Articles Tagged "Online Marketing"

As the market continues to struggle, interest rates remain high, and we enter the industry's "slow" season, many brokerages will choose to wait out the tough times and pull back on marketing efforts to cut costs. But the best way to overcome these obstacles is by doubling down on online marketing—not cutting the exact thing needed most. Now is the perfect time for agents to learn how to use the latest automated online marketing tools in DeltaNET®.

Delta Media Group's® VP of Sales, Franklin Stoffer, hosted a special Online Marketing Webinar, joined by Winston Widdes, a Paid Advertising Strategist with Delta. This webinar covers essential online marketing tools available in DeltaNET, including:

- My Customer for Life (MCFL)
- Social Connector
- AD Wizard
- Market Watch Reports
- Smart Drip Email Campaigns

To learn more about Delta's marketing tools and how they can help you grow your business in 2023, contact sales@deltagroup.com.

Is your team taking advantage of every opportunity to expand into new niches, unlock new markets and reach new clients in your existing ones? Targeting niches is one of the best ways to expand your real estate brand and create new opportunities for your team. But it's not something that your agents will do automatically. There's competition in every major real estate niche, so success requires a plan for your team, motivation from team leaders and modern marketing tools to help you effectively target every niche that matters to your business.

The first step to successfully targeting niches is getting your agents on board with the process. This may require a little bit of convincing, but savvy agents will ultimately recognize the value of targeting niches for their own career as well as the team as a whole. So, you can start by asking each team member to take on an extra specialty – ideally, one that suits their skills and ambitions as an agent.

Depending on what types of properties are available in the markets you aim to conquer, your team should have quite a few options when choosing a niche. Luxury real estate, new home sales and land/lot sales are always popular choices, but they're far from the only options. Also, consider specialty property sales like waterfront homes, equestrian properties, agricultural properties, condos and golf course homes.

Find the Niche That's Right For You

These are just some of the most popular niches that your team can target. The best niches to target will depend on the types of properties and opportunities available in the markets you wish to reach, which will naturally vary from one market to the next. Here are some tips to help team members pick a niche that fits their passions and skills:

Choose a Specific Geographic Area

Expanding can mean establishing your brand in a new geographic area that you haven't served before or expanding into a niche that you didn't previously cover within your existing markets. Either way, choosing where you want to target a new niche is the perfect place to start.

· Research Demographics and Market Trends

Once you know where, it's time to discover which niches are available in that market. Demographic research can help you find out more about the potential clients in a market and whether there could be a niche targeting a specific generation of clients like Millennials or Baby Boomers.

Researching market trends and the types of properties available within a market is another key step. That's how you'll find out whether it makes sense to target one of the many property niches that we have already mentioned above.

· Pursue a Passion

Naturally, as an agent, it can be helpful to pursue a niche that you already have a passion for. If you tend to gravitate toward a specific type of property and have built up a strong knowledge base around it, that niche will likely be a great fit to pursue further. Remember, though, that having an initial passion for a niche isn't a requirement for success. If you identify an excellent opportunity to cater to a niche and find success within it, that passion will likely develop over time.

· Identify Opportunities in Existing Networks

Along the same lines as pursuing a passion, evaluating your existing personal and professional networks can also provide insight into which niches are the best fit for you. If you already have extensive connections within a specific niche, that can provide a big advantage compared to starting from scratch.

Create Opportunities by Specializing in New Ways to Buy Homes

Specializing in specific types of real estate is a great start, but it's not the only way for your team to target niches effectively. More than ever, buyers have an increasing number of options for how to purchase a home. Having one or more team members focus on new ways to buy homes can help you unlock new markets while showing your target audiences that you can accommodate all of the needs of modern, market-savvy clients.

Though they cater to people who want to buy or sell homes through technology, iBuyer services rely on local agents to supplement their online services. Power Buyers provides unique financing options for purchasing homes, with a larger national footprint and a more agent-focused model than iBuyers. With such a fast-paced modern real estate market, providing Cash Offer solutions can also be a great area to target.

With how quickly real estate evolves — especially in recent years — it's critical to keep your finger on the pulse of the many ways people are buying and selling homes. Being an early adopter of new buying/selling tools does come with risk, but gaining an early foothold can give you a major leg up on the competition when a new way to buy homes becomes more mainstream.

Leverage the Right Real Estate Tech

Of course, choosing the right niches is just an important first step in the process. In order to expand and truly conquer those new markets, you're going to need to back your team by providing the right modern marketing tools to help them thrive. Our DeltaNET® 6 CRM combines the best modern real estate tech in one convenient, easy-to-use package, allowing each team member to market their niche confidently and unlock sustainable ways to attract new clients.

· Virtual Tours, Open Houses and Showings

With more buyers expecting to be able to tour homes in detail online, providing virtual tours, open houses and showings are a must for breaking into your new niches. Providing these modern options will help you appeal to tech-savvy buyers and anyone shopping for a home in a market far from their current location. It also adds appeal to sellers, who will see that you provide the best tools available for marketing their listing.

· Lead Management, Tracking and Automated Lead Segmentation

No matter the niche, it's so much easier to accomplish your goals when you know which leads are ready to pursue, which ones will need some nurturing and which ones can safely be put on the back burner. Automated lead segmentation makes life easier for agents and boosts productivity by allowing them to focus on the right leads at the right time.

· Smart Drip Email Campaigns

Email marketing is one of your best tools for nurturing leads within a new niche, allowing you to send timely, relevant content that helps to convert leads over time. Even if they're not ready to buy or sell right now, smart drip email campaigns make them more likely to think of you first when they're prepared to take the next step.

· Customizable eCards and Flyers

Whether you want to send an eCard online to promote a new listing or create a more traditional flyer, we make it easy to create appealing, informative marketing materials with hundreds of templates that are easy to customize to suit your niche. In addition to promoting properties, eCards are excellent for recognizing your clients' special days and reminding them that you're always there to help with their real estate needs.

· AI-Driven Email Newsletters

Keep your clients informed on the latest market happenings in their niche with auto-generated, AI-driven email newsletters. Clients benefit from having relevant, up-to-date information on the markets that matter to them, and agents benefit by having an automated, timely tool for keeping clients in the loop.

· Digital Marketing Services

In addition to all of the tools found within DeltaNET® 6, we offer comprehensive digital marketing services to help you conquer new niches. Whether you want a fresh, modern website with excellent SEO, a more robust social media presence, niche-specific content for your blog or an easy way to launch paid advertising campaigns on the biggest platforms, our digital marketing services are here to help boost your brand as you expand into new markets.

Remember That Conquering New Markets Requires Time and Commitment

In some cases, if a niche is truly under-served in the markets you aim to reach, team members can find something close to instant success in targeting that niche. However, most of the time, expanding into new markets isn't an overnight process. It takes a certain level of effort and commitment to establish a lasting place in new markets.

As we've covered extensively, choosing the right niches and providing your team with the best real estate tech for marketing to those niches will go a long way toward establishing your brand in new markets. The long-term benefits of conquering new markets are more than worth the effort for individual team members and your real estate brand.

The end goal of your online marketing is to create a reliable source for converting clients, and generating engagement is one of the most important steps that leads to that goal. But with so much competition for attention online, increasing your engagement can feel like an uphill climb. The good news is that growing your online engagement is easier than you might think, with the right tools, tactics, and a willingness to invest consistent effort into achieving your engagement goals.

Know Who You're Trying to Reach and Where to Find Them

Before you get busy with specific engagement tactics for your online marketing, it's critical to understand exactly who you're trying to reach. That's because the best tactics for generating engagement will differ depending on your target audience. Whether you're planning out your website content, social media strategy, or paid advertising, start by considering the needs and online habits of your target audience.

When you know who you want to reach, you can get busy learning about the best places to find them online. This is especially important for social media because different demographics favor different platforms. Research any social platform you're planning to use ahead of time, integrate best practices, and ensure that you're investing your energy in the places that will deliver the best results.

Invest Your Time Wisely on Social Media

While there are many places to grow your engagement and guide people to your website, it's tough to top the efficiency of social media. With the right tactics, you can spend more time generating engagement on social platforms and less time thinking about what to do next.

• Less Promotion, More Conversation
  Spending too much time on promotion and not enough time on conversation is one of the easiest mistakes to make with social media marketing. That doesn't mean that you can't showcase listings or highlight all of your great content. It just means that the most successful real estate brands and agents on social media invest significant time in engaging with their audience. Always remember that engagement is a two-way street, especially on social.
  
  
• Want Engagement? Start by Asking Questions
  If you want to inspire conversations and get your social connections to engage, asking questions is the perfect place to start. Think about questions that speak to the needs of your target audience, ask them often, and encourage your audience to ask questions, too. By answering questions, you can advance the conversation and build trust by demonstrating your real estate expertise.
  
  
• How Social and Your Website Work Hand in Hand to Generate Engagement
  Ideally, you want a seamless experience between your social media pages and your real estate website. The content on your website should be easy to find on all of your social channels, and visitors to your website should be able to connect with all of your social accounts easily.
  
  
• Create a Social Schedule and Stick to It
  Achieving your engagement goals is so much easier when you have a plan for how to get there, and a social schedule so that you'll always know what to do next. When you know how to reach those goals, you can use your social media time much more efficiently and effectively.

Create Content That Tells Stories and Encourages Conversations

The content that you create for your real estate website, blog, and social media should be one of your best sources of engagement. When you share content on social, jump into the comments to start the conversation. When you're thinking of content ideas for your blog, focus on topics that will encourage your audience to ask questions and leave comments.

And don't be afraid to branch out into new types of content! Video content is easier than ever to create, and it's a great tool for generating engagement. People are more likely to feel a connection when they can see your face, listen to your voice, and hear directly from you. In addition to attracting people to your website, your content is a powerful tool for keeping them there once they arrive.

Track Results to Find Out What Works Best for Your Brand

Not every engagement strategy will be the right fit for every agent or real estate business. That's one reason why it's so important to track your results, look at your analytics, and refine your strategy over time. It's easier to grow engagement when you have data-based insights on what works best with your audience.

No matter what else you do to grow your engagement, remember that authenticity is key. When your audience feels like they can connect with you on a human level, they're more likely to engage. That's true for social media, your website, and all of your real estate marketing efforts.

Most of your future customers will find you online — be sure you're making it easy!

Millennials are the #1 generation in the housing market. At the peak of the pandemic, with interest rates at historic lows, Generation Z made a showing, too. That cohort has returned to an "old-fashioned" approach, seeing homebuying as an important path to growing wealth.

They'll be ready to work with you much sooner than you might think.

And they're looking for you... on their phones.

Yes, just about everyone has adapted to the smartphone era. Pew reports 97% of Americans have cell phones and 85% of those are internet-capable smartphones. But no other generation has the same level of technical savvy and "always-on" connectivity as this up-and-coming young group.

To win their trust, you need a polished, professional online presence.

Turn Your Online Presence Up to 10 with These 10 Tips

Even if you work in a niche that skews older, Millennials and Gen Z will be part of the decision-making process before you know it. So, there's never been a better time to take a close look at the way you present yourself online and ensure your digital brand is compelling.

Here's how to do it right:

• Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly
  Google now looks at the mobile version of your website first to decide where it should rank in search. What is it finding? Be sure your real estate website has a responsive layout. Responsive means it adjusts to the display size and input available to the user, making it easy to navigate on phones and tablets.
  
  
• Incorporate Texting into Your Marketing Plan
  Millennials and Gen Z alike love text, maybe even more than talking. Research shows young people prefer to avoid voice calls, but they are overwhelmingly favorable to texts. They're even willing to get texts from businesses, as long as they consent first. A text message marketing platform makes it easy.
  
  
• Use Integrated Live Chat
  Of all the different options you can use to connect with website visitors at the moment they're paying full attention to you, integrated Live Chat is the fastest and most effective. It can appear on any page of your website. Highly enticing, it may motivate prospects to ask you a question they might otherwise skip.
  
  
• Be Selective About Social Media
  You don't need to be on every social media platform — just the ones where your customers are found. For most real estate pros, that means Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Instagram is the most popular platform for real estate photography, and it links directly to Facebook for easy sharing.
  
  
• Make It Simple to Get in Contact
  Texting and social media are helpful on their own, but they're most powerful when they give your leads the chance to connect quickly. The faster you can respond to first-time inquiries, the more likely you are to get a customer, so configure and monitor notifications during work hours.
  
  
• Once You're Set Up, Use Automation
  Once your social media profiles are fully set up — with every form filled out and brilliant, branded images in every space — set realistic goals for posting each week consistently. Social media automation lets you plan your posts in advance and send out instant, event-driven updates in less time.
  
  
• Set Up an Email List to Capture New Leads
  Most first-time visitors to your website aren't ready to do business — with you or anyone else. But that's okay if you use email marketing. Email marketing automation means you can stay in contact with leads for weeks, months, or years, building trust along the way until they choose to take action.
  
  
• Boost Your Best Listings with Targeted Social Ads
  Social media ads can get eyes on your listings in a hurry, but it's crucial to go in prepared. Not knowing the ins and outs of setting up their ads, business owners often lose money. Ad Wizard is a self-service tool that helps you launch ads for your listings and track their performance at a glance.
  
  
• Be Consistent and Purposeful About Your Website Content
  Content marketing is a method of attracting targeted visitors to your website by answering the burning questions they have about the homebuying process. This helps raise your visibility in online search, so be sure you are posting at least one 800-word article a week aligned with your audience's interests.
  
  
• Use Website Analytics for Continuous Improvement
  A real estate CRM suite brings together the data from your email, social media, and website so you can focus your attention on what really works. Total visibility in one location enables you to understand where visitors are coming from and what they do once they reach you.

Contact us at Delta Media Group to learn more about digital marketing in real estate.

When you tell a story, every detail matters. The more vibrant the portrait you paint, the more likely the story's receiver becomes invested in its outcome.

This fact is true when you're telling a traditional story, and it's equally important in real estate storytelling. The story you tell through your blog, your real estate website, or social media channels is your best opportunity to help shoppers fall in love with your local markets and your business.

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Local SEO has long been a key ingredient of a successful online marketing mix for real estate agents, and it has only become more important with COVID-19 precautions changing the way that the industry does business. When someone is interested in buying or selling a home in your market areas, they will typically trust their favorite search engine. They might be looking for an agent, searching for listings, or seeking virtual open houses to tour properties from a distance. No matter what local real estate topic they're searching for, local SEO helps your personal brand stand out from the pack.

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There are thousands of sites claiming to have amazing digital marketing insights that will change your life plus offer hundreds of different tactics you could try.

The big question: How can you put it all together into a plan that works in real estate?

Many sales associates find themselves reinventing the wheel when it comes to digital marketing and social media. They start excited only to discover the results aren't what they expected.

Some get caught up in a cycle of trying one thing after another but never figuring out what the big deal is. Others lose track of digital marketing entirely, letting others define their brand online.

The secret is this: Digital marketing is the key to ending the exhausting cycle of hunting for the next referral most sales associates experience early in their careers.

The right approach to digital marketing brings leads to your door, so you can stay focused on building your business, expanding your skills, and delivering world-class service. When leads seek you out, not the other way around, you can achieve the work-life balance you want.

Follow it consistently, and this five-step plan will help get you there:

1. Get a Custom Website That Communicates Trust
   Real estate custom websites are a "must-have" item for real estate professionals who want to stand out from the rest. A custom website fosters trust by making a fantastic first impression. It should communicate who you are, who you serve, and what makes you different. Just as important: It must be mobile-friendly so leads on the go can browse with their smartphones.
   
   

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The majority of buyers start their home search online. They search current listings and look for the right real estate agent to help them through the buying process.

With luxury real estate, the impact of online marketing is even more powerful. To attract and keep affluent clients, agencies must project an image of luxury from the start.

You can't be sure when a lead will first become aware of your brand. That may come from a blog post, social media, listing, or webinar. With that in mind, it's crucial to have a multi-pronged online marketing strategy that always puts your best face forward.

Many real estate agents are partnering with luxury communities or homebuilders to appeal to a discerning clientele. Here's how your online marketing strategy can help you do it the right way.

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Celebrate Thanksgiving with Five Delicious Real Estate Marketing Ideas

There are so many things to look forward to during Thanksgiving weekend, and we're not just talking about your delicious dinner. Thanksgiving is also one of the best times for real estate marketing because you can show your thanks to the clients and communities that help make your real estate success possible.

Whether you're giving a gift, raising money for a good cause, or just letting clients know that you care, now is the time to start thinking about Thanksgiving marketing. Get started with our five delicious Thanksgiving marketing ideas, cooked to perfection for the start of the holiday season.

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