8 Ways Content Unlocks Real Estate Opportunities

Every single day new opportunities await.  As each morning dawns, new groups of people are considering buying a home in your community or ponder the tasks ahead of them in having their property listed.  Topic-focused content positions you in the stream of opportunity while delivering valuable information to people about to enter the real estate market.  The information and impression you share early may be the difference between someone who acts quickly with your help versus someone who retreats and waits another year before going forward.

The simple purpose of an online search engine is to match the search queries of people to websites that these search engines feel best answer their request. Focused, relevant, and unique content significantly improves your digital footprint and SEO PageRank around long-tail search phrases allowing you to attract real estate buyers and/or sellers centered around the information that brought them in. In many ways, think of an online search engine as an automated referral engine; and this concept will make more sense as you read the next point.

Early in your sales training you probably learned two extremely valuable sales tips that all top performing sales professionals practice: Ask for the sale & ask for a referral. Here we’re going to focus on, “Asking for a referral,” because relevant and branded content, booklets, and guides make asking for referrals easy. This dramatically simplifies your ability to communicate your intentions putting everyone at ease. Often when asking for a referral, it’s an open-ended request that leaves the person you’re asking with wonder on what you’re going to do, how often will you be hounding their friend or relative, what will you say, are you a good match of the people they know on the verge of a real estate decision?

The most common real estate marketing cliché in the real estate industry is the phrase, “whether you’re buying or selling…” The reason that phrase is so prevalent in real estate marketing is for the simple reason that all good marketing must have a call to action; and outside of an amazing listing to show off, most real estate professionals go blank in forwarding a solid call to action in fear of missing that one person who forgot what a real estate agent does.

Agent branded, focused content allows you to create effective calls to action that stand out for two reasons. For one, it’s different. You’re offering upfront value which is often unavailable in the professional services sphere, and two, you’re explicitly aligning your professional services with the content you’re promoting. For example, instead of, “whether you’re buying or selling” you offer, “Download 12 Reasons to List your Home Today in ”.

Many agents struggle to create and/or execute a high-quality engagement strategy. Allow us to share a common scenario we’ve heard a few hundred times through the years.

A potential home buyer contacts you from one of your listings they happen to drive by; you talk on the phone and answer a few of their questions. You dialogue two or three times over email learning more about their situation and what they’re looking for. Over the course of three weeks, you email them several listings you feel match their wants and needs but their side of the communication has completely dropped off. Where did they go? What happened?

This is usually the place where 73% of real estate agents cut and run. And this shopping home buyer will land up being represented by someone else – not because anyone did anything wrong. Keeping interests up over a period of weeks is a challenge requiring perseverance. Adding branded content to help drive the sales process will keep them interested and engaged as you give them a wide variety of resources throughout the process

In marketing, you generally have between 3 to 7 seconds to make an impression that will establish the tone for that moment of contact. This means, your interactions ought to be focused and purpose-driven – every interaction.

Having self-branded, real estate relevant content establishes clear purpose that allows you to exhibit a high level of preparedness in all your prospect/client interactions. This added professionalism and demonstrated preparedness will set you apart from your peers.

You already know the value of mental focus. Want to learn a foreign language? You focus. Want to learn a new software tool? You focus. Want to improve a relationship? You focus! Focused marketing has the same impact. For example, if you want listings, you focus on listings.

Here is an area where agent branded, focused content is tough to beat as we have tools directly focused on core real estate services to establish that market focus. Content allows you to laser in on your market and attract/convert the type of prospects you want and need. Some people hesitate when they feel they are not in the market yet because they’re 90 days from deciding. Having branded content as the forefront of your offer builds effective bridges for people to contact you without the fear of commitment.

Agent-branded content establishes belief of greater professional depth, ability, and confidence. And in an industry where it is difficult to differentiate value between agents, offices, and brands, the ability to articulate and present material focused on prospect interests, wants, and needs may be the difference between earning a lifelong client versus a client with little to zero loyalty.

Branded content allows you to target specific market niches effectively and gain market traction quickly.