In the busy and fast-paced world of real estate, marketing is always a valuable tool. However, marketing today looks a lot different than that of just a few years ago. As businesses turn increasingly digital, it has never been a more important time for professionals immersed in real estate to ride the digital wave and apply new and updated skills and technologies to their own practices.
For real estate brokers, their roles as marketers are one of the key parts of their work. It is up to brokers to make sure they are constantly marketing not just client properties, but the community, their services, and themselves. But how does one achieve this in the digital age? The answer lies in adapting–learning, re-skilling, and utilizing available resources to stay competitive in the ever-changing market. For brokers, this means exploring and mastering online real estate marketing.
Why and how should real estate brokers adapt to digital marketing? For an innovation with the power to increase your business exponentially, it’s important to know what is at stake:
- The world is moving to the Internet.
In a world where even the smallest processes of daily life, such as buying food or groceries, have become automated and digitized, it is not surprising that most people would opt to go online for a decision as big and important as buying a home. For the typical property-seeker, it is much easier to have hundreds of options at their fingertips rather than pursuing more traditional means of looking for homes. Real estate brokers must acknowledge this and thus position themselves in a way that they’re visible, up-to-date, and approachable online. Primarily, most real estate searches begin online–today, this is where real estate professionals need to be. Start with a digital marketing strategy or plan, and work your way forward. Market your listings online. Build a website.
- Presence and engagement will keep you on top of the competition.
Establishing an online presence opens you up not only to new customers but also keeps already existing customers engaged. Networking on social media, for example, is a technique which allows brokers to keep in touch with buyers and also have the potential to strike up new leads. Brokers will stay in line with their duty towards customer needs and satisfaction and also generate potential sales. Through the digitalization of nearly everything, customers still need the human touch when it comes to transactions. As brokers, this is where you must come in to ensure customers still get a personal experience. Engagement is the way to accomplish this.
- In a sea of voices, you must establish your own.
The face of marketing has truly evolved–today, customers value experience-based advertising rather than archaic one-size-fits-all cold pitches. With the Internet at their disposal, people now do much more research on their own before talking to real estate professionals.
This makes branding a significant part of marketing your business. The brand is vital to keep you afloat in the market, especially with several competitors surely taking advantage of digital tools to empower their businesses. Content marketing is a great way to get your brand’s vision across, at the same time giving potential customers the experience-based insight they would want to consume before thinking about going into a transaction with you, which they wouldn’t otherwise get through more traditional marketing tactics. Reviews, blog posts, articles–digital storytelling is the truly authentic way to connect with property-seekers.
- Utilize tools to turn leads into sales.
Tech is changing our world faster than we can grasp, but as more technology becomes available, individuals and businesses must utilize as many forms and channels as they can to grow. For real estate, for example, it becomes easier to target potential customers with several online tools such as SEO. With analytics tools, it becomes likewise easier for you to measure your marketing effectively. To increase presence, even more, you can go mobile. Apps make it much easier for property-seekers to search for potential homes.
If you are a real estate professional looking to grow your business further with digital marketing, training sessions with Lamudi Academy are open and available to both Lamudi subscribers and non-subscribers. Lamudi’s very own training program is geared to help real estate brokers master the world of online real estate marketing was launched just this year.
A comprehensive training package of six courses on topics such as top online lead generation channels; the power of online real estate marketing platforms, such as Lamudi; converting online leads into sales; improving online marketing strategies; digital trends in real estate; and understanding the market. No other training program will equip real estate brokers with such comprehensive skill set and knowledge necessary to stay ahead in the digital age.
To learn more about Lamudi Academy, visit the website.