The BEST Content Marketing Channel for Real Estate
Omni-Channel Marketing in Real Estate
As a real estate agent, you need to be leveraging content marketing to help attract more leads and prospects to you, but, with all the content marketing channels out there, which is the best one for a real estate agent? Content marketing in real estate can consist of blogging, social media, video, podcasting/audio, and even books and speaking. With all these approaches to content marketing and only so much time to dedicate to producing content, it can be hard to find the right channel to use as a REALTOR.
For content marketing, the best approach you can use as a real estate agent is omni-channel marketing. This is cheating somewhat because it doesn’t refer to one marketing channel, instead, it is all the marketing channels that you can do.
In the past there was a mentality to stick to what you know and only use the marketing channels that you would like. Now, in the modern world, you need to be thinking beyond this one dimensional approach and focusing on an omni-channel approach to real estate content marketing.
In marketing, they say that your prospects need to see you at least 7 times before they remember you. Some sources even say this number is more like 14 now, so how can you get in front of the most number of people if you are only using one marketing channel?
You want your prospect to say “I see you everywhere.” If the lead is commenting on your content like this, then you are doing well!
You may be thinking, “I love the idea, but where am I going to find the time for this?”
Now, it’s easier than ever to use a omni-channel approach.
Take for instance a blog. You write the blog post then turn that into a video and podcast recording. From there you link to it on Facebook and upload the video natively to Facebook. You also upload it to YouTube. You then post the blog to LinkedIn, Quora, and Medium. From there, you cut the video into smaller chunks and post to Instagram. You also create a nice Pinterest optimized image about post on Pinterest. The list could go on and you can repurpose your content in a few months time and do it again.
This seems like a lot of work but it’s actually just the click of a few buttons and you can use free tools to help like iMove, Garage Band, Audacity, Canva, Grammarly, Windows Movie Maker and others.
The beauty of this approach is you don’t need to create as much content. Since you are producing the content and posting it on so many platforms, you are improving the chances that leads and prospects will see you and convert.
If you were just using one channel, then you better be posting a lot in order to even have a fraction of the same result.
You still should focus heavily on the platform where you future clients hang out, but don’t disregard the other platforms. Just because most of your clients are on Instagram and not Facebook doesn’t mean that your prospects aren’t on Facebook.
Even on channels where you don’t think you are seeing the traction, it is worth it to continue. On social media, there are a number of channels that people use and they just view content without interacting. If you only judge the result on your interactions, you may think “this channel isn’t working,” when in fact, there are a number of people seeing your content every day.
Case Study:
If you use this blog as a case study, you will see the omni-channel approach to marketing in action. For the content, this is my standard approach. It doesn’t look this way for every post but for most it follows a similar structure.
- Research
- Keyword Research
- Podcast Recording
- Video Recording
- Written Blog
- Transcribe Podcast
- Transcribe Video
- Create Free Download
- Create Pinterest Image
- Create Instagram Image
- Post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest
- Repurpose on Quora and Medium
Originally, I was only planning on doing a podcast but if that was the case I would not be able to reach as many people. In fact, one of the channels I almost passed up was Pinterest and this is currently where the majority of the traffic comes from! So you never know where your audience is hanging out!
Conclusion
When creating content in real estate, it is perfectly acceptable to have your favorite channels but don’t neglect the other channels. Use an omni-channel approach to content marketing to increase the chances your leads will see you and convert. With the current tools available, levering omni-channel marketing in real estate has never been easier and you don’t need to create as much content because instead you are getting all of the distance you can out of one piece of content.
Use the omni-channel approach to content marketing in real estate and people will know your name and start saying, “I see you everywhere.”
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to another episode of Rev Real Estate School. I am your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about connecting with your community using one specific approach. It is the omni channel marketing approach.
[00:00:25] So if you haven't heard of this omni channel marketing approach basically it's kind of like a shotgun approach to getting your messaging out there. So instead of just being laser focused on one marketing channel you are putting your messaging out on a number of different marketing channels because you're trying to hit as many people as possible and you're trying to allow your community to communicate with you the way that they would like. It's like this concept of if a buyer is texting you to go see properties you're probably going to text them back you're probably not going to send them an email.
[00:00:57] There are people out there that want to communicate and want to be communicated with in a certain way. And when we use an omni channel marketing approach we're using a number of different ways that we can get our messaging out there. So I know what you're thinking. Shouldn't we be laser focused on one channel? And in a way yes, you can have your favorite channel. You can have your favorite way of getting your messaging out there whether that be Facebook or Instagram or blogging, video whatever that may be. But don't neglect the other channels out there. People are on all of these different channels and in today's world it's quite a bit easier in order to get our messaging out there on these other channels. For example I love blogging. I like video but I really really like email marketing.
[00:01:44] Let's talk about this. If I love e-mail marketing and I am going to double down on that that's awesome and I should. However if I have somebody within my database at it's unsubscribed or not on my e-mail list then how am I going to get my messaging across to them. We need to be hitting people from all sorts of different directions. There's this concept in marketing where people need to see you seven times and some sources say that it's quite a bit more than that now it's up to 14 times before they even remember you let alone do business with you. So if you're not hitting them from different angles whether that be the different social media platforms e-mail marketing in-person podcasts video if you're not doing all of this then you are hurting your chances at getting deals done.
[00:02:26] Let's take an example let's say that you shoot a market update video you should be posting that on YouTube of course Facebook upload it natively to Facebook LinkedIn and then can you cut it up and can you put it on Instagram? Can you cut out certain parts and put it on Instagram Stories? Can you turn that into a blog post a podcast? Can you put that into your e-mail newsletter etc and keep going and going with that content. Now this might sound like, "Oh this seems like so much work. I have to put all this work in to get the message out there and I have to upload it on all these different platforms." But in fact it's actually quite a bit easier. And the reason is is because you don't have to come up with as much content. You should still be doing a lot of content but you don't have to actually come up with as much because you're putting so much effort into how you get it out there.
[00:03:15] Again don't confuse this by saying you don't have to do as much. It's just about marketing your content more than it is about the content itself. So there's this concept that in doing content marketing you should spend 20 percent of your time producing the content and then 80 percent of your time marketing the content I even heard 90 10 on that front. So regardless of what percentage you want to use that's somewhat beside the point. What's the most important part of this is that you can't just create your content and then let it sit without actually trying to push it out there.
[00:03:52] The omni channel approach is used as a way of thinking about how you're going to go about getting your content out there. And oftentimes we can almost just be caught in indecision because we want to do this content. We know that it's important for us to shoot videos and to write blog posts in these sort of things but we don't really know where to start. What I'd recommend is do a blog post do a video do a market update do what ever you would like and then instead of just focusing OK now what am I going to do next.
[00:04:20] Focus on how can you get this content out there. So it does give you a little bit more time to then focus on your content specifically but it is also a huge focus on how you are going to get your content out there. If you want a good example of this you can head over to Neil Patel's blog. He's a content marketer and basically every time that he posts a blog it is it's a huge blog. It's very very long because that's what he loves to do. But there's also videos and then he does a podcast about it and then you'll see it on all his different social media platforms. Oftentimes we can just get caught in doing one small piece of content and then leaving it out there and expecting people to just come out and find it. When you think like a marketer and you think with an omni channel approach your focus becomes how can you get the content in front of people and how can they consume it in the way that they like to consume content.
[00:05:16] You're giving them the freedom to watch a video read a blog post look at something on social media whatever it might be. And I'm sure we all have those clients or those friends that you know they might always be liking our stuff on say Instagram or other platforms but not the other one. So it's less about where you want to post your content and it's more about where the heck your consumers actually are. So focus on the omni channel approach when you are doing a piece of content.
[00:05:46] Think of how many different ways that you can get it out there so that consumers can enjoy your content in whatever way that they like to be communicated with and then come back to the fact that if you're dealing with a buyer or a seller and they prefer to communicate in a certain way you're very likely communicating back in that same way. But just because they like to text doesn't mean that you don't know how to write an email. So be very focused on how you can get your messaging across in as many different platforms as possible.
[00:06:14] Remember you can ask a top producer anything. All you have to do is head over to our Web site revrealestateschool.com . Have a quick look at the free coaching. All you do is write and review this podcast and magically a top producer will give you a call and you can discuss anything on your mind. Thank you very much for listening to this. And we'll catch you in the next lesson.
[00:06:35] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here in the next lesson.