In the old days, people looking to purchase real estate would visit their local real estate agency or browse through a real estate catalog that was sent to them in the mail. Now, people go online to search for real estate and find the best deals. If you own a real estate business, then you will never be successful if you are not effectively promoting your business online. However, this doesn’t just mean posting a few classified advertisements on Craigslist or a couple of Facebook posts. You need to implement thorough and measurable online outbound strategies to make your real estate business stand out from the competition.
Below are the 7 most effective ways to promote your real estate business online.
1) Build your Own Website
If your real estate business is associated with a bigger company that owns it, don’t rely on that company to provide you with all the advertising materials. For example, if you’re a real estate broker who owns a RE/MAX franchise, don’t just rely on the primary RE/MAX website to provide you with the local traffic for your office and its realtors. Your office needs to have its own separate website which distinguishes itself from the rest of the offices and is more personalized to the local area in which it serves. This will make it easier for buyers to find you and build your reputation.
2) Newsletters
If you’ve obtained leads and you want to keep them actively interested in your real estate business, then you need to get them to subscribe to your company’s newsletter. This gives you the opportunity to keep your leads updated on any news or special deals that you have available. But make sure you personalize the newsletter as much as possible instead of writing something that sounds scripted. You want to make your leads feel like you’re personally addressing them.
3) Blogs
A real estate blog can benefit your business in so many ways. Potential leads might not always appreciate a real estate business that just lists properties for sale on their website. They’re looking for information about real estate so that they can become more informed and knowledgeable buyers and sellers. With a blog, you can post up information about the general real estate market and what is going on with real estate in your location. For example, if you based in Texas, you can put up articles titled: “How to sell a house in less time in Texas?” or “How to find the perfect home for you in Texas?” Don’t use blogs to sell real estate. Just use them to provide free information to people. This is another way to keep them actively engaged on your website and build your authority in the local real estate market. For a real example, you can check this blog: 6 Marketing Ideas That Will Sell a San Antonio House Fast.
4) Search Engine Optimization
If you want people to find your company’s website, you need to make sure that it is optimized for search engines. That way, your real estate business can be discovered from a simple search on Google or any of the other major search engines. Your goal should be to get your website ranked high enough to where it will appear on the first page of someone’s search results. If you can do this successfully, you’ll never have to spend a dime on pay-per-click advertising ever again.
5) Social Media
Social media is the hottest new way to promote your business online. Social media is no longer just for people to share personalized pictures and information with each other. With hundreds of millions of people using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, this gives businesses a terrific way to advertise and communicate with potential buyers and leads. You can also use it to keep people updated on what is going on with your business; similar to a blog. But, why not use both for this purpose? It can only mean more free advertising for your business.
6) Video Marketing
There is no better way to advertise a real estate business and its property listings than by using videos to market them. We live in an age where people would rather watch a video advertisement than read a text advertisement. Videos let people clearly see who you are and what you’re selling. It gives them more confidence in your business because they’ll get to see that you’re a real person with a real business. Best of all, you can post these videos for free on YouTube or any number of other video sharing platforms.
7) Press Releases
If you want to announce your business that goes beyond just updating your newsletter subscribers and social media followers, then try publishing a press release which has a real news story about your business. The benefit of a press release is that it goes through a media agency and reaches a whole new group of people who might not even know about your website or business. Then you can use the press release to attract them to your website and convert them into leads.
