Real Estate Marketing Trends 2020

Technology is constantly changing the real estate landscape. Conventional marketing no longer seems to be enough. New apps and devices are regularly being introduced.

With an abundance of up-to-date real estate software available on the market and a wide variety of digital marketing trends, real estate agents are spoilt for choice. Here are some of the top real estate digital marketing trends for 2020:

1. Responsive real estate websites – a top priority for effective marketing

Mobile has surpassed desktop as the preferred method of browsing online as people are rarely without their phones. This means that agents need to ensure that all their content and communication is easily viewable and optimised for mobile devices.

Audiences are more likely to close a site that requires them to zoom in and out on their phone.

• Ensure that all the content on your current site translate well onto a mobile device. Simple layouts with contact information that is easily accessible on every page as well as engaging and clear visuals.
• Add your city and state to the title, URL, content, and meta description of your site so that your name and office will show up in organic and map searches. This will increase the chance of leads finding you when they look for real estate agents in your area.
• Take advantage of Google AdWords, Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads to drive traffic to your site. It is important that your site offers localised ads with their own specific call-to-action.

2. Targeted content – “an oldie but a goodie”

Cliché but true. While stress is placed on relevant and engaging content, it would serve an agent better to focus on a target audience and create content specifically for them over releasing waves of generic information for the masses.

Keep your target audience in mind when creating content – whether in the form of social media posts, videos, or infographics. For example, you’re targeting first time buyers from the younger generation. This niche will require specific information that will aid in them making their decision.

To create focused content for this target audience:

• Social media post

More and more agents have taken to sharing details of their listings and its perks on social media – the “hangout spot” for most of the new working professionals. This is also a good place to create content with images and short descriptions of the benefits of the areas surrounding the listings, the top up and coming housing market areas, or the benefits of investing in a property.

• Video

Engage your audience via visuals of the community and its homes with minimal effort on their part. Authenticity remains the key to real estate buyers’ interest. Mobile videos provide this. More so as this media consumption increases 100% every year.

• Infographic

The new working generation is constantly on-the-go. Hence the preference for short videos or summaries of long articles. An infographic is an ideal way to summarise long blog posts while creating shareable and unique content that is relevant to this niche.

3. Live videos – take the marketing world by storm

As of 2020, there is no surer way to attract leads to your site than through a live feed. This surge saw prominent social networking platforms add live videos as a part of their feature. The interactive and visual content serve to cater to the audiences’ shorter attention spans which leads to increased brand awareness, lead generation, and online engagement. The best part in all this is that it caters to both, new agents just introducing themselves to the market as well as old hands who are keen on keeping up the new generation by building their brand online. It can be used to showcase listings and the housing market, among many others. The sky is the limit with this trend.

In order to keep up with this growing marketing strategy, agents should:

• Utilise social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and even Whatsapp –all of which offer live videos.
• Bank on the virtual reality trend and provide your audience with the choice of a live tour without being there in person.
• Optimise videos for search by including relevant descriptions, hashtags, and titles so that they can be found at the top of search results
• Keep videos both entertaining and informational

4. Marketing automation – more agents are using it

Only the most savvy of real estate agents are using the power of marketing automation to automate their follow-ups with leads, and continuously engage their clients.

This is a trend that more real estate negotiators will follow in 2019, with more advancements in technology, and the opportunity to save time from manually engaging clients.

Marketing automation will save negotiators time and money, especially when they are busy with the day to day life of being a real estate agent.

To keep your clients engaged and always have you top of mind, you should:

• Put your leads into a CRM, and have an email schedule for engaging them based on your own engagement criteria.

• Use a drip marketing system to automatically send regular communication to your leads, so they are always engaged. Marketing automation will help leads turn into sales.

Studies that show most leads take anywhere from six months to two years to become a sale, this is why you need to keep them engaged with your personal brand.

Stay tuned with the realestatemy.com/blog for more up to date tips and guides for real estate marketing professionals.