Inbound Marketing in Real Estate- For Dummies!

From visitors to your Real Estate Website to leads, to customers; with the Inbound Marketing Funnel! 

The internet has forever changed the way your buyers consume the information you are publishing. Your property listings, brochures, pictures, videos, and websites are now increasingly being viewed and shared online. In this context, can you afford to not be present online? Even though it may not be obvious how a home buyer uses the internet to make a purchase decision, it’s important to note that the home buyer researches property trends, listings, terminology, reviews and photos online while also meeting you physically to survey the actual property.

What is inbound marketing?

“Inbound marketing is advertising a company through useful educational content which serves to bring customers in closer to the brand. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content.”  -- adapted from Wikipedia

But I already have a website!

Having a website is not enough anymore. Everyone has a website and it’s merely a hygiene factor now. Savvy real estate marketers are realizing that they need to build thought leadership with their online audience to attract genuine leads. You need to go beyond having a basic website and start writing useful content which helps answer the frequent questions your buyers struggle with.

Consider this:

82% of marketers who blog on a daily basis acquired a customer using their blog. (57% when blogging month) – Source: Hubspot

Determine your target segments and their key concerns

Start by listing down your audience segments first. For example:

-          Young couples buying their first home

-          Wealthy professionals upgrading their home

-          Investors looking for a ROI friendly investment option

-          and more...

Once you have identified your target audience segments, list down the key concerns and questions each of these segments has. For example, a young married couple buying their first home may wonder:

-          What is the registration procedure for a new home?

-          How do I break up the payments to suit my income and lifestyle?

-          What does carpet area mean?

-          How do I ensure I am paying a fair price for the new home?

Create the content

Now you can start writing various types of content pieces to address the key questions you identified above. Here are some samples:

-          An e-book on “Top 10 questions of a first time home buyer answered”

-          A 15 point checklist to help you structure your first home purchase payment plan

-          Slidedeck that describes the key terms and acronyms you will encounter when buying your first home

-          A pricing guide that shows you the latest real estate price trends in your area

Promoting the content

You should publish some of your content on your own website (as a blog or article) and some of it should be published on 3^rd party websites where your target audience is hanging out. Your TG might be present on media outlets, influential blogs, property listings sites, social networks, video channels etc. Make a list of popular online forums where your target audience hangs out and start reaching out to the website owners. Most content websites are open to letting you publish your article as a Guest Blog. You can also explore paid promotion channels like Facebook Sponsored Ads or Google AdWords.

Closing thoughts

The key is to ensure you produce high quality educational content periodically. By sticking to a schedule, you will see that your online content becomes viral and will bring you tremendous amount of traffic back to your website.

Inbound marketing takes time and effort to bring results, but once it begins to work for you, it produces leads at an astonishing rate and very effective cost.

About the author

Rahul Lakhani is the CEO of Canvass, which helps businesses with its all-in-one marketing software. Prior to starting Canvass, Rahul spent time getting inspired by great minds at Google, Advanced Micro Devices, Georgia Institute of Technology and the Indian School of Business. He is also a friend we turn to, when we need online marketing advice!