Here is a rundown of 7 Marketing Ideas for 2021. Many of these are easier than they appear – the hardest part is simply motivating yourself to start. Keep in mind that as technology trends continue to shift the significance of implementing these improvements will only grow.
1. Leverage Video
The first of our 7 Marketing Ideas for 2021 is video. Why video? For one, it gives you interesting content to share on social media and your website. Other people are more inclined to share video content with others. Also, creating video content that features your community will improve your SEO footprint.
Often when real estate agents think about using video to promote their real estate careers, thoughts drift towards the complexity of the idea. Let’s put this idea into its proper perspective. Hiring professional videographers has its place – for example, you ought to hire a professional to capture a listing. The audience wanting to see a home have higher expectations than someone watching a Vblog (Video Blog) which leads us into how you ought to be leveraging video in 2021.
You might already know that the great majority of YouTube and Facebook videos are recorded on phones or inexpensive cameras – so there is a good chance you already have the tools necessary to get started. In truth, since most inexpensive cameras do a great job capturing video, with very little editing you’ll find yourself with a workable video to share.
Watch this to get an idea of the 5 ways to instantly make better videos.
Now that you have an idea of how to make a good video, what might you record? The answer to this question is dependent on two factors: your interests and your community. The goal then becomes to marry the two factors together. For example, if you enjoy food, review some local eateries, if you enjoy mountain biking, feature it, if you enjoy downtown life, talk about it. In the beginning, it is very important to feature your interests married to the community, it’ll make the video process a lot easier.
2. Embrace Micro-Moments
What is a micro-moment? It is the understanding that as mobile-device usage has dramatically increased, the time to capture attention has dramatically decreased to just a few seconds. That is why this takes the second spot in our 7 marketing ideas for 2021. This truth should have the majority of real estate agents in horror over their marketing where the average agent tries to stuff volumes of irrelevant information at every eyeball casually aimed their way. Then as the consumer wanders away they hear, “Whether you’re buying or selling a home, give me a…” Sigh.
Embracing micro-moments means that you need to shift your thinking away from sharing full-fledged real estate reports and instead hone in on a single stat and expand up it – you can always link to the larger report, but always keep in mind your very first touch with a customer might be from their mobile device while sitting at a red light.
Understanding how to utilize micro-moments means it ought to add an entirely new dimension to your communications apparatus. Instead of shunning 10-second videos, embrace and share them. Instead of shunning small infographics; focus on creating more of them. Think about how people utilize Instagram and Twitter where the appeal is in its simplicity and brevity.
“According to Google’s content marketing team, Think with Google, users experience “micro-moments” on average 150 times a day.”
3. Leverage Social Media Influencers Organically
When we suggest leveraging social media influencers organically, we’re speaking about the appearance of organic placement. The way real estate agents most commonly leverage social media influencers is through paid endorsements. While it might be novel to have some famous real estate celebrity endorse you, most everyone recognizes it as a novelty.
A better way to leverage social media influencers is with the appearance of an organic plug. For example, reach out to an up and coming travel blogger, offer to set them up for a weekend and take them on a tour of the top 3-things everyone visiting must check out. In return, they plug you and the landing page you set up to convert interested leads. You can do this for an assortment of interests that your community might work for, outdoor adventure, mountain biking, cycling, running, food, hunting, fishing. I hope you get the picture.
4. Focus Landing Pages / Lead Funnels
Stop focusing on real estate specifically and focus on service and real estate abstractly. I know, I lost half the real estate agents before the period. The problem with focusing on real estate specifically within the digital sphere is there is no agent, broker, office, franchise, or local MLS is even close to competing with Zillow/Trulia and REALTOR.COM.
Now, it is usually here that we hear the grumbling from a few agents who took an online marketing class based on 2003 technology, the one agent out there with his Master’s of Internet Marketing who knows it all, and the few of you who have spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to compete, all yelling at us that we’re wrong. Yet, in the real world, these popular real estate websites attract nearly 100,000,000 visitors a month. Stop trying to compete against these websites and instead find a better way to establish your digital footprint.
The emphasis, especially in light of micro-moments and the continued growth in mobile usage where the need for information quickly continues to dominate, is focused content with focused landing/lead funnel pages around real estate influencing categories. For example, focusing on relocation categories and common life changes or lifestyles that may trigger real estate transactions. Establishing yourself well in this category will set you up to benefit from online trends through at least 2023.
5. Understand & Utilize Social by Audience
Facebook for an Older Demographic
It just doesn’t feel that long ago when we had no online solution for reaching a demographic over 60 years old – yet today, 46% of Facebook users are over the age of 65. Although I’m nowhere close to 65, I do utilize Facebook, and now I feel old.
Instagram Core 24 – 44 Demo
Whereas Instagram dominates the 25 – 44 age bracket with 57% of their users coming in at that range. Although, keep in mind that demographic stats are only one dimension of a bigger picture where Facebook sheer size of 1.15 billion users overshadows most every other social media platform.
I don’t want to write on how to use these platform for the simple reason there are thousands of well-written articles on how to best use them. Go read them. The point of our mention is the shifting demo trend within these two social platforms and your utilization ought to shift accordingly.
6. Focus on Substance
This continues to be a drum that we and nearly every other online marketing company beat on yet, for the most part, continues to be ignored by real estate agents. The significance of relevant content/substance will only continue to grow as search engines continue to improve, artificial intelligence (AI) makes gains, and AI grows in use.
Search Engine Optimization has always been a human-powered answer to the short-comings of search placement; but as search has gotten smarter, SEO hacking has diminished in effectiveness. The only solution is real substance, not aggregated content. It would be better to pay $50 a month for a single, 500-word article that is local and unique posted to your website than for you to have 10 generic articles found on 100’s of other websites. Invest in unique content.
7. Voice Search
Whether we’re asking Google or Siri for answers they both depend for the same place for their answers – the internet. You need to be sure that people can easily and quickly find you on the internet. The easier it is for you to be found online the easier it will be for Google, Siri, or Alexa to connect with you.
Bonus. AI & Chatbots
Keep an eye out for Artificial Intelligence & Chatbots as this technology grows in use, integration, and prices should start dropping fast, which is why we added this as a bonus to our 7 marketing improvements for 2021.
As broader use increases, you’ll want to see how this technology is being leveraged in real estate – especially preconfigured Chatbots. While at the time of this writing, this technology doesn’t seem to have found a broad home in real estate, I expect to see it making a competent showing towards the end of the year and with that, a rapid deployment.
Since this will present a dramatic leap forward in customer service this will be an important piece in late 2021 and especially going forward. AI-driven Chatbots will significantly improve lead conversion.
Implement one or more of these 7 marketing ideas for 2021 and you’ll find yourself in top search results ahead of your colleagues.
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