs. sellers vs. current clients who you can ask for referrals vs. people interested in open houses. Then create relevant email content vs. sending the same email blast to everyone on your list.
Some examples of lead magnets to use include:
A downloadable guide –sharetips like how to stage a home, a first-time buyer checklist, or a neighborhood comparison chart:
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A video guide – get in front of the camera and talk about current mortgage rates and market reports:
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Access to a free service – offer a home evaluation:
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Keep in mind that lead magnets can be a pop-up on your homepage or embedded on different pages on your site.
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