The real estate industry knows and values the importance of digital marketing in this modern age and while it co-exists and supports many tested and proven traditional practices, its presence has become a necessity rather than a choice.
For real estate agents who want to establish their presence and promote their brand, digital marketing is the ideal solution.
If you want to ensure your place in the virtual marketplace, a key factor for success is content marketing.
However, there’s more to an effective content marketing strategy than being able to write or develop content fluently nor is it not just about stuffing your pages with random posts, articles, images, memes and videos.
A truly great content marketing strategy is one that is well-planned, implemented and sustained over time to establish credibility, trustworthiness, reliability and authority.
Content marketing is more than just standing out in the market and becomes a vital ingredient in creating a brand, especially in real estate.
What’s so special about content marketing?
In simple terms, content marketing is generally how you consolidate, organise and present your thoughts, insights and ideas to your audience. As a real estate agent, your medium for communicating these is through your website and social media channels.
Will any content be good enough to get me to where I want it to be? To put it bluntly, no. Because thought-provoking, compelling and relevant content that you share with your audience becomes the deciding factor that will deliver your message to your target audience.
When content is supported by data and trends that generate buzz in the online environment and coupled with an optimised website that responds to the latest trends, you can surely count on getting more traffic, generating leads, and closing more sales.
Understanding user search intent
Nowadays, more people spend most of their time online for a reason and every search activity is driven by intent – not just some random query detail or entry.
A recent study showed that around 93 per cent of online user experiences start with a search engine. From that, there are approximately 75,000 search queries made on search engines every second which adds up to more than 6 billion searches in a single day.
For instance, Google’s search algorithms, albeit a closely-guarded secret, are presumably trained on several key factors and one of which is user intent which aims to provide the best user search experience.
It’s no wonder why it is critical to take advantage of trending and essential keywords in determining user search intent.
Let’s go through the essentials.
Navigational search
This is when users are typing in keywords to help them access entertainment, news, and social media, among others.
Informational search
This involves the use of keywords to discover information, details or knowledge regarding topics or any type of niche.
Transitional search
These are focused on keywords used when a user is looking to buy or sell something online.
Understanding the different user search intent types will help you develop impactful and responsive content marketing strategies for your real estate website and social media channels.
Why go for responsive and interactive content
Times have changed and people expect to get immediate responses or actions to keep them entertained and engaged. These can be done by conducting surveys and polls, provide animated or interactive informational and educational content, just to name a few.
Right now, content marketing is more attuned to experiences tailored for the audience instead of putting more texts or words on your webpage.
Having interactive and responsive content will greatly improve your audience’s attention span on your website and rank higher online.
Social media
Don’t forget that your social media pages give you access to more than 3 billion social media users around the world, composed of 95 per cent of adults aged 18 to 34 actively following various brands on social media.
The content focus for social media needs to be based on trending content categories such as social media business, ephemeral, video content and niche social platforms.
There’s no stopping social media as the future of content marketing so it’s high time to optimise your social media channels.
Virtual and augmented reality
Technology has evolved so much that dynamic virtual and live streaming visual capabilities are essential for enhancing your content delivery.
Recently, global data analyst Deloitte revealed that around 90 per cent of companies earning $100 million to $1 billion annually are taking advantage of VR and AR technologies to provide users with immersive real-time experiences in shopping, interior design, etc.
AR also enhances social media platforms to attract customer interest and promote engagement through fun and worthwhile online experiences.
The popularity of webinars and podcasts
It’s not surprising to find the internet flooded with podcasts and webinars as content marketers have proven them to be very relevant mediums of communication among people craving news, information and insights.
Videos are also powerful tools that influence emotions and inspire viewers – enabling them to take action. Streaming live videos allow you to communicate directly with your audience.
For instance, instead of recording a property on film and uploading it on your website, you can organise a live stream doing a walkthrough and welcome questions or inquiries in real-time during the online session.
The dynamic applications of voice search optimisation and chatbots
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular and prevalent today because it allows people to multi-task when doing an online search while jogging, cycling, baking, cooking, etc. It allows access to instant search results without getting distracted or sidetracked from what they are doing.
Google revealed that around 20 per cent of mobile users take advantage of voice search on devices and predicted that smart speaker usage is expected to surge by 55 per cent by the end of 2022. Audio-centric technologies are gearing up for integration as 30 per cent of all web-browsing sessions will be conducted using Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Apple AirPods.
Additionally, chatbots provide users with great experiences through instant and quick results by automating responses to customers.
It is predicted that by the end of the year, 85 per cent of interactions with businesses and companies will be conducted with chatbots.