How (and why) to future-proof your marketing mix

Your buyers and sellers are looking everywhere: newspapers, portals, YouTube (yup, definitely YouTube) and on social media. You need to meet them with great content to help you sell more houses

Your clients and potential clients are now, more than ever, connected to businesses and what they offer, and their expectations from companies and brands are high. The rise of this new, connected client is a golden opportunity to enhance engagement and win more leads. But it also brings with it a series of challenges, and the need for brands to be wherever clients are, to be trustworthy, sustainable and useful.

In this new era of client engagement, marketers risk becoming totally overwhelmed by the number of media platforms available and ways to engage. It can also become an expensive and time-consuming exercise if cost efficiencies aren’t employed and the right support not used.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN MEDIA LANDSCAPE TODAY

According to a World Wide Worx study, in South Africa, Facebook has 13m users, Twitter has 7.4m followers, YouTube has 8.28m users (it’s the third-most visited site in the country) and LinkedIn has 4.6m users. Those are numbers that can’t be ignored.

And on top of that, print is not dead – it can’t be forgotten. Says Esmaré Weideman, CEO of Media24: “Last year we commissioned an independent study on the engagement levels which print readers offer advertisers. The results confirmed what we have always known: no audience is an engaged as a print audience. We believe the sweet spot lies in combining digital and print advertising for maximum effect.”

But do your research about where and when to advertise in print. Know who you want to target and what the publication reach is. Sometimes a smaller but niche readership is more powerful.

VIDEO IS THE NEXT BIG THING

Video is becoming a central part of marketing strategies. The statistics are everywhere: video will account for 79% of all consumer internet traffic in 2018; 73% of UK content marketers use video and 82% are experiencing success with video marketing initiatives.

According a special report on social media in the real estate industry in the US, YouTube is used most in showcasing listings, for marketing agents’ businesses and for building personal brands. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) backs this up: YouTube is now the top video research destination for house hunters in America – more than 50%. NAR also found that 73% of sellers would choose a real estate agent who could market their property with video.

It make sense. Real estate relies on visual content – it helps buyers find meaning. They want video to give them a better feel of a home. Using video allows you to market each property to its fullest, instilling trust and competency with sellers and buyers. Other benefits include:

  • Longer dwell time on your site/listing: if your site has video, users are likely to stay longer (an 88% increase, in fact). The longer a user stays, the more likely they are to translate into a lead.
  • Websites that include relevant video improve search engine and property portal rankings.
  • Profile videos can be used for reputation management and brand-building.

 

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR YOU AND YOUR MARKETING

On top of your portal listings, brochures, show boards, client database management, referral network and client service, you need to position yourself for a contemporary print and increasingly digital future in line with changing consumer consumption habits. You need to build a sustainable base for growing your business by removing extra costs and creating cost-effective strategies and networks that can be leveraged across all media.

Like any marketer in this fast-changing media environment, an agent needs to use integrated marketing tactics to capture an audience so they feel supported in their buying or selling journey, create brand awareness and prove his or her ability to perform above and beyond anyone else in the market, and let’s be honest, to win that sole mandate.

 

This story is from the Property Professional newsletter.
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Rona Bekker

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