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Marketing To Real Estate Agents In The Digital Space

Forming strong connections with real estate agents is a must in any market

For title insurance agents, few audiences are more important than the real estate agent audience. Without building strong, reliable and mutually beneficial relationships with these companies and individuals, cultivating demand and growing profits becomes much more challenging. But like any target audience, successfully marketing to Realtors requires developing tailored strategies and tactics. Here are a few tips, tricks and best practices to get you started.

Build your Realtor buyer personas

Begin by identifying and building your buyer personas. If you’ve never built a buyer persona before, we have written a blog post on the topic that you can refer to here

A good buyer persona includes much more than general demographic information. Do not merely focus on things like location or age, but also on psychological factors like hopes, behaviors and pain points. Taking time to consider these factors will make it easier to reach your target audience and connect with them in a profound way.

Remember, the more specific the better. Real estate agents are not monolithic as a group. Segment your audience and build as many buyer personas as you need to run a successful campaign. It may seem like a lot of work, but it will pay off later!

Leverage owned, paid and earned media channels

Once you have a clear idea of who you are trying to reach, then it is time to think about the owned, paid and earned media channels you will leverage to reach your audience. Let’s go through what each of these means:

  • Owned media: Owned media refers to any media that you own, like your social media channels, email marketing platforms, blog and, of course, your website.
  • Paid media: Paid media encompasses any media exposure you pay for, including search and social media advertising, as well as sponsored content placements.
  • Earned media: Earned media includes media mentions that are neither paid nor owned. Some examples are op-eds, press releases and guest blogging.

Meet your customers where they are with research

Understanding your available media channels is just half the battle. You must also supplement this by effectively using research to decide which channels you will use and in what way. Without doing this up-front legwork, your marketing efforts will amount to the old saying: “throw it at the wall and see what sticks.” Here are a few ways that you can start using your paid, earned and owned media strategies in an intentional and impactful way.

  • The online media ecosystem for Realtors is vast. Take advantage of paid (such as ad placements) or earned media tactics (like writing and pitching an op-ed) by looking into publications that are highly popular within the real estate industry.
  • Like pretty much every person on the planet, real estate agents rely on Google to find answers to important professional problems. By deploying paid strategies like search engine marketing (SEM), you can put yourself in front of active prospects. This is another area where your potential success with a particular media channel will hinge on research. Be sure to deploy free tools like a keyword planner and check Google Trends for valuable data on keyword search volume.
  • In terms of owned media, your biggest asset for attracting Realtors is likely to be your website. While nearly every company already has a website, far too many have not incorporated standard search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, which can lead to a loss in potential web traffic. Consisting of both on- and off-page tactics, SEO is a must for anyone looking to attract a specific audience such as Realtors. Refer to our previous blog post on the topic for more information.
  • Social media marketing is yet another opportunity to reach real estate agents in a strategic, targeted fashion. First, the data shows that 77% of Realtors leverage social media to connect with important audiences such as millennials.[i] Additionally, according to the National Association of Realtors, almost half of real estate businesses agree that the social media channels resulted in the highest quality leads.[ii] Unfortunately, social media is becoming increasingly a “pay-to-play” arena, which we have also written about previously. Yet a minor ad spend can often prove advantageous for those attempting to reach niche audiences, as the major platforms allow you to micro-target through useful criteria like job title, location, profession, industry, etc.

Find the right strategies and reap the rewards

I won’t sugarcoat it: creating successful digital marketing campaigns is not easy, particularly if you are looking to reach a specialized audience. Yet in most markets, the real estate agent audience is too important to ignore. When done successfully, you’ll be able to meet these audiences where they are and create powerful, mutually beneficial relationships on which to build a successful, long-lasting business.

[i] 7 Must-Do Twitter Marketing Tactics for Real Estate Agents (realtrends.com)
[ii] Ibid

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This blog contains general information only, not intended to be relied upon as, nor a substitute for, specific professional advice. We accept no responsibility for loss occasioned to any purpose acting on or refraining from action as a result of any material on this blog.

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