Digital Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agencies

My experience working as a marketing coordinator in the real estate industry allows me to continuously learn and experiment with a few digital strategies- focusing on both organic and paid posts. Entering this digital phase, it is time to focus on branding and high-quality content.

1. Segment your database

After reviewing the company’s digital customer experience, I examined their audience segmentation. Who visits the page? Who engages with us the most? Other details including their location, age, gender and interests could also be found on reporting tools such as Facebook Ads Manager or Google Analytics.

Due to the nature of the real estate agency, it usually focuses on a particular area. Additional research on the demographics of that area could be useful. I particularly love to use RP Data Professional to get the suburb demographics or census data from the Australian government. Similarly, understanding who lives in the suburb allows you to understand the community profile from age, gender, weekly income, weekly rent and family size.

Knowing who your audience makes it easier for you to create content ideas. For example, knowing that 40% of the household consists of couples with children, it is worthwhile to always include nearby schools in your listing details.

2. Reviews

As much as it is easier said than done, reviews get your company or individual agent a head start. There are a few platforms for real estate company or agents to shine: Google, Facebook, realestate.com.au and ratemyagent.com.au (everyone’s favourite).

Ratemyagent has particularly been a go-to-website for a rating because they have an extensive database of trustworthy reviews. No one except a legitimate vendor or purchaser could submit a review.

Another reason why Ratemyagent is great because of its integration with Google and Facebook. It automatically posts the latest received review to your Google and Facebook account- one less job for me to do!

However, it is also worthwhile to receive ratings on other websites too- realestate.com.au is undoubtedly Australia’s number one property finder website with 6.6 million visits each month, that’s a huge amount of clicks that you wouldn’t want to miss.

3. Omnichannel

The platforms that your customer visit from enquiry, inspection to purchase varies. I came across this useful chart of a customer journey when looking for a property from plezzel.com.au – I want to give them a shoutout because they have helped our agents in retargeting by compiling enquiries details from many platforms to one place.

As illustrated, in each customer phase, there are different digital touchpoints and opportunity for a marketer to perform. This is where your company branding matters the most, it has to show unified and consistent branding to your customer, building their confidence and trust to purchase/ rent a property with us.

As a marketer in the real estate industry, it is essential to keep our platforms active with regular posts. My approach focuses on consistency with no more than 6 posts a week, amounting to once a day. Hubspot found that pages under 10,000 fans experienced a 50% drop in engagement per post if they posted more than once per day.

4. Lead generation

The most important KPI that a real estate marketer should understand is lead generation. How do we get there? Through lead magnets. Providing valuable high-quality content in exchange for their contact information. Some examples of lead magnets for real estate company include free:

• Market appraisals
• eBook, topics:
  • How to purchase your first property
  • Investment property 101
  • Renting in (Suburb Name)
  • Should you auction your property?
• Webinars

Not only these educational tools will confide your customers, but it is also a great way to educate them.

Using the right technology can help us tap on opportunities through a segmented approach using your data, creativity, loads of patience and perseverance. I am by no means the expert in this, so feel free to drop your thoughts on the comment section below.