Real estate sector is growing rapidly in 2017, the need for assimilating digitalization to marketing ideas has strengthened. So, if you’re creating a real estate marketing strategy and need some top digital marketing trends for real estate in 2017, then you’ve come to the right place. Here I’ve listed down some marketing trends for real estate that will keep you ahead of that pesky competitors.
1. Virtual reality and the 3D listing is the name of the game.
Virtual reality is gaining popularity at an unprecedented level. Hence, if you haven’t started doing 3D virtual tours for your listings this year, then you’re missing out your prospects! For your clients, 3D tours are a convenient option of looking a property prior to visiting a person. In this way, your clients can have a comprehensive and accurate preview of the property within a short span of time.
As a listing agent, it’ll save your precious time by keeping non- serious buyers away and letting serious buyers narrow down their options. With over 40 million real estate views, VR real estate provider Matterport has earned $56 million from venture capitalists in 2016. I hope this is one such great example that can make you start doing virtual tours now.
2. Adopt marketing automation.
The use of marketing automation has become a standard practice today. But, there are still only 10% of the realtors who have actively used the power of marketing automation. This fact is quite surprising! However, this year you might be seeing many agents adopting marketing automation into their existing workflow.
Marketing automation is one of the top real estate digital marketing trends that will help you save your time and money. Not only this, it will also automate your follow-ups with new leads.
Advice: Invest in marketing tools like Zapier and Aweber and let someone set it up for you.
3. Hop on the Facebook Ads before it’s too late.
This trend has already become a great hit in our marketing culture. This is the reason Facebook Ad prices are going up day by day. So if you want to get in front of your key target audience, don’t be afraid to dish out the dough for paid Facebook Ads.
As we are in a golden age of Facebook Ads, this would be the smartest way to go about it. Slowly and steadily, real estate developers are realizing the benefits and started investing a portion of their budget for Facebook Ads.
With the fierce competition in real estate market, Facebook ads for realtors will get more expensive. Therefore, if you want to stay ahead of your competitors, It is highly recommended to get into Facebook Ads.
4. Meaningful retargeting for realtors.
There are many realtors who have successful retargeting campaigns running for their present customers. But, does creating more meaningful targeting campaigns take more work and time? Yes, but you’re definitely going to love the end results. First, you should segment your audience as a buyer, seller, investor, and all the sub-categories that come within these groups.
Note: If you are not doing ‘retargeting’ or ‘tag marketing’, you may be losing your potential home buyers or customers.
Once your segmented audience is tagged properly, it will help you get more leads and conversions. As of 2017, you’ll also see a large chunk of realtors investing in Google and Facebook retargeting ads.
5. Smart content marketing will be more targeted.
In 2017, more realtors will implement content marketing as part of their major marketing plan. Why? Content is one of the best ways to generate free organic traffic to your site. But because of all this content, be it a written, visual or video, both small and big competitors are going to give tough competition in SEO and SERP for real estate.
According to Google’s latest algorithm, it’ll only prefer sites that have a specific keyword based, quality content for their users. So, it’s not going to be that simple to make your site rank well with normal MLS listings. Moreover, as Google algorithm is getting more smarter and smarter, it won’t be easy to outrank massive database sites such as Zillow and realtor.com.
It is recommended to target your local audience rather than targeting anyone outside your locality. Hyperlocal areas, types of clients, types of homes, and timing of transaction are some factors that will help you seize your specific target audience.
6: Online Live Chat
Website live chat is estimated to be a big digital marketing trend for real estate in 2017. People don’t like talking to robots, they love human to human interaction. Thus a solution like live chat on your real estate website won’t only entice your prospects to go beyond browsing but will also help them get minute details that they’d like to know.
In fact, if you go by the stats that about 63% of users are more likely to visit a site that provides live chat option, in contrast to one that doesn’t. Therefore a tool like ReadyChat which is meant specifically for realtors can be of a great advantage.
A quick wrap-up
Your time is precious and limited, so at least try on some of the above digital marketing trends for real estate to help offset the amount of work you’ve to do. Most importantly, having great leads is just as essential for your growth as building the partnership with the right people.
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