What is real estate content marketing
(and why is it so important)
Real estate content marketing is all about promoting your business through consistently sharing educational, entertaining or insightful information with the goal of:
- Attracting
- Educating
- Retaining and
- Converting leads in your local community
Up until about 5 years ago, a homeowner looking to sell their home would invite 4-5 real estate agents in for a property appraisal before they decided which agent was going to sell their property. Their choice of agent came down to how well they connected with the individual agent, their sales presentation, possibly a referral from a friend and more often than not, who they trusted the most.
Fast track to today’s market, homeowners now only invite on average 1.5 real estate agents in for a property appraisal. Why? Because they have already done their research and have pretty much decided who they are going to choose to sell their home long before the agent is invited in for an appraisal.
Strategically planned and executed content marketing helps to position you and your agency as THE real estate thought leader in the local community. The end result is when that person in your community is looking for someone to sell or manage their property, you are the person they contact as you are their go to agent.
Let’s recap that.
Most sellers have already decided who they are going to choose to sell their home before they ask them in for an appraisal.
How have they made this decision? And how can you make sure you are on that shortlist?
This is where content marketing fits in and why it is so valuable for lead generation for real estate businesses.
Home sellers’ journey and how real estate content marketing fit it?
To understand how content marketing fits in to lead generation let’s look at this scenario.
Understanding the home sellers’ journey – awareness stage
Imagine a property owner who lives in the area you service, who doesn’t know you or really any agent in the suburb, is starting to think about whether they should sell their home and downsize. They have watched their friends do it and in fact they heard about a neighbour down the road who sold a similar property for a great price. Their mind starts to tick over and they wonder about their possibilities. What could they do if they had some extra cash and a smaller property to look after?
First point of call for them is Google and social media channels…They start to search for information on the local property market, what’s sold, how much did it sell for, what’s currently on the market. They look at what they could the afford if they sold their home…the list of online search queries is long and diverse.
Search queries
- What properties have sold in my area?
- How much are properties selling for?
- What is on the market?
- What is happening the wider property market?
- What is happening in the local property market?
- Where do I want to move to?
This stage is what we call the awareness stage, when they begin to familiarize themselves with their options. During this time, they don’t know what they don’t know and are just trying to get to grips with the concept of selling their home before they dive in a bit deeper and talk to a real estate agent.
Home sellers’ journey – Consideration stage
Having done some initial research, they are now more familiar with their options and they have moved into the consideration phase.
This stage is focused on comparing agents in the area and perhaps looking at the option of selling their property DIY. They are looking for who is active in their suburb, reading local blog posts, who is selling similar properties, who is a thought leader, who has a strong personal brand, who has a strong local presence and is involved in the community? They are basically creating a shortlist of 1 – 2 agents from them contact.
Search queries
- Who is the best agent in the area?
- What are the steps to selling?
- How do I sell my property for the most amount of money?
- What agent is a thought leader in the area
- I want a local market report
- How much is my property worth?
Home sellers’ journey – Decision Stage
The third and final stage in the home sellers’ journey is the decision stage. At this point, they have a pretty good understanding of the local market, who the good real estate agents are with a strong local presence. By reading testimonials, talking to neighbours, finding out who people trust, they are able to narrow down their selection and determine which 1-2 agents they are going to contact and invite in for a property appraisal. Short of the agent totally dropping the ball during the appraisal, the deal is almost done.
Search queries
- I’d like a property appraisal
- Contact details or agents on their shortlist
- Social media searches to double check the quality of the agent
The agents that get more invitations to conduct property appraisals are the agents who have a strong online presence and who are providing their local community with consistently created, relevant and valuable content.
What are some examples of real estate content marketing tools?
So, what pieces of content should you create to help position your personal brand or real estate business? Whilst this certainly isn’t a complete list here is a look at the 10 key digital marketing content types that can help drive tangible business results.
- Local Blog posts
Blogs are the cornerstone of a content marketing strategy. When valuable content or industry news is shared through a blog, the writer inevitably comes across as an industry expert, which keeps visitors returning to your site, helps build trust with your audience and importantly helps Google find you. - How-to articles
As the name suggests, these are articles that provide structured, often step by step solutions to problems that customers enter into their search queries. - Listicles
These are some of the most powerful for SEO and are articles written in the form of a numbered list. - Long form articles
These are 2000+ word articles written as a definitive resource or ‘ultimate guide’ on a specific topic. These are incredibly valuable for SEO content and help with building trust and convey thought leadership with home sellers who are bombarded with tons of choices to get their information online and are in pursuit of one curated go-to source. - eBooks, guides, workbooks
These are similar to long form articles but importantly they are positioned as premium content and often require the reader to provide their email address in order to download it. This is a very important tool to generate leads, not only are you offering value first, but you are also collecting the website visitors email address so you can nurture them through the sales funnel. - White papers
Research based reports (typically longer than a blog post but shorter than an eBook), include sought after statistic and insights are often very popular. They are also normally only shared once the visitor has given their email address. - Video content
Video content is the current darling of the marketing world. According to Google, some 70% of YouTube watchers are looking for help with a problem. Popular formats for video include how-to videos, interview style videos, vlogs. - Audio
Audio content (podcasts) are on a meteoric rise. Many people prefer to consume content during their daily routines, and audio content allows for this. - Visual content
Not only does an image tell a thousand words they also instantly stand out in a sea of text whether placed in a blog post or shared as a social media post. Good examples include infographics, poster quotes and memes. - Email Marketing / inbound marketing
These are often the forgotten piece of the content marketing puzzle, but they are critical to helping convert potential clients to a qualified lead. Getting this program working takes skill and is often best done in conjunction with a content marketing agency. Just in case you’re interested, one of Localiz’ key differentiators in the content marketing agency landscape, is our ability to create bespoke nurture programs for our clients.
Why do I need high quality real estate content marketing?
Smart real estate agents and real estate brands recognise that the more time they spend adding value with no hard sells, the more people within their community are prone to like, trust and be influenced by them, as well as recommend them to their friends.
In essence, your brand is the content you create. Specifically, the video content, audio, written and visual content that is shared with people. It ensures:
- You or your real estate website can be found on Search engines – this is critical for when potential clients are doing their online research
- Constant flow of fresh social media content
- Brand awareness – to help your chances of being considered for a property appraisal
- Drive traffic to your agent website / social pages
- Able to compete with your competitors and importantly so they don’t dominate when potential clients are online
- Position your real estate brand as the local thought leader
- Data capture and lead identification
- Nurture leads through the sales funnel
- Stand out from other real estate agents and real estate businesses
Because the barriers to entry are so low, anyone and everyone can and is producing and sharing content. With unlimited content being produced, consumers have increasingly higher standards as to what they consider is quality content.
What this means for real estate companies and the real estate industry as a whole, is they now need to either spend more time and resources ensuring their content is of exceptional quality and produced and shared frequently, or they need to work with a content marketing agency or specialists who offer real estate content marketing services.
A final word
Real estate content marketing is here to stay. If you’re not doing it well and your competitor is, in a nutshell, their business is going to grow faster than yours. Quite simply ignoring content marketing is sadly not an option. So too is doing an average job of content marketing and not producing quality, engaging content on a regular basis and importantly nurturing your leads.
Localiz offers bespoke local content marketing packages for all budgets. To find out more and how we can help you and your business grow, contact our team here.
*Content Marketing Institute.
