Rounding Third and Headed for 2017

As we head into the home stretch of 2016, many of us in the real estate industry are planning our digital marketing strategies and budgets for 2017.

If your goal is to attract more real estate leads, increase your rankings in the digital marketplace and boost your online brand, then there's no time like the present to understand our wins (and losses) from the current year.

How do you do this? A great place to get started is by using Google Analytics (GA) to evaluate your past and present online business. GA allows you to study your results to figure out what type of website content best resonates with your clients.

In case you missed our earlier blog, Using Google Analytics to Evaluate Your Online Business, we provided a detailed explanation of how to use Google Analytics to convert more leads.

Developing Your 2017 Digital Marketing Strategy

A successful marketing plan in 2017--especially for the real estate industry--requires digital marketing to be at its core.

In today's online real estate world, savvy real estate brokers and agents are finding the most creative and innovative ways to use search engine optimization, mobile responsive web designs, paid campaigns, social media, videos and email to boost their online presence and increase leads.

Steps for Getting Started

After you've explored your online marketing results from 2016 and determined what was effective and what was not, it's time to put together a realistic plan for achieving your goals in 2017.

1. Budget for your success. Allow enough resources—both people and dollars—to achieve your goals. Realistically, your budget will be driven by how much you have to invest and how quickly you hope to see results.

2. Understand who your customer is. Review your customers (both home buyers and home sellers) from the past to understand who they are and how these same kinds of customers will help you achieve your goals.

3. How did your customers find you? This is easier than you might think with Google Analytics. Google Analytics gives you the ability to track the amount of traffic to your site from different online channels as well as the number of leads from each. Being armed with this data sometimes makes it easier to determine how your marketing budget should be allocated.

4. What makes you different? Know why your real estate business stands out from your competitors in the marketplace. Ask your customers why they chose you to represent them instead of the real estate company down the street. Market to your strengths.

5. Optimize your website and online marketing. Scrutinize your website and social media marketing to ensure they will attract the right target audience. Content and messaging is important--it needs to resonate with your target audience.

6. Wash, rise, repeat. Digital marketing is not a "one and done" process. After you have defined your goals and understand them, regularly review your progress, identify issues and adjust your activities.

While no one has a crystal ball when it comes to identifying which digital marketing trends will help shape your real estate business in the coming year, here are six ideas to consider:

1. Social media marketing for real estate. By its very nature, the real estate industry is a social and engaging business to be in. Give your social media posts a "wow" factor by communicating your real personality. Focus on fun, be creative and let prospective clients understand what makes your business stand out from the crowd. In addition, it is very important to share the love. Spend time on other profiles, liking content, commenting and sharing.

2. Make a digital marketing plan and stick to it. Your marketing (whether social media, blogging, videos, etc.) should not be haphazard or random. You should have weekly—if not daily—posts to keep your content flowing and engagement with customers consistent. Creating an editorial calendar is easy way to manage topics and content over the course of a month. It takes the pain out of "What am I going to write about today?"

3. Design your real estate website to be lead ready. Your goal should be to design a website whose goal is to attract and grow leads. Consider investing in a custom website to stand out from your competition, make it mobile responsive, fill your site with calls-to-action and blog, blog, blog. Google loves a website that is updated regularly and each post that is written is another page in the Google index.

4. Search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a method to generate FREE (organic) traffic to your website. When it comes to optimizing your real estate website for SEO, target local keywords like Cleveland, Ohio homes for sale or Cleveland real estate. Most real estate brokerages and agents service numerous real estate markets. When you build your SEO plan, start with your main cities and build out from there.

5. Consistent email marketing. If a customer signs up to receive information about your MLS listings or a service, reach out to them at least twice a month. Real estate email marketing is extremely effective if done correctly.

6. Become a real estate influencer. Build an online following within your marketplace so prospects and customers continue to come back to you for knowledge and advice. Write share-worthy blogs and content. Write articles for your website. Make short real estate videos to post.

This probably seems like a lot of work—and it is.

If you have questions about where to get started, how much will it cost and how to get it all done, we'd love to share our knowledge and experiences with you about real estate marketing and technology. Contact us anytime.

To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.