Digital Marketing for Real Estate Agents that get results.
As a successful real estate agent or broker, you’re focused on caring for your current clients and building new relationships. To take your real estate business to the next level you need to look at your marketing strategy seriously, measure your ROI properly and make the right changes to grow. Partnering with the right digital marketing agency can get you great results and new listings today. Take a look below at a few of my recommendations on how I improve digital marketing for real estate agents.
Real Estate Agents and SEO
Getting your name out there is crucial to any real estate agent’s survival. The best way to do that is through an effective digital marketing strategy. And part of which is a solid real estate search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. The SEO game is complex and difficult to manage for most businesses. The real estate SEO playing field is one of the most competitive. Hiring a team of SEO experts with experience working with real estate agents, realtors, brokers or brokerages is a great place to start. But make sure to look for regular reporting and outreach from your SEO provider. It may take some time to get a fruitful real estate SEO strategy in place, but regular communication is a must. SEO services can be an expensive portion of your digital marketing strategy, don’t wait for the bill to see if it’s working.
Have you reviewed your SEO strategy lately?Â
Local SEO for Real Estate Professionals
A solid general SEO strategy is necessary for increasing a real estate agent’s exposure and reach. But local SEO for Realtors has become even more important as we move into a mobile-first age. Local SEO strategies target specific areas and locations. This includes the claiming and optimization of local business directories like Google, Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Yelp and more.
Winning the Local SEO game is entirely dependant on your physical location. Make sure your local listings have a consistent verified address to ensure you show up on those maps and local directories. Have more than one office or location? Great! Be sure each location and its respective address has a verified listing. Here are Google’s guidelines for representing your business. Now that your customers know you’re real, let’s see how we go about getting their attention with some social media.
How and where have you been engaging with your clients? Potential clients?
Social Media Marketing for Real Estate Agents
Every great digital marketing strategy includes a well managed social media presence. Real estate agents and firms need to target local people and communities, and there are few better ways to do that than social media. This marketing medium will be a part of any great digital marketing strategy for real estate agents.
You and your business should have an active presence on social media sites to create a consistent and effective lead source. Establish yourself as an expert in your field by posting consistently and relevantly. Show your listings, happy clients, and share posts that are supportive of your industry or peers.
Creating and maintaining good social media content is a labor-intensive task. Hiring a team of social media experts will ensure you’re present on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram alike with the right message at the right time. There are also plenty of tools like Hootsuite, Buffer and more that will allow you and your team to take on the task as well.Â
Organic social media will get you results, but paid advertising is where it’s at. Facebook offers a ton of great training resources to get informed on their Ad manager. Lynda.com and Hootsuite also offer some industry leading training options as well. But with all paid advertising, you want to get your money’s worth starting with the first ad.
Call a professional or if you’re going to include PPC marketing you might want to speak with your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts. They’ll have social media under control and can include those ads as part of your overall SEM campaign. Read on to see what these SEM folks are all about.
Realtor Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC)
PPC marketing is a surefire way to get found in search results for real estate agents. Though PPC can be costly and campaigns difficult to manage for the less experienced. Great PPC marketing experts are part data scientist and part marketer, all NERD. Tracking and measuring campaign data is a must, but designing text and image ads based on that data is no less important. Check to make sure your real estate PPC marketing agency has folks to manage both. There’s nothing worse than knowing what to fix, but not being able to.
Be prepared to spend. A great PPC marketing manager is going to charge around 20% of your spend to manage the overall campaign. Trust in PPC in the same way we did TV commercials, radio, and billboards. They will be seen as long as you know who you want to see it, where they like to be or shop, and what a reasonable cost for acquiring a lead is. How do you find that out? Call me. But first, you need a website for those ads to send your customers to. Let’s see what that takes.
The real estate PPC marketplace is one of the most competitive. Are you spending your money right?
Real Estate Agent Website Design
Of course, I’m biased about having a website. But I don’t know a single successful agent without one. In this highly competitive market, real estate agents and brokerages need a website that puts your brand and firm on the map. You also need a website that generates quality leads.
Getting by with a bare-bones website is no longer an option. Step your digital marketing game up with a professionally designed website that isn’t the same as the other 1,200 real estate agents in your office. Often your brokerage or franchise will offer viable solutions free or at a discounted rate, but DON’T FORGET TO CALL YOUR LOCAL WEBSITE DESIGNER. Cough, Cough. Even a “custom” website from REMAX is going to look, feel, and act pretty much the same as every other REMAX agent website. Here are a few great real estate agents that took their digital marketing strategy seriously. This arent my websites, but I’d be proud to hang my hat on them.
Closing
Start with your website, it’s where all of you and your business will live. Next, claim and complete your local listings. This will help your current and future clients find you and confirm you’re real. Then start talking to your customers on social media, get their attention and grow their interest with relevant and timely content.
That’s a lot to take in, and there are a few more things I haven’t mentioned. Regardless, my single point in all of that is: You’re a real estate agent, not a digital marketer. Give me and my team a call so we can get your digital marketing strategy inline to make you some money online. Better yet, start now with our free review and consultation.