Real Estate Marketing 101: A Guide for Agents
At Artifakt Digital, we’ve built our success on one thing: developing digital strategies and real estate marketing plans for some North America’s busiest and most successful agents and teams.
If you’re just discovering us for the first time and doing your homework on marketing yourself as an agent, there are some things we think you should know.
Our Approach To Real Estate Marketing
First, is a bit more about us.
We have built our agency around helping real estate professionals grow their businesses while getting better at what they do. We believe in strategy, but we also believe in results.
Everything we do is driven by strategy, and executed by our talented team of world-class creatives along the way. Branding, content, SEO, design, development, we provide a host of services for all of our clients.
On top of that, we understand real estate. Everything we do focuses on that very topic, so we know about the process, the demands, and the data behind why users and consumers act the way they do when it comes to buying, selling, investing, recruiting, and more.
Your Primer On Real Estate Marketing
Over the years, we’ve built a vast collection of content based on some of the frequently asked questions we receive about real estate marketing. We’ve taken the time to receive them, analyze them, and expand upon them — to give our clients the leg-up they deserve to stand out from their competition.
Here are some of the core concepts we want to share with you…
What Is Real Estate Marketing?
It’s what you do, every day, to promote you, your business, and your brand. It’s also the creative and consistent execution to further those goals.
We talk about it as part of a wide-ranging strategy to build your marketing plan. You can read more about that by clicking this link.
Essentially, it’s everything you do and every touchpoint you create to further your brand’s promise, mission, or commitment to your target audience/consumer.
Does Every Agent/Team Need A Website?
Definitely. Just because your current website isn’t working for you, it doesn’t mean that a real estate website is a waste of time or money. It just means that it isn’t being executed properly.
We’ve profiled many of these issues at length, including:
- Why you should avoid templated website solutions
- Why single-page property features don’t work
- How many websites are too many for an agent
- Why your current website isn’t converting leads
Especially in our current environment, a website is a necessity. It’s a lifeline to connect you to potential leads, even ones in your referral network, and — when done correctly — can take your business to new heights.
How Do You Build A Website?
You work with the experts. Our team has built countless websites for real estate professionals across North America, and a key part of our approach is understanding you, your business, your audience, and your value proposition.
The first step is to really understand just who you are building your real estate website to satisfy. Then, you need to adopt the successful traits that we have seen work across our roster of client websites.
As an agency, we have learned a lot about users in the real estate space, and we are constantly evolving our outlook to match our sites to current user trends. We forecast behavior and develop solutions to meet those changing needs, which leads to websites that perform better, at a higher quality, and for a longer time.
How Do Agent Websites Get Leads?
Leads are essential for any agent, and we develop our websites to focus on higher-quality, higher-performing, and higher-qualified leads that reach out to our agents with confidence.
It begins with a professional website, a strong and unique brand, and effective content that is both informative without being overwhelming. We want users to know that our clients care about them, and not just their business.
We have employed a variety of strategies to result in more qualified leads and parlaying the typical sources of leads for many agents into a coherent content strategy.
After all, any website can get you a mountain of junk leads. The kind that would never be able to convert because they have no desire to convert. Instead, we believe in a higher quality of lead, and one that is better prepared to be nurtured through the process.
How Can Your Listings Rank First On Google?
A key to having your listing rank first on Google is by focusing on something your competition doesn’t have: unique content and insider knowledge/resources surrounding the property.
We’ve talked about before, and you can read about it right here. Basically, you can leverage the things you know about a listing to help deliver greater results on Google.
That can come down to the design of the listing itself, the details you provide (and how they are laid out), and the listing copy itself (which is also something we focus on, as an agency, to give our clients a key advantage).
How Important Is Original Content?
Content is king. And, in an industry that is filled with competition, original, effective, and impactful content can be a key differentiator for your brand.
That’s the reason why we focus so heavily on content strategy. Both how your content is written, but how it is laid out, where it is positioned, and the way it can help qualify and nurture leads on your behalf.
We can share some tips with you to start, but we know that not all of our clients are professional writers and journalists. That’s why our team of writers knows all about real estate, local markets across North America, and how to craft content that is both romantic and driven to convert.
Do You Need To Start Blogging?
Blogging is one of the easiest ways for your site to gain traffic and build authority in your market, but only if it’s done correctly and with an eye toward results.
Sure, you can write about topics that appeal to you, but chances are that’s not exactly what people are looking to find. Instead, you should invest in a blog strategy that is focused on growing your traffic and not simply growing your library.
Especially in a slower market, blogging can be a key differentiator because it helps develop your personal brand and answers your users’ pressing questions.
Is Print Marketing Still Important?
Of course, print marketing still has a key role to play in your real estate marketing efforts. The industry has just changed, so what you determine to do in print needs to be done with an emphasis on strategy.
We definitely don’t think that print marketing is dead, it just serves a different purpose. We like to focus on how your print pieces can help leverage your online presence (and vice versa).
While print materials may not be the reason someone reaches out to you, it can be a key way to develop more equity between yourself and a lead, close a deal, or simply stay top of mind when the timing is right.
How Does SEO For Real Estate Work?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way for your real estate website to stand out from competitors and build a reputation in your market while remaining completely online.
We tend to think of it in two camps: organic and paid search. Each has its own merits, and we profiled them in depth in this post right here.
Basically, SEO is a moving target, which is why we always recommend to clients that they need to work with a team — who knows what they’re doing — on a recurring basis.
This way, you’re proactively ruling in the latest trends and features, avoiding the mistakes that other sites succumb to, and adopting the critical strategies that can help your website grow over time.
Trust A Team With Expertise
As an agent or a team, we believe that you should partner with an agency that understands your industry, your business, and you and your brand. That’s what we do every day, and it’s why we’ve become one of the best at it in terms of understanding both our clients and our users.
With up to date marketing trends relevant to today’s market, our report is a selection of curated content, information, and data that will give you an outline of what’s working right now in real estate marketing.
