You have taken all the right steps; visiting neighbourhoods distributing business cards, cold calling, door knocking, and what not.
But, did you get enough leads or even a satisfactory response?
Cold calling is dead , prospects rarely bother with your emails, your social media efforts have just started and you’re not really getting any engagement through those channels.
So, what do you need to get more business by utilizing the resources you have?
GO INBOUND!
Inbound marketing is the non-interruptive way of attracting qualified leads to your website and building relationships by delivering value through your content.
“Inbound Marketing is the dawn of marketing you won’t hate” – Voltier Digital
You must be wondering,
WHY INBOUND?
Buyers may not care about what you tell them via cold calling, sellers will rarely care about your new listing but what they all have in common is going online to search for what they want.
“54% of leads are generated by inbound than outbound!”
Today the buyer which in plain words is your prospect has become more intelligent than ever.
Why?
In today’s internet age, it’s the buyers who dictate what they will buy and when. They are in the driver’s seat. As an agent, you will only be successful if you are found at the right moment, which is when your client is looking for your services. This moment is called “Zero Moment Of Truth or ZMOT”.
That’s the “inbound approach”, you spend your time and effort on the few who are looking for your services rather than the masses who aren’t.
Through inbound, you don’t need go to clients saying, “Wanna buy, wanna buy, wanna buy”, but instead they come to you to buy!
The perks you get from your inbound marketing efforts are:
- More Qualified Leads & Traffic- The chase is over.
- Greater Credibility & Trust- The value decides.You earn what you put in.
- Better ROI Accountability- What’s filling your plate and what’s not?
- Cost Effectiveness- 62% lower cost per lead compared to other methods!
- Increased Visibility & Brand Awareness- You exist and that needs to be known!
HOW TO GO INBOUND?
Without further ado, I will just get into your mini 6 step guide to effective inbound marketing to generate more business and money.
1. Identify Your Target Personas- Which fish to catch?
As a real estate agent, identifying your audience is the core as real estate is vast and every potential client of yours has a different set of wants and demands.
Among diverse populations things could really get dirty as you won’t be able to quench the needs of everyone through a single website! Which means your reputation is on stake.
So,
You need to find out whom you want to reach out to in your real estate market and then their needs, concerns, queries, and frustrations.
This way you’ll know what to do with them and what your prospects need in order for you to require less effort convincing them that they need you for their needs.
Build a complete record of all your leads from little to big details and keep your real estate database and thereby your real estate website updated!
Remember, EVERY BIT OF DETAIL IS IMPORTANT TO PROVIDE THEM WITH THE INFORMATION THEY NEED!
2. Create Remarkable Shareable Content- What to feed to a fish to catch?
Content is the foundation of your inbound marketing plan.
Inbound marketing is all about targeting the right CONTENT, to the right PEOPLE, at the right TIME.
What you need in your content is:
- Quality
- Variety
- Diversity
- Relevancy
This again goes back to step # 1. You need to figure out what content is valuable to which audience and figure out how to provide those potential clients with the information they need.
Your content should be two things; it should be valuable and smart.
What you can give to your potential clients is:
- Blogs
- Interactive Tools
- Photos & Infographics
- Webinars
- Tour Videos & Podcasts
- Presentations & Ebooks
- Virtual Open Houses
- Whitepapers
3. Build Online Visibility Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
All your efforts will be rendered useless if you don’t have an online presence and visibility.
If you ain’t being found then all of this will go in vain.
Let’s be straight, more traffic means greater chances of more qualified leads on a day to day basis.
But, that won’t happen overnight!
You need to invest in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get found by your target audience.
You need to have SEO optimized content and there are various tools and techniques available for that. You need to invest in creating backlinks for your website, and you need to invest in finding the right keywords and target them.
There’s a lot you need to do in that respect but doing them right will give you unimaginably amazing results.
For your blog, you can use YOAST SEO plugin in your wordpress.
You need to learn SEO skills or hire a person dedicated to it but it needs to be done and it needs to be done if not today, tomorrow.
POSITION, POSITION, POSITION, or instead it’ll all DIE!
4. Promote Your Content
Here is where social media marketing comes in play.
I’ll be real with you, it takes a lot of time and effort to build organic traffic unless you want to pay for it.
But, the key is to start small and be consistent. With consistency and value you’ll see results with time.
Agents, you can’t just rely on your website and you need to be active on social media platforms too to give your content exposure and build relationships via engagement.
Timing is important for this to have the desired results.
INTERACT, INTERACT, INTERACT and use right social media tactics to take the full leverage of your social media platforms to drive more traffic to your website or blog to get more business.
5. Launch Effective Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is an effective way to deliver value to your prospects.
No doubt inbound marketing gives you qualified leads but you can’t just sell to them on their first or second visit. Which is why giving additional value to your prospects through email marketing campaign is important.
A great email marketing campaign is:
- Personal; more than just the business
- Conversational
- Informative
- Valuable
- Focused
- Shareable
- Concise and Comprehensive
SELF-PROMOTION in emails is like SUICIDE!
My friend, just focus on providing helpful information keeping self-promotion to as low as possible. This way your leads themselves would want to know about you!
6. Analyse, Evaluate, And Refine
Marketing no matter online or offline is pointless and profitless unless you measure the results .
But, what do you need to measure your inbound marketing?
Google Analytics is your friend!
What metrics do you need to measure?
- Overall Traffic – Website Traffic and Blog Traffic
- Referral Traffic
- Returning Visitors
- Bounce Rate
- Conversion Rate
You need to analyse your efforts and then evaluate them for a certain period of time and after that you must dig in for the improvements.
This is how you get better and better over time.
Analysis will always help you determine the holes in your website and blog and will help you determine the areas that need improvement. It can be content, landing pages, graphics etc.
For email marketing & social media platforms; each have their own analytics.
All of this combined with your critical thinking will take your business to the new heights of success.
The Bottom Line
In the beginning, Inbound marketing may seem difficult to plan and execute as a real estate agent as you are a salesperson but not a marketer. But, nothing comes easy and If you invest in your inbound marketing now, you won’t have to worry about leads and conversions later.
For queries or questions, don’t hesitate to shoot out an email to me at [email protected] or use the comments section.
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