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Revolution to Sell More Houses in a Digital-First Market Try Issuu free
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ISSUU FOR REALTORS
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ISSUU FOR REAL ESTATE
The COVID-19 pandemic sent shockwaves across the globe changing how many real estate professionals live and work. At first, there was uncertainty. Few people listed their homes during the first wave of lockdowns. And even as time went on, it became clear that tried-and-true buyer sources like open houses and office walk-ins would need to radically (and quickly) change. We masked up, the proverbial and literal gloves came out, and we set out bootie baskets as the first tentative sellers reached out. The buyers also changed. People looked for homes that would fit their lifestyle as the world tried to
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define the new normal. And they wanted space - yards for the kids and pets to play and spare bedrooms they could transform into work- and -school from home space. Despite an uncertain economy, home sales began to skyrocket. According to a study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), in April 2020, 36 percent of homebuyers were first-time buyers with a median age of 34. The tech-savvy generation represents the largest group of home buyers in the US today. Even as the economy opens back up and traditional marketing tactics return, this new buyer cohort appreciates digital publishing more than real estate marketing flyers, and is often willing to purchase houses online even without seeing them in person. Instead, they rely on virtual tours, Google Street View, satellite photography, Facetime tours with their Realtors, and information found over the internet to decide on the –
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most significant investment of their lives.
ISSUU FOR REALTORS
At the same time, inventory dried up. So real estate professionals have had challenges on many fronts - lots of anxious and tech-savvy buyers in bidding wars, and a need to heavily market to prospective sellers who, in many cases, simply don’t want to move right now.
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By the Numbers: Understanding how Digital Content can Influence Home Buyers and Sellers Today If you own a real estate agency or if you are working as a real estate agent, you need to catch the attention of the digitally-driven home sellers and buyers to get your share of the sales pie. Building your brand so they will see you as a trustable and reliable authority in home buying and selling while providing them with an excellent customer experience every step of the way.
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Digital tools and real estate tech are not only in focus because of the pandemic. Millennials and Gen Zs are embracing real estate technologies and the digital home buying process. Roughly 39 percent of millennials are comfortable buying a home online. Fifty-nine percent of those aged 27 to 41 are somewhat, very, or extremely confident about making an offer even without seeing the property personally. They are also extremely confident using tech tools such as 3D virtual tours, viewing digital floor plans, and unlocking properties using their smartphones to tour houses on their own time. Gen Zs, those aged 18 to 26, have similar sentiments regarding the home buying process using digital tools.
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Sourcing and Convincing Sellers In order to drive prospective seller leads to your real estate business, focus your efforts on digital publishing. This means producing digital content that can help your audience of potential home sellers solve their problems. Some of the most common issues home buyers face: understanding market pricing and trends, how to maximize the value of their home (including tips and tricks to clean things up before listing), hiring the right real estate agent, and learning specifics about the home selling process. And last but not least, where to go once they’ve sold. With a good content marketing strategy, you can ensure your sellers that they can rely on you as a partner in the critical journey of buying a home. You can build a level of trust, so you will be the go-to partner when they want to buy a home or even sell a property. 11
ISSUU FOR REAL ESTATE
1. Building an Effective Content Marketing Strategy for Buyers and Sellers An effective content marketing strategy for realtors will help you cut through all the clutter online. Houses are selling fast, so you need to make sure your efforts are laser targeted to bring results. Here’s how you can do it: Use Content Marketing to Establish Your Brand: Use your blog, YouTube channel, and social media channels to announce to the world that you are there to help. Show them why you are doing what you are doing in the real estate sector. Set yourself apart from other realtors by letting people see the value they get when they work with you. Help them solve their problems, understand processes, and guide them by the hand so they can find the house that fits perfectly with their lifestyle. Find Your Content Marketing Niche: Narrow down your messaging so you hit the mark. Determine what kind of market you want to serve in line with the business goals that you’ve set out to achieve. Analyze scenarios or situations
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where you think you’ll thrive and close more deals. Will you be working with first-time home buyers? Are you targeting potential buyers from specific professions or locations? Brainstorm with your team and discover the opportunities that you can grab, depending on the current real estate trends or tendencies of the market. Once you have determined your niches, you can create content centered on these niches. This way, you can build your list of potential leads – and later on, convert those to buying customers. Develop a Workflow and Content Marketing Rhythm: You need to create content regularly to build momentum and keep your potential market interested. By publishing on a regular basis, you’ll help your audience get more familiar with you, so they can relate with what you do and what you’re offering them. You can also publish reports or a snapshot of what the market is like, which can serve as a guide for your customers when deciding to buy or sell. Don’t be Afraid to Experiment: When it comes to workflow and distribution of content, find out what works
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for you and your team. You just need to make sure that each content marketing piece helps you achieve your goal. For example, a blog post may provide information to readers that you are selling properties at this location. This should then work in concert with your YouTube videos and social media posts, encouraging people to check out those properties. Analyze Results: You can only know if your efforts are effective when you measure how they are helping you achieve your goals and ultimately sell houses. Pay attention to your analytics, and make adjustments to your voice or branding as needed.
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2. What Kind of Content Works Curating a treasure chest of content takes time and effort, but you can do it. First, you need to find a good digital publishing platform and determine the type of content to publish that will help you attract more traffic to your brand’s website. You can do this using the following types of content for real estate: Blogs: As of April 2021, there are around 88.5 million published blogs on WordPress. Still, blogging remains one of the most popular ways to show the world that you know real estate. You can optimize your blog to attract readers and search engines, so you can generate leads. Publish articles that are well-researched and well-written to up your chances of getting noticed. Articles might include: “Tips on finding the right home, local knowledge about best schools, communityspecifics, how to prepare your house for sale, how to handle buyer contingencies and more.” Social Media: Content on social media is all about engagement. Interact with your potential market and build relationships. Pay attention to their pain points and develop content that will address those points. Tailor your content based on the social media platform. Showcase properties
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and visual content on Instagram, engage your community in conversations on Facebook and exercise thought leadership on LinkedIn. Videos: Combining wonderful visuals and high-quality audio is always a winning formula if you want potential home buyers or sellers glued to their screen. If they like what they see, they will explore more of your content. This does not always entail a big production, but remember to continually provide value that will address the concerns of your target audience. Add types of videos i.e. House Tours, tips to finding the right home, Introduce yourself to your audience, etc. Ebooks and Infographics: You can go beyond the usual blogs and articles to provide additional resources that offer easy-to-digest information, such as infographics. Additionally, you can go in-depth and provide potential leads with ebooks or white papers to help potential customers understand the most pressing issues about the housing market. Market Reports: Produce periodic market reports (say, quarterly) highlighting sales stats, pricing trends, and anecdotal evidence of homebuyer or seller challenges and opportunities. Share advice - people remember trusted, knowledgeable Realtors. 17
ISSUU FOR REAL ESTATE
Newsletters or Email Courses: When people visit your website or download your content, make an offer on your website in exchange for their emails. You can provide regular emails or informational content sent directly to their inboxes. This way, you can maximize the ROI of your content marketing efforts by generating potential leads. Worksheets and Checklists: These materials are quick references that can help home buyers navigate the complicated process of choosing a property, getting a real estate agent, understanding the financing of a home, and more
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5 Ways Issuu Can Help You Accelerate Your Content Marketing, Save Time, and Sell Houses
Try Issuu free
In a digital-centric world where we have multiple screens to get our information from, human attention span has declined in recent years. As people tend to multi-task and have multiple mobile devices in the age of social media, you have to give them the information they need when they need it, and match them with the right property when they want to buy one. 20
ISSUU FOR REAL ESTATE
From digital magazine publishing to distributing real estate digital brochures, market reports, and other marketing collateral, tens of thousands of Realtors trust Issuu to help them reach out to a wider audience.
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1. Create Once, Share Everywhere If you have exerted your 101 percent effort to produce great content for your audience, Issuu is a great tool to help you share your insights with the rest of the world. We have made digital publishing as easy as 1-23. You just have to upload a PDF, enhance it with video and links, and distribute it across different channels. Thanks to our proven track record, Issuu hit 1.5 billion total reads and roughly 100 million pages created in 2020. We have also seen our active creators double and first-time publishers grow by as much as 3.6 times. Issuu is not only used by real estate agents, but also by restaurateurs, architects, other professionals, publications, and small business owners.
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2. Issuu Flipbook Quickly bring your marketing flyers and market reports to life from a static PDF file to a dynamic flipbook, with just a few clicks of the mouse. We are the unchallenged leader in flipbook conversion. Using this technology, you can give potential home buyers a more visual and immersive experience, as well as the tactile feeling of turning pages. Issuu creates a web and mobile-friendly version of your PDF flipbook, so you can be where your target market is. We have designed it to easily embed on your website or share via Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. With this easy functionality, you don’t have to worry about updating endless web pages. You don’t need coding skills to add real estate brochures, magazines, or property catalogs to your website, blog, or social media. You can also easily customize your flipbook with your company’s logo to make it consistent with your website and protect your intellectual property.
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3. Create Derivative Assets Issuu is also a great content marketing tool, because it allows you to repurpose your content. You can lift reusable bits such as images or text to create GIFs, banners, or other shareable content that are optimized for popular social media platforms. You can also create separate articles from portions of the content of your flipbook.
4. Add Videos and Links Visual content is a powerful force in content marketing, and you can add more oomph to your content by integrating videos or live links right into your flipbook. Leverage the power of videos to tell your stories and get your messages across quickly. In addition to video, live links allow for easy navigation to other useful content that readers might benefit from, drive traffic to properties or services you are selling, and attract advertisers.
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ISSUU FOR REAL ESTATE
PRO TIP By joining the reputable individuals and organizations whose content is hosted by Issuu, you can ride the wave and help establish yourself as an authority in your field.
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5. Understand your Target Audience Better We understand that no content marketing campaigns are perfect out of the gate, and that’s why we made sure you gain insights through Issuu Statistics. Find out who consumes your content and how your content is performing. This way, you can make adjustments based on statistical data and further improve your reach.
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ISSUU FOR REALTORS
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Sell Houses with Issuu: Get Started Today At Issuu, we help you connect your content to people. Publish your content in a matter of minutes, as often as you want. Issuu will help tell your stories and enrich the lives of your customers through meaningful content. Sell more houses with Issuu – find the best digital publishing plan that’s right for you!
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