Real estate is a relationship-driven business. Yes, at the end of the day, we’re talking about property – a physical, tangible asset. But at the core of every deal that gets done is a series of relationships. In order to grow your business, you need to identify new relationships. To do that, you need to grow your audience.
Content marketing is a great way to do just that.
It doesn’t matter what type of real estate company you are. Whether you’re a residential real estate salesperson, property management company, commercial real estate developer, mortgage broker or some other type of real estate-related firm – your company can grow its business through content marketing.
Content marketing has evolved at lightning speed in recent years. It used to be incredibly expensive for real estate companies to build an online audience. Creating a digital marketing strategy would cost tens of thousands of dollars. It used to involve hard core telemarketing, direct mailings and paid advertising. Today, all of those barriers are gone.
Today, growing your real estate company’s audience is less about recruiting subscribers and more about being found. And how to get you get found? You need to provide thoughtful, helpful content for your audience. Hence, content marketing.
Building an audience isn’t easy. It requires a lot of work and patience. But the good news is: anyone can build a sustainable, profitable real estate company regardless of how flush your marketing budget is with cash.
Here are 8 steps for growing your real estate business through content marketing.
1. Go super niche.
Dharmesh Shah, founder of inbound marketing giant Hubspot, once said that “In almost all cases, self-funded entrepreneurs should pursue smaller, addressable markets. The probability for early success is inversely proportional to the size of the initial market.”
The same is true for your real estate company’s content marketing strategy. To go big, you must first go small.
When you’re first getting started, focus your real estate content on a super specific niche in order to establish yourself as the thought-leader in that space. It will be tough to compete with real estate giants like Realtor.com, Buildium or Curbed – all of which are constantly churning out new content for their broader audiences.
For instance, instead of tailoring your content toward the “commercial real estate industry” – you might instead focus on content of particular interest to novice, Class A multifamily investors looking to buy property in Los Angeles. Once you have your core audience hooked, you can expand your niche from there.
2. Clearly define your audience.
Spend some time thinking about your real estate company’s target audience. Again, the most specific you can get, the better. Who are you trying to influence? If you try to target too many buyers with different needs you WILL fail.
Once you’ve identified your core audience, ask yourself: What are their pain points? How can you be a resource? The content your real estate company creates must speak to the specific needs of this audience.
Before anyone at your real estate firm spends any more time writing content, take a step back and determine WHO the who really is.
3. Own a content marketing channel.
When you’re still in the early stages of developing your content marketing strategy, it does you no good to be the jack of all trades and the master of none. Find ONE channel that you can make your own.
Think about creating a blog series, video series, or series of webinars. Or perhaps you test your hand at podcasting. Maybe it’s a newsletter or print magazine. You could even host a monthly meet-up group for real estate professionals if your audience is local. Just be sure to choose a channel that aligns with your passion and makes sense for your target audience.
4. Consistency rules the day.
The primary hallmark of successful content marketing is consistency, in terms of both quality and delivery. This is where most real estate companies fall down. They get excited about creating a content marketing strategy but over time, they realize that a successful content marketing strategy takes a lot of work. That’s why so many real estate firms outsource the work to a third-party who can provide content on a consistent basis.
But in order to build your real estate company’s audience, and in order to keep that audience engaged, you MUST be consistent with your content. If you’ve asked them to sign up for a newsletter, they’re expecting that newsletter. If you’ve asked them to subscribe to your YouTube channel, they’re expecting you to upload videos accordingly.
Whatever your promised frequency – daily, weekly, monthly, you name it – deliver accordingly. If you need to hire a real estate content marketing agency for help, do so. The only way your real estate firm will realize online success is by delivering on the promise of your content.
5. Put a stake in the ground!
There’s an inordinate amount of real estate content being upload to the internet each day. Yet most content, quite frankly, is boring and utterly useless. How many real estate agencies do think have written about “First Time Homebuyer Mistakes”? YAWN. These types of articles are usually SO generic and don’t offer that much value to your audience.
Instead, get creative with your real estate content. Put a stake in the ground. Give your opinions. Integrate real-life scenarios into your content. Tell stories. Use data. Be funny, thoughtful, edgy—even brash at times. You need to take a stand and have a different point of view for anyone to care what you have to say. Otherwise, you’ll just blend in with the other real estate companies putting out vanilla, surface-level content.
“#GetBoosted Pro Tip: Providing original, unique real estate content is hard for most writers. If you’re going to outsource the work to a third-party, whether a content marketing company or independent freelance writer, look for someone who has experience in the real estate industry. This is especially true if you’re a commercial real estate firm, real estate lender, or property management company as the content you’ll want to put out is likely more nuanced than the average layperson would know how to write about.”
6. Subscribers are key.
Owned subscription sources, such as email subscribers, are the most important segment of your audience. That’s because you actually own the data about these subscribers.
Secondary subscription sources, like Twitter followers or YouTube subscribers, are important as well. But the data about these secondary subscribers are owned by those companies—not your own. These subscribers, while valuable, don’t carry as much weight as owned subscribers.
Anyone who’s been at this for some time knows that building a loyal subscriber base is critical to any successful content marketing strategy. Instead of using your real estate content to aggressively sell products or services, use your content to build a loyal following….and THEN you can sell to them.
7. Help yourself by helping the influencers.
One of the best ways to get your real estate company’s name out there is by interacting with other influencers in your market niche. Working with influencers can take your content marketing strategy from good to great.
Identify influencers in your specific real estate industry subset. Then, help those influencers solve their own pain points. Download their content. Share their content with your audience. Comment on their social media posts. Go out of your way to help them and don’t ask for anything in return. The goal is to have their audience become your audience, too.
8. Partner to expand.
This is really where the rubber meets the road, where all of the other 7 steps outlined above come together as one.
Start by identifying non-competitive partners that share a similar audience. For instance, if you’re a commercial real estate developer, you’re not in direct competition with commercial real estate lenders. But your target audiences likely overlap. Figure out what kind of content inspires that audience.
Then, pitch a partnership to those companies. Ask them whether, if you wrote content for them, they’d be willing to share the content with their audience and/or promote on their website or via social media. Ideally, you’ll form an ongoing relationship with these partners instead of pitching a one-time campaign.
Normally this type of exposure would cost you thousands of dollars, but because you’re filling a partner need, the only cost is your content (and time creating that content!). But the best thing about this strategy? It usually helps you grow your audience more than it actually helps the company you’ve partnered with.
Very few real estate companies leverage content partnerships, but it’s one of the greatest, most effective strategies when trying to build your audience. Take advantage of it!
Ready to get started but not sure where to start? Contact us to learn more about how we can help produce real estate content to grow your audience and #boostyourbiz.