The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted various sectors, and the real estate is no exception. The pandemic induced lockdown has led to the slowdown in the sector as people refrained from going out of their home, causing a halt on house viewings.
Also, there is a lot of uncertainty resulting in de-growth of the global economy. This had a negative impact on the sector as people became cautious in making any purchase decisions, especially in property, which is considered a costly affair.
To ward off the effects of COVID-19, the industry’s key stakeholders; from real estate brokers to agents to property owners, all are taking several steps to increase consumer sentiment, promote sales and minimize losses realized from the current slowdown.
The industry stakeholders are shifting their operations online and have started real estate marketing on various social media platforms. This is the best time to leverage digital marketing as people are at home, and their screen time has increased considerably.
According to a survey, 99% of millennial buyers go online for searching their home. Real estate agents can also provide virtual tours of houses to potential buyers so that it can help them make purchase decisions.
Digital marketing is playing an important role more than ever at these times. To get succeeded in digital marketing, real estate experts will have to strategize their marketing tactics to get a competitive edge over others.
Real estate agents should invest in high-quality photography for their properties. Agents are recommended to use a single photographer for all of their listings so that they can have a consistent and professional look.
Here are top real estate digital marketing strategies that will help realize growth in this COVID-19 pandemic situation:
Make the best use of video content marketing
Videos are fast becoming a major part of marketing for many digital marketers. Not only a video delivers the message directly, but it also grabs attention, engages, and has a long-lasting impact on the viewers. So using video for digital marketing should be among the top priorities while marketing for real estate.
The videos could be live or branded, both. Branded videos allow usage of elements such as thumbnails, titles, signatures, and lots of aesthetics, live videos are being used on a different number of platforms these days like Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.
The narrative content of the video can be repurposed and used for making a trailer or even a podcast.
Facebook Marketing
Facebook offers one of the biggest platforms for marketing. It offers a great way to reach a large number of like-minded audiences on the same platform. As it has a messenger application, it gives you access to the potential customers right away and hits the target right. Statistics reveal that messenger has a 70-80% open rate and 20% CTR.
The platform’s Facebook Manager also allows automating the business according to the budget and requirement. It is a really smart way for real estate agents and developers to market their properties according to the market.
Digital audio
Podcasts are gaining popularity among listeners very fast. This is the best time to leverage this opportunity and invest in audio advertising. Real estate agents can adopt and use audio advertising as part of their marketing strategy to spread the word and get exposure.
Audio advertising is a really effective marketing tool as it reaches the maximum audience and reaches to them even at odd hours when visual ads cannot. For e.g., while walking, cooking, cleaning, etc. The different digital audio platforms offer distinct features that make stand apart in conveying messages to a specific audience segment.
Instagram Live
Instagram marketing is getting popular these days. With live video, marketers can connect with their audience directly. Also, effective video marketing leads to higher conversions.
Instagram Live videos receive three times more engagements as compared to pre-recorded. So what are you waiting for? Just grab your phone and start to create Instagram videos to increase engagement with your customers.
People who are following social distancing will be looking for opportunities to connect with more and more people to break the monotony. This is the best solution that offers interaction and online experience both and this is what your audience is craving for right now.
Interactive content
It is a very effective and successful marketing campaign that uses original content for educating, solving a problem, as well as entertaining.
Everyone knows that content is king, and with the increasing popularity of interactive content, the role of content is becoming an important aspect of digital marketing.
Conventional content that is used for informing, educating, and entertaining an audience might not lead to immediate response. In the whole process, the reader consumes the content without interacting with it.
To make their marketing efforts more impactful, real estate marketers should make their audience to do more with their content. The idea is the audience needs to get involved and interact with the content.
An interactive content informs an audience and also prompts them to interact with it, either by answering a quiz or taking a poll or even participating in an online challenge of some kind.
If used appropriately, interactive content can do a lot in increasing engagement, generating views, and increasing brand awareness, which ultimately translates into more customers.
Snapchat Ads
This is another online marketing option real estate agents should consider adding to their digital marketing profile. This is really important realtors as it offers– low advertising pricing, more targeting options, and offers user demographics.
These all make Snapchat an appealing online marketing option for increasing brand awareness and receiving significant returns on every dollar spent by marketers.
These are challenging times for each and every one. It depends on real estate agents and developers that whether they take this time to optimize their website for better search engine optimization, invest in a virtual home tour technology, or build up their portfolio of content, all this investment will go in creating a long-term reputation and a brand recall.