Buying a house or an apartment… It’s not an ‘out of the blue’ decision you make every day. A real estate purchase requires a solid investment, which in turn requires a well thought-out thinking process. Unfortunately, a real estate company has little control over that thought process, which makes it difficult to attract the right property leads for the right project. With these tips, you’ll easily succeed in attracting the right leads.
What is a real estate lead?
A lead or real estate lead is someone who shows genuine interest in your real estate office or in one of your real estate projects. The ways in which people get in touch with your office or a specific project can be very diverse: from traditional marketing campaigns such as advertisements (both offline and online) and mailings, to a lucky visit to your website, or after reading a well-written blog or case that you shared on your website and social media… They are all reasons to give your target audience that extra push to get in touch with you.
But the thought process, also known as the customer journey, that someone goes through before making a purchase decision takes a long time. And therein lies the challenge: if you want to make an impact on potential buyers for your real estate projects, then you’d better make sure that you target your audience from the very beginning of their customer journey. Challenge accepted!
Inbound marketing for your real estate company
Unlike lead generation, which is mainly important at the beginning of a thought process or customer journey, Inbound Marketing comes later in the thought process. Specifically, in this case, potential customers already have a very good idea of what property they want to buy and are asking for very targeted information themselves. Everything here depends on the notice that you as a real estate company give to these people. If your website offers the right (free) real estate information, then you as a real estate agent can quickly distinguish yourself from your competition.
Attracting leads online is not easy. Often, your visitors are anonymous, you’re not aware of their needs and interaction is therefore a challenge. Fortunately, Inbound Marketing does offer a lot of insights into the interested target group for your real estate office or project. This enables you to go in search of qualitative leads. How do you do that? By first and foremost focusing on valuable content and then sharing it intelligently. We list a few tips:
1. Write newsletters
As a real estate agent, you want to position yourself as a real estate expert. By means of a newsletter, you can anticipate the demand from potential customers for information that is relevant to them when purchasing a property or real estate.
But there are also pitfalls. If you don’t handle your newsletter well, if it is unclear or lacks credibility, sending out a newsletter can quickly backfire on your real estate activities. So do it right from day one: share the right tips, give the right advice to the right target group (depending on the stage in the customer journey where your customer is) and under no circumstances advertise your own real estate company.
If you write a newsletter on a regular basis, you build up trust with people: the first step towards quality real estate leads has been taken!
2. Feed your website with blog content
If you want to “sell” yourself as a real estate expert, a blog can help you do that.
A blog allows you to address useful and interesting real estate information or topics. What are the different types of real estate? How can you obtain a loan? What do you have to consider when buying a property? What if someone wants to sell his or her house? These are all questions that your target audience asks, and to which you as an expert can offer the answer.
Choose a specific question and write an answer to it. Add some striking images and voilà! Your blog is ready to be shared with the outside world. Take care! Again, the rule is to be sparing with commercial messages. Limit yourself to the information someone is really looking for.
3. Video: an invaluable asset
In a digital march, it is impossible to imagine life without video. Visual content, and more specifically moving images, has become one of the most effective ways of attracting people’s attention.
‘Why?’ you might ask yourself?
Well! The reason why video is so popular today is because of people’s screening behaviour. Few people have time to read in-depth articles or really absorb content. Or rather: they don’t like to take the time for it anymore. Snackable content in the form of video, aka content that does not require too much effort, is therefore of great importance.
And is video also interesting for me as a broker?
The answer is ‘YES’! Suppose someone is looking for a house or a larger property,but there’s a problem: this person has little knowledge of the buying process, nor does he or she know about the administration that goes with it. In this case, you can do two things: either write a blog with the necessary information, or make a video in which you clearly address certain aspects. If you explain it verbally, then you not only create clarity on the subject in a simple manner, but you also effectively show your face. With the latter, in addition to your expertise, you also create recognition and affinity: visitors or potential customers know in advance with whom they may come into contact and trust that you have sufficient knowledge about the subject matter.
4. Make extensive use of your social media channels
All too often, we do not make enough use of our social media channels. As usual, within the real estate sector, people primarily invest in offline marketing, such as billboards, pancartes and paper brochures. But you can also use social media to bring in a lot – and even a lot more – of potential customers. You just have to use them correctly.
Social media allow you to build trust with your audience. By sharing real estate information and knowledge directly on your feed, or by setting up digital campaigns, you create a human approach, ensure affinity with your real estate business and especially connect (potential) customers with your specific office. By applying your own branding or corporate identity to your profile, but also in your way of communicating, you can easily distinguish yourself from your competition.
Pay attention! It is advisable to use a different language for the different social media channels and also slightly adapt your content. If you share something on Facebook and Instagram, your content can be a bit more ‘light-hearted’. If you share something on LinkedIn, it is best to use more businesslike language. This is because the target groups that use the various platforms are very diverse.
A final tip for your social media channels: post on a regular basis, but avoid oversharing. Too much information is never good, and you also lose sight of your quality.
5. Running paid campaigns on social media
With an infinite number of players on the market, the real estate sector today is oversupplied. Therefore, it is not always easy to stand out from the competition. To be one step ahead of other players in your sector, quality social media advertising can help.
And let that be Immowi’s expertise! Immowi matches the unique characteristics of a real estate project, national or international, with the surfing and clicking behaviour of potential buyers or investors. This enables it to set up targeted advertisements that distinguish you from your competition and attract the right leads for your project or office.
6. Real estate portals, often a pitfall
Real estate portals such as Zoopla, Immoweb, Zimmo, Funda, PropertyPortal, Immowelt, Kasaz, Subito or Kyero attract huge numbers of visitors every day. Together, they are a goldmine for valuable leads for just about any real estate company. But that also means that the competition is fierce, because everyone obviously thinks the same.
The more properties you have available, the more quickly you will be prepared to invest large sums in each of these platforms. By doing so, you increase the visibility of your office and your projects to the public and consequently make a name for yourself faster. But if everyone does this, it will become more and more of a competition in the long run. That is why it is important to follow your campaigns closely and to adjust them if necessary: on which platform are you getting the most leads? And via which channels does your strategy work best? Narrow the scope of your campaign as you gain more insights, because this is the only way to work cost-efficiently.
7. Is Offline Marketing still necessary?
Online Marketing may be on the rise, but Offline Marketing also remains invaluable. Only a minority of online leads within the real estate sector come from online campaigns or information. Are you not visible on the street? Then few potential customers will make the connection with your real estate business.
Conclusion
Attracting real estate leads is no easy task. Due to growing competition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish yourself in the market. So roll up your sleeves and make sure you campaign offline as well as online. This is the only way to boost your real estate business.
Eager to get more information about real estate lead generation? At Immowi, we are happy to help!
