Have you run out of content marketing ideas for your real estate blog or website? If you don’t understand how content marketing can help grow your business we suggest you start by reading our complete guide on content marketing.
Don’t give up! All of the content ideas you need are right in your own backyard. Or, rather, they’re all in your geographic farm.
Where Can Agents Find Ideas For Content?
Local buyers aren’t just searching for properties on Zillow. Sellers aren’t just researching home values. They’re also looking online for local businesses in your geographic area.
Of course, they may not have an immediate need for a broker or an agent, but prospective homeowners renting in your geographic farm are living, shopping, working, and playing in your target market.
So, if you can build a relationship with them before they have a need, you’ll be their first choice when they decide to search for a new home!
By promoting your local community, you can produce informative and valuable content for local residents that can be shared online. With consistency and a committed approach, you’ll build a reputation as an expert on local affairs. Search engines will reward you with more traffic and word of mouth will spread about YOU.
Start with the right tools.
You can’t build or create anything without the right tools. The wrong tools in your kit will leave you frustrated and unable to execute your ideas.
To capitalize on your content marketing ideas and achieve the highest ROI, you need the right software and hardware. You may already have many of the basic tools to create content that generates online buzz.
If your real estate career is just beginning, the right tools will save you time, money, and frustration.
With that in mind, here’s a checklist of the essential tools you’ll need:
Essential Agent Tools For Content Marketing
A Blog or Website
A branded website or domain is the first step. Fortunately, the market is highly competitive and consumers have plenty of options for sourcing the basic requirements. At a bare minimum, you’ll need a blog or website domain, along with hosting, and internet service.
In addition, be sure to choose a service that has the following basic features:
- Reliable 24hr customer service
- Secure servers (SSL) to protect your data
- Mobile-responsiveness for users searching by smartphone
- Web analytics for tracking key SEO metrics such as traffic, bounce rate, impressions, click-throughs, etc.
Services such as Wix, Weebly, and WordPress, combine web hosting and website building tools, along with support and helpful resources. They’re user-friendly, feature-rich, and customizable, depending on your budget.
Most of the recognized brands you’ll find offer a free version with limited functions and storage, as well as tiered payment options, monthly, or annual billing. Additional plugins can be purchased as well, to enhance your website’s appeal, design, and metrics tracking.
You can compare offerings between the major brands, then pick the platform that supports your goals. Start with the free version, learn to use the features, and grow your blog or website steadily.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are specifically designed to capture personal information from prospective buyers and sellers who discover your site. They’re extremely useful and highly effective for building a subscriber list.
A landing page can be auto-triggered to appear seconds after a visitor’s arrival to your website or blog:
Simplicity and presentation are key to great landing pages. Your copy should state the main benefits for your audience such as…
- Sell your home faster…
- Avoid costly first-time buyer mistakes…
- Get your home appraised free of charge…
Finally, your landing page should always end with a strong call to action that compels users to click for an offer or item of value.
Instapage and Leadpages are two popular landing page creator tools. A simple Google search will reveal a host of other affordable, web-based options that can be used to help capitalize on your content marketing ideas.
Real Estate CRM
A customer relationship management system helps you organize, monitor, and keep in touch with your growing database of contacts. Smart agents and brokers segment their CRM into different types of customers and prospects.
Zoho CRM user interface overview
Besides basic contact information, you can track critical details about your prospects, then search your database for subgroups to market with customized offers.
Realvolve, Insightly, and Pipedrive are just some of the recognized CRM brands for real estate. Choose the CRM that works for you.
Marketing Automation Software
Even the best content marketing ideas won’t help you nurture and convert the leads you attract. Nurturing leads received through online ads and content marketing can be time-consuming and a real challenge. That’s why marketing automation tools are very useful, and worth the extra financial investment.
Marketing automation software can help you deliver strategic messages to targeted segments of your CRM. You can schedule an email delivery or a series of messages to be delivered at the most optimum time for the best open rate.
Sophisticated programs are available that utilize AI and browser history to create behavioral emails. By analyzing a user’s online activity (previous sites, email, text communications, etc.), behavioral emails are designed to determine a user’s intent – research or shopping. A message is then triggered that offers a helpful recommendation.
Use marketing automation to create drip campaigns, and engage more visitors at the moment of discovery with relevant, timely messages. You’ll maximize your opportunities to convert, and nurture potential buyers into clients.
Bonus: 5 Marketing Automation Blueprints For Real Estate Pros
Smartphone
No need to spend money on an entire audio-visual equipment suite! Some of the best content marketing ideas were started on an iPhone or an Android. Your smartphone can be used to record high-quality video, live streaming events, or audio!
Countless apps that enhance your content are free. Check your app store before spending money on services or equipment you may not need.
These basic tools are all that’s required to start crafting content for your blog or website. The next step will be planning. First, let’s consider a few tips to guide your content marketing ideas.
4 Essential Tips for Real Estate Content Marketing
Now that you’ve got your own blog, a CRM to track all those referrals, and landing pages to capture subscribers; take some time to think about your audience and your goals. Keep a pad and pen nearby. Write everything down that you can think of. Content marketing ideas will start to flow as you consider the needs of the people you’re trying to help: buyers and sellers.
Use these 4 tips to guide your content marketing strategy:
#1) Define your audience
Before you make a list of real estate topics to write about or local housing trends, begin by researching the local community. Create a profile of your local audience or a buyer persona, as it’s referred to in marketing. Ask yourself specific questions about their preferences, challenges, needs, habits, and behaviors, so you can deliver content that immediately resonates with them.
Some questions to consider about your audience are:
- How old are they?
- What is their level of education?
- Favorite websites?
- Are they tech-savvy?
- Where do they like to vacation?
- Do they commute?
- Are they physically active?
The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to create unique content marketing ideas that serve the needs of your prospects. By providing them with helpful solutions for free, your content will earn more shares while also expanding your sphere of influence.
#2) Make your content useful to your audience
Search engines reward content that is user-centric with high visibility in search results. If you write an article that informs first-time homebuyers on the closing costs of purchasing a home, the information should be presented in a manner that is well-organized and easily digestible.
Here are some ideas for making your content useful:
- Use subheadings to make your main points clear
- Substitute commas with bullet points to present long lists
- Illustrate with examples the reader can relate to
- Design your own custom Infographics to make statistics and data easier to remember
- Include statistics and research that supports your subject or argument
- Summarize your article or content with 3 key takeaways
- Avoid long sentences and blocks of unbroken text. These can be difficult to read on a mobile screen
#3) Make your content unique
Creating content with a unique perspective will make a better impression on your prospects than simply advertising your listings. Provide users with personal insights and experience to make your brand memorable.
If you plan to write a lot of content, don’t be afraid to use humor and candor. Share examples from your past, as well as your credentials. Show people your expertise, along with your personality.
#4) Be consistent
Content marketing isn’t a turnkey solution that gets results overnight. It takes a consistent effort to build a reputation and rank authority with search engines. You can achieve first-page results if you release content consistently each week.
Start with 1 blog content per week and increase over time as your proficiency improves.
And now for the meat and potatoes!
6 Types Of Content Real Estate Agents Should Create
With your buyer persona and tools in place, you’re ready to start executing your content ideas.
Explore the list below and experiment with different online platforms to see which one generates the most user engagement. Focus on a medium and learn to master it. You may discover a hidden talent or a knack for some of the content marketing ideas we’ve listed.
#1 Video Interviews
Videos are one of the best content marketing mediums for real estate. People love consuming videos online!
Creating video content can be expensive or inexpressive. It is your choice. If you’ve already got a knack for video and editing software, you can produce video interviews with local business owners in order to help them with promotions.
By interviewing local business owners in your geographic farm, you’ll be offering an item of value they can use to generate online exposure. In exchange, they’ll become valuable word-of-mouth referral sources for you.
Using very simple production tools, Lee’s video has garnered close to 9000 views since it was posted in 2011, with little promotion.
Lee makes sure to include a link to his podcast, another content marketing idea for any realtor with a passion for public speaking. He includes his social media links as well and concludes with a call to action that encourages visitors to subscribe.
Now that’s good content marketing. It’s thorough, yet surprisingly simple and you’ll be floored by the enthusiastic response to your interviews by business owners.
Video production for real estate isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. Youtube and Facebook are the two most dominant online video platforms. Both have benefits and drawbacks but function in a very similar manner.
#2 Local Podcasts
If you’ve already had success with a blog, then a podcast could be the next natural step in your evolution. It’s number two on our list of content marketing ideas because it really works!
Podcasts are gaining in global popularity as an educational tool and source of entertainment for millennials and Gen X.
Some simple podcast topics include:
- You could produce a weekly or monthly podcast series targeted at homeowners with questions about the right time to sell
- Create a Q&A podcast with a recognized realty expert who specializes in property types that appeal to your clients
- Interview a different business owner each week about how they started their business and why they chose the neighborhood.
For realty professionals with an interest in public speaking, a real estate podcast can help establish you as a local industry expert. A podcast doesn’t have to be very long, but it should be engaging. Preparing a script in advance will make your presentation focused and more useful to prospects.
Select one topic to focus on and rehearse the podcast prior to airing. Any technical issues can be addressed and resolved at that time.
Planning and executing a successful podcast won’t happen overnight but everyone has to start somewhere!
#3 Infographics – Local Real Estate & Community Related
Infographics are another content marketing idea for real estate professionals that can be shared on social media sites with ease. They appeal to online readers because they’re so readily digestible, even on a mobile screen.
An infographic is an easy way to present facts and figures to a general audience. Combining images and text, an infographic conveys key statistics or facts that you want your audience to remember:
Example of an infographic by Kathy Schrock
Or, it can also be used to convey key points summarizing a lengthy blog article:
Sellers Checklist Infographic Example
A blend of simple colorful images with key points and figures written clearly in bold can make your content more memorable.
Prospective buyers and sellers may not be interested in sharing your infographic on the average sale price for luxury homes over the last 10 years, but marketing agencies seeking content just might.
By sharing your Infographic on visual archiving sights like Pinterest and Instagram, you can connect with a buyer agent whose clients are seeking a property in your geographic farm.
A little patience and an eye for graphic design are all you need to get started with your own Infographics. Canva, for instance, offers a free drag and drop online graphic design tool for novices and pros.
#4 Create Ebooks For Your Local Buyers & Sellers
Perhaps the most common form of lead magnet used by realtors today is an e-book that offers prospective buyers and sellers comprehensive information and resources. With relatively low start-up costs, you can write, publish and promote ebooks entirely online.
Since it’s digital, there’s no need for storage or shelf space. There are online ebook creators that provide a full suite of book publishing and marketing services for aspiring authors of every age.
Using a well-crafted landing page, you can offer online visitors to your real estate blog an ebook for free in exchange for personal information from online visitors.
Your real estate ebook can be a guide or a series like The Millionaire Real Estate Investing Series:
Eg of a Real Estate eBook
The Millionaire Real Estate Investing Series, available for Kobo readers. is only one example. With some tactful editing, you can repurpose your previous blog posts into an eBook. Then, offer the eBook for FREE to anyone who subscribes to your mailing list.
Prospects will see value in your offer if the content, again, is useful and relevant. Persuading online visitors who discover you through a Google search to download your book will only work if you provide answers they’re actually searching for.
Besides knowledge of local trends affecting your market, it’s highly recommended that you invest in some keyword research. Tools like SEMrush can help you identify specific topics of interest to buyers and sellers in your market, as well as competitors using those keywords successfully.
#5 Case Study – Client Testimonials, Sold Over Asking, Investment Outcomes
A case study is a report that tells readers a success story about your business. Instead of listing the benefits and features of your product or service, you write a detailed account of how your product or service helped a client.
Writing a case study requires a certain level of competence and skill. Your goal is to tell a story and promote your real estate expertise without reading like an ad copy.
A good case study, like a good essay, is informative but also makes use of narrative elements: a beginning, middle, a conclusion, as well as a cast of characters.
Focus your case study on resolving a conflict (reluctant FSBO who is suspicious of agents), or problem (expired listing with no bids).
Then, conclude your study with the resolution you provided (i.e. how you helped the sellers move their property).
Your real estate case study, for example, could focus on how you helped a retiring couple sell their ranch-style, single-detached home in a competitive market. You can add specific details about your marketing strategy, advertising budget, resources, and length of time spent, to help readers understand the entire selling process.
Consumers find value in case studies because of the insights into your business that it provides. It illustrates how you work, how you treat clients and reveals to your prospects what they can expect from you as their listing agent or broker.
A case study like the one produced by Cushman & Wakefield, for example, focused on a solution they provided for one of their clients, Unilever:
Cushman & Wakefield Case Study
#6) Email Marketing
Last, but not least on our list of content marketing ideas, is email marketing. Email is 40x more effective at customer acquisition than either Twitter or Facebook!
Opt-in subscribers to your email list are your most captive audience! They see value in your content, not just your real estate expertise. If you start trying to solicit these prospects immediately without building a relationship, you won’t be able to keep them on your subscriber list for long.
With this in mind, use your email marketing to continue delivering helpful, neighborhood content at least 4x a month to your subscribers.
Sending automated, thoughtful, personalized email messages to targeted segments of your CRM is a good way to build rapport and nurture your relationship with your subscribers.
In addition, a monthly neighborhood newsletter to local residents and business owners who discover you online is another way to stay top of mind with your prospects.
To improve the open rate of your emails, avoid adding too many images. Text-rich emails enjoy a higher open rate. Be sure to make your emails mobile responsive as well. Over 50% of emails are opened on a smartphone.
Summary
So there you have it: 6 simple, but effective content marketing ideas that can launch your real estate business to new levels of success!
Leverage the resources, knowledge, and time you already have to create useful content for buyers and sellers in your target farm. Feel free to explore different digital mediums, tools, and social media platforms until you find a winning formula.
Finally, stay consistent with your efforts and open to change. If you can manage it, then coming up with content marketing ideas of your own will get easier over time. Your results will show it!