Technology has flipped everything completely inside out: the
way we communicate, the way we work, the way we market ourselves and even the
way we sell. The marketing budget of yesterday dedicated the lion’s share of
budget to paper-based marketing – print ads, flyers, promotional campaigns,
etc. – but today’s real estate sales professional who is leveraging digital
marketing is seeing a shift.
Since so many real estate sales professionals have realized
the importance of digital marketing and are doing so much more of it, the
digital marketing landscape in real estate has become very competitive. As a
real estate sales professional you are like your own business (you), within a
business (your brokerage). While your brokerage may market the brand, you are
still left with decisions, as far as: where you are going to land your next
deal, where you need to advertise to land them, and how much this will cost.
This is why it is important to leverage the right combination of free online
digital marketing tools and paid ones to ensure that you get the most
coverage/exposure for every dollar you spend.
Let’s take a look at some of the top digital marketing tools
for real estate sales professionals today:
Real estate specific sites: market listings where other real
estate sales professionals will find them.
As a real estate sales professional it is very important to
ensure that your property is marketed and visible on the most popular sites where
other realtors will go to look for potential properties to show their clients.
The most popular digital marketing tools in real estate are listing services
that enable you to post and promote your listings. Anytime you have a new
listing you will want to ensure that it has been added to the MLS. Also, new
innovations like the new mobile app for real estate sales professionals, ViMO,
offer real estate sales professionals the ability to post and promote their
listings through the app.
Classified sites: classified sites remain one of the most
affordable digital marketing tools to market your listing online. Many allow
you to post a free ad, but for a premium you may have your ad appear higher in
the classified search result. Some examples of these sites that are most
well-known are Kijiji and Craigslist. Don’t count out local news sites as they
may offer the ability to advertise on their online classifieds as well.
Mobile technology: not only has mobile increased the ease
with which we communicate – which is always better for business, it also makes
it so much easier to do more on-the-go. This not only helps establish and build
better client relationships, it greatly increases your overall brand image!
Social media sites: Facebook remains one of the top sites
where real estate sales professionals can reach prospective buyers and sellers.
Not only can you post and market your listings, but Facebook PPC now enables
you, for a cost per click, to promote your listing in the Timeline Feed of
targeted prospects’ walls. This is a very affordable digital marketing tool
that gets results.
Email marketing: the birthday cards and reminders of
yesterday are now being delivered by many real estate sales professionals
electronically. Digital marketing tools like Mail Chimp and Constant Contact
make it easy to organize email lists and send out campaigns and reminders.
What do you think are some of the top digital marketing
tools of today, not mentioned in this blog? We’d love to hear from you! Let us
know on Facebook or Twitter.
For more about staying up-to-date with the latest and
greatest real estate apps that make digital marketing easy, check out ViMO,
your virtual mobile office, at
www.myvimo.ca.
