Content marketing tips for real estate companies

Real estate is not dubbed as the most exciting niche for content marketing. However, it certainly doesn’t mean that you should ditch your attempts in favor of paid advertising options.

While content marketing is a multi-stage process requiring both time and careful planning, it isn’t as complicated or costly as most real estate companies picture it. The good news - you already have the data and tools to leverage it.

First, let’s revive the core principles of successful content marketing:

• Bring value
• Educate your audience
• Solve a problem

• Devoid of “sales speak”

Now, with the following points in mind, let’s get to practicalities.

Use Consumer Data To Create the Content Your Audience Wants to Read

Almost 90% of real estate buyers search for property via the Internet. The median age of the first-time buyers is 31 years. They belong to Gen Y – the tech-savvy, information-hungry and curious consumers, who tend to ignore traditional ads and heavily rely on educational content and peer-to-peer advertising.

For your company that stands for delivering valuable content if you’d like to win the minds (and wallets) of this particular audience segment.

Step 1: Create a marketing persona profile

You already have the required data in your Google Analytics account. All you need is to structure it into a clear picture, rather than a bunch of scattered numbers. For additional insights, browse the recent consumer statistics reports for your area, or nationwide and have a talk with your agents on the subject of most commonly asked questions.

Next, create a template and fill in the following data:

• Name of the persona
• Age
• Gender
• Approx. salary/household income
• Location: urban / suburban / rural
• Family
• Goals and challenges
• How you help achieve these goals
• How you help solve these problems
• Values / fears
• Marketing message

For instance, here’s a sample marketing persona for Gen Y, first-time buyers.

Mark and Jane Marketing Personas

A couple of young professionals in their early thirties with a combined income of $80.000 per year, planning to buy a house in the up-and-coming urban area. They plan to have kids in a few years.

Their biggest problem is that they find the related paperwork too complicated and consider a lot of real estate agents just too sleazy, meaning they put the possible profit higher than their interests. Commuting time and costs are a major decision factor for them, and they don’t mind buying pre-owned housing.

Step 2: Craft the copy that hits the sweet spot

As you have identified the common problems, fears, and desires of your marketing persona, it’s time to craft the irresistibly attractive copy around it.

In case with Mark and Jane, it could be a long-form “Beginners Guide to Buying Property” that covers all the aspects of choosing the house, going through the paperwork, doing the due diligence basics and so on.

Don’t be afraid to give out all the “trade secrets” on your blog. In fact, by doing so you are leveraging your brand and projecting an image of a “friendly and helpful real estate company that doesn’t just want my money”.

FJP Investment, for example, has created a targeted blog where they cover topics that can interest their potential clients:

• 8 Ways to Get a Bigger Buy To Let Kitchen Without Renovating
• Why People Are Investing In Office Space For Income?
• Why student property investments are gaining in popularity?
• Is Commercial Real Estate a Good Investment?

Create Linkable Assets To Generate Leads and Leverage Rankings

Considering the fact that most buyers land on your website via search, you’ll need to rank for relevant keywords. SEO may seem alien to most real estate businesses, especially when it comes to acquiring links.

However, that shouldn’t be the case if you change the attitude. Instead of pro-actively seeking for link building opportunities, create a link magnet that will naturally generate the mentions (with some outreach of course).

Here are just a few strategies that work great for real estate.

Create a community resource page

It should be something valuable and of interest to your target audience. With the real estate industry the ideas are plentiful:

Local Guide To:

• Best Sushi Restaurants in Town
• Best Kids-friendly cafes
• Best Coworking spaces
• Must-visit attractions for recent transplants.

Next, after you have created an attractive landing page, outreach to all the businesses mention with a quick email. As a result, you are likely to earn some reciprocal mentions and social shares.

Navut took this strategy and made a step further by creating an interactive Neighborhood finder tool on their website, highlighting neighborhood quality, reviews and property available, along with detailed guides for buyers and the newly arrived.

Share and Publish Interesting Industry Stats

Heat map shows where you can (and can't) afford real estate in Metro Vancouver. #Vancouver #RealEstate pic.twitter.com/pm1lzh2djD

— Navut (@realnavut) January 11, 2016

You have a lot of consumer data at hand. Give it an attractive look and use it to your advantage.

For instance, you can publish market forecasts to land mentions from other industry publishers and local media, who are constantly on the look for accurate stats to back up the claims.

You can visualize the data you have and present it as an infographic – a powerful linkable asset that could land you great features and links from top publishers, who often syndicate infographics e.g. Business Insider. Additionally, use the guestographics method to land links from relevant blogs.

Publish survey results or research based on the actual client data you have. This would not only help you understand your customers and their needs better, but also land some quotes and mentions from other publishers.

Data-driven content marketing is the key to standing out in the over-saturated content landscape as it is today.

Earn Links with Google Maps

Use the same approach as with the community resource page – find some interesting data, mark it on Google maps, publish on your website and offer an embed code with your author credentials.

For instance, you can create a map of free Wi-Fi spots in your city, best coffee shops, best street snacks and so on.

Geoff Kenyon, for instance, created a map of ski resorts in Colorado, which have brought him a fair share of local links through embeds.