The Importance of Inbound Marketing in Real Estate
It used to be that buyers or sellers of houses approached a real estate agent for that purpose. That was the traditional way of doing things. However, the times have changed now. Buyers are increasingly turning to the internet to gain an idea of the housing market before they contact a real estate agent.
A NAR (National Association of Realtors®) study that focused on the role digital media plays in the consumer home search process found that 90% of potential buyers now use the Internet to perform real estate-related searches. And that 40% of future buyers used the Internet for the entire process.
Also about 10% of prospective buyers got in touch with a real estate agent over means other than the conventional telephone. If you are in real estate, then you need to take notice of those numbers and the growing importance of inbound real estate marketing.
But what is it exactly? It's attracting clients to your website (and hopefully retaining them) by providing content over digital media on the internet (blog posts, podcasts, RSS feeds, and social media). Easier said than done. Having a website or a Twitter account isn’t enough in itself. A lot of factors have to be considered when adding inbound real estate marketing ideas to your business:
Reaching out to Your Audience
Before setting up a web-site or executing other inbound real estate marketing ideas, make sure you reach your audience. It’s great to add blog posts, webinars, and other content – but what if your typical client isn’t web savvy? Make it a point to learn about how much time they spend and what they do when online, the sites they visit, and the frequency of such visits.
After understanding your typical audience, you need to form a strategy that will work well for both your business and demographic. You’ll need to target the means that your typical client will access your information, and you have to make sure that they take action. Without this the work put into creating content will be wasted.
Tailor Your Strategy
As elsewhere, you get only one chance to create a first impression. When visitors access your site, you need to get them to stay. For that, you need to know what your audience is looking for and how you can serve it to them.
Attracting clients is all good, but worthless without results. Make use of web analytics to learn if your clients are getting what they want. With that information, you can determine if your plan is actually working, and if not, make the necessary changes.
Once you have all these in place, you can move onto engaging your clients. You need them to know about you and that you want them to return. This can generate leads and sales, and possibly referrals as well. Having an engaging virtual conversation over blog comments or chat will make you a known entity instead of merely text on a screen.
Inbound marketing won’t replace traditional methods of home buying. Most people still use a real estate agent, but not as exclusively as before. By combining traditional methods of advertisements with the inbound marketing ideas mentioned above, your ability to connecting with potential clients will increase exponentially.