Benefits of content marketing for real estate agencies

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

For years, marketing in real estate mostly involved self-promotion, boasting past performance and negotiating skills. But all that’s changing in today’s hyper-connected world. With the vast amount of information available online, people have become more discerning when it comes to choosing the products and services they use and the brand they associate themselves with. In a research from Salesforce and Publicis.Sapient, it was discovered that about 87% of buying decisions begin with searches in digital channels.

In a click of the search button, they can find all they need to know about your business – and about your competitors as well. More than appearing in the search results page, the important question you should be asking is: are you offering them enough value to choose your agency over others?

Now more than ever, it has become important for businesses to build relationships and demonstrate a brand’s value in the digital space. For those in the real estate industry, this means going beyond traditional marketing and adapting the fresh and savvy approach of content marketing. But what is content marketing and why do real estate agencies need it?

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that is focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content for your audience. It is about providing prospects with useful information as they move further along with their journey with your business and brand. Rather than being invasive with your marketing efforts, you create content to slowly build relationships with prospects. Traditionally, this involves creating marketing materials like flyers, brochures or company magazines. But as more and more customers log in online for information, digital means of creating and distributing content has become the norm.

Benefits of using content in real estate marketing

Did you know that about 10 million Australians google real estate related questions on a monthly basis? That just goes to show how important it is for real estate agencies to create and publish valuable content. At a glance, it’s pretty clear that the online environment in which content marketing thrives allows your agency to build relationships and capture leads at scale. And taking a closer look, you’ll find that content marketing also gives you the following benefits:

1. Content helps you generate more qualified leads and gets your foot in the door

Content marketing enables you to widen your net. By publishing content that is valuable to your target market, you have a higher chance to engage with prospects who may not even be considering selling or changing their property manager. If you can readily give information that is helpful for the general audience, they’ll be likely interested in what else you can offer as their property manager. Even if they don’t switch over right away, you’ve effectively started the sales conversation already, and when they do look to move, you have your foot in the door. 

2. Content softens the sales process and improves prospect quality

Content ensures you and your prospects are likely a suitable match for each other. By providing helpful and useful information, potential customers learn more about your business and are reassured of the quality of services you provide. It is this gained trust and affinity with your business that will make setting that appointment easier. 

 3. Content increases brand awareness

In a heavily-saturated industry such as real estate, it is important that your marketing strategies are focused on standing out from the competition. As you
create interesting and valuable content, your target audience have a higher chance to engage with your business – actively commenting, discussing, liking and sharing the content, thereby effectively building brand awareness and recognition for your agency.

4. Content helps in driving organic traffic to your website through SEO

It is likely that among the first steps your agency took to gain more visibility online is by putting up a business website. But your website is all for naught if no one visits it and engages with your business. Unless prospects are actively searching for your particular agency, there’s a slim chance your website will appear on the first page of Google search when they type in “real estate agency in QLD”, for example. Remember, there are also other agencies competing for attention and vying for that sweet spot up top of the search results. This is where content marketing can help. By putting out regular, quality content, you drive visitors to your website through organic web searches – a process  known as Search Engine Optimisation. Every time you add content like blog posts and thus, more pages to your website, they get indexed by search engines like Google and increase your opportunities to rank for more search terms, making your website highly visible.

5. Content helps make you a subject authority

Real estate is a substantial investment and it only makes sense for landlords to look for an agency who knows their stuff when it comes to selling or managing their properties. Publishing quality content helps build credibility for your business. Aside from building authority, content also helps develop trust among your target audience and foster stronger customer relationships.

Know more about how you can use content in real estate marketing

Now that you know how important publishing your own content is if you want to improve your real estate marketing efforts, it’s time to get started. To make it easier for you, we created a beginner’s guide that will help you navigate the marketing opportunities available for real estate agencies online, through the use of content. We’ll show you best practices that will ensure your create great content, what the different types of content are and what each is good for, and then also provide some examples of each of these content types to get you started. In no time you’ll be using content marketing to engage with the right audiences at the right time, turning them into qualified leads and eventually, loyal customers. Download “The Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing in Real Estate” now.

Looking for a property management software that scales with you? Try Property Tree, Australia’s leading cloud based property management software. Book a free demo today and see the Rockend difference.