Why content marketing is so important for real estate agents and offices
Content marketing generates:
- 3 x as many leads
- Costs 62% less
- And has a 6 x higher conversion rate than out bound marketing tactics like advertising.
But what exactly is it?
Up until about 5 years ago, a homeowner looking to sell their home would invite 4-5 agents in for a property appraisal before they decided who was going to sell their home.
Their choice of agent came down to how well they connected with the 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 1-2 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 they have even contacted an agent.
How have they made that decision and how can you make sure that you’re on the shortlist?
This is really where content marketing fits in and why it is so valuable for lead generation for real estate businesses.
To explain why it is so important let’s look at this scenario.
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.
Their first point of call for them is Google and social media channels…They start to search for
- What properties have sold in my area?
- How much are properties selling for?
- What’s on the market?
- What’s 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 are beginning to familiarize themselves with their options. They don’t know what they don’t know and they 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.
The next stage is the consideration stage.
This stage is focused on comparing agents in the area.
They are looking for who is active in their suburb, reading local blog posts, jumping on youtube, looking at who is selling similar properties, who appears to be a thought leader and has a strong personal brand.
They are basically creating a shortlist of 1 – 2 agents for them contact.
From a google stand point they are searching for
- 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?
- Who’s the best agent in the area
- I want a local market report
- How much is my property worth? etc
Ok so at this point they have a good idea about who the best agents are in the area and they are now moving onto the third and final stage of their journey – the decision stage.
They might look at review sites or talk to neighbhours at this point or do some last minute investigations but their goal here is to finalise which 1-2 agents they are going to contact and invite in for a property appraisal.
From a google perspective they’re searching for
- I’d like a property appraisal
- Contact details for agents on their shortlist
- Social media searches to double check the quality of the agent
And then they make contact with their 1-2 agents of choice.
So, as you can see if you don’t have consistent, relevant and valuable content online you’re not going to have a strong digital presence and you’re simply not going to be found when property owners are doing their research and trying to find the best agent to sell or manage their property.
Digital content is critical to your success.
So, what are some examples of real estate content marketing?
I’m going to dive into some of these in more detail in further episodes, in particular I will look at the importance of audio and video content and how they represent the biggest opportunity for you and your brand, but here is a shopping list of what content you could create
- 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 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. So again great for data capture
- Video content Video content is the current darling of the marketing world. And I’m going to talk a lot more about this in further posts. 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.
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.
I hope this post has has helped explain content marketing and why it is so valuable for real estate agents.
In my next update I want to introduce the single biggest content opportunity I see for agents – which is ‘episodic content’ and explain what it is and why you need to be on this train.
I hope to see you then.
