As of today, the UK has officially entered into a recession. In the run-up to this expected outcome of Covid-19, government schemes are in place to help people buy property, own their homes and counteract the economic impact of the pandemic.
On top of existing help-to-buy and buy-to-let schemes, stamp duty has also been reduced. At the same time, the way that consumers interact with their homes has changed. Many people will work from home, workout from home, create staycations in the home and spend more time at home in general for the foreseeable future - perhaps even forever.
Change is in the air for property developers and place-makers for commercial and residential real estate and social media marketing creates our most direct connection to our target audience.
Social media marketing goals and objectives for property companies
Like all marketing activity, social media marketing and content marketing for property developers, real estate and place-makers must be goal-driven. The idea is to take your target audience through a marketing flow. Social media and content marketing create the opportunity to take people through your chosen marketing funnel, such as 'Awareness > Consideration > Conversion', faster, on a larger scale and from anywhere.
Social media can help your company drive
Awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Retention
At the start of every project, we create a content marketing strategy to drive your target audience through this marketing flow. Let's look at how...
Step 1; Create awareness through social media
First and foremost we must be clear on who you are targeting and how we will target them by answering the following questions
Who is our target audience?
In 2020, your internal brand culture and existing clients should be as much of a priority as your target buyer. When nurtured correctly, these are the people who become your biggest ambassadors, your online reviewers, your content creators and your word of mouth marketers.
Which platforms are they using?
Each social media marketing platform has a different use. Many people have more than one platform. We must understand how to approach the same person in different ways on each platform whilst keeping consistent with your tone of voice and marketing messaging - a clearly defined strategy comes in very helpful here. Sometimes it is the platform that they use the least that can be the easiest to convert them through.
How will we reach them?
There are many tactics to engage with your customer on social media. We use the marketing strategy process to understand which combination of the following tactics are best for your company, audience and budget. The best strategies combine multiple company departments:
Community building
Social media advertising
Employee strategies
# research
Business development
Step 2; Consideration through social media and content marketing
Existing on these platforms is one thing. Using them to their full potential is a whole other story.
Your appearance online
Your social media feed, the reviews you receive online, and the consistency between each of your marketing platforms all fit into how your customer perceives you online and ultimately, how much they trust you. This decision is often made at a glance. First impressions are everything so all elements from your Instagram feed to your LinkedIn banner to the tweet you have pinned to the top of your feed must all paint a clear and consistent picture.
Community Building
Through social media marketing, you can take an interest in, and directly converse with individual customers. You are able to make them feel welcome, answer questions and take an interest in their needs any time, from anywhere.
Building Intrigue
Livestream, Instagram Stories, Close Friends features and highlights allow people to be the first to know. Whilst your consumer ponders their prospects, you are able to take them on a live journey of progress, updates and grand reveal's through social media so that they can be the first to know. By implementing creative strategies that highlight your unique selling points, we can really warm-up that consideration process.
Step 3; Conversion
It's crunch time! Conversion comes down to trust, consistency and quality of your offering. When employees on the ground understand your company values, tone of voice, and have an awareness of the messaging you are posting through content marketing, a seamless process is created for the customer.
In order to create conversions through social media, we must create campaigns, think outside the box and use each platforms opportunities for lead generation.
Lead Generation
It is easy to capture peoples email addresses through simple 'swipe up' / 'sign up' forms. By creating genuinely helpful content that is easy to digest you can make it easy for people to provide you with helpful information on the go via mobile or from their desktops. As I always say 'think about how you can help your audience, rather than how you can sell to them to generate the best marketing ideas. Your team can then contact them and offer your services a solution to their needs.
Step 4; Retention
At the end of this process, your customer has the opportunity to become your ambassador through user-generated content, online reviews, word of mouth marketing and forwarding emails and articles to their contacts. Nurturing relationships so that they can come to you. This is when your happy customer feeds back into the 'Awareness' and trust part of the next customer's cyle.
Social media marketing platforms for property companies
Each company will have different resources, needs and requirements defining their own unique advertising
Blog / News
The blog and news section of your website not only helps to create fresh, timely content for all of your marketing platforms - it also helps you take up online real estate through SEO. When your customer searches for a solution, you want to appear on that first page of the search engine results as the answer to their needs. You can also implement easy to use lead generation forms within these articles.
For all your professional insights, facts and stats. LinkedIn is your way of connecting with the people behind the companies that you want to target. If you know that your target audience is a professional, remote working from a city and will likely have a certain position at a particular type of company, you have enough information to target these individuals. This is also an important platform for growing your company, targeting employees and nurturing business-to-business relationships.
Having a company page is the first step
Teaching your directors and employees how to use LinkedIn is extremely powerful
LinkedIn advertising can also be very effective for lead generation
If you're not on Instagram, do you even exist? Millennials and GenZ may assume not. These demographics make up the largest audience with heavy influence over other generations. GenZ, for example, contributes to many large-cost household decisions such as family holidays as they are a 'woke' and research-driven generation. Tools include
Your feed
Stories
Close Friends
Livestreaming
Highlights
Reels
Direct Message
Advertising
Livestreams
How we use Facebook has changed, but it does very much still exist. Where large companies have boycotted Facebook for their political sway, small businesses heavily depend on this company for growth through key features such as
Facebook business page
Facebook Events
Recommendations and customer reviews
Facebook groups
Live streams
Advertising across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram
Those who use Twitter properly use it religiously for live updates, important conversations and to get answers quickly. The search functionality is extremely helpful for building relationships with journalists and easily discovering those who are asking for solutions that you offer, in the right location.
Pinterest is one of the highest performing platforms for converting customers to your website. It is a visual platform with a 60:40 Female:Male usage split and is often used for planning large life phases. Not only weddings but home conversions, planning that dream house, interior and exterior decor.
Google My Business
The first thing your consumer will do when someone recommends you to them is google you. People looking for properties want first-hand reviews from other customers to create trust. Google My Business not only helps you to rank higher on Google, but it also allows you to send links to happy customers making it easy for them to review you whilst enabling you to address any negative feedback publically. If you are a growing company, you are likely to have both good and bad comments somewhere online. It's how you address them that is key.
These are just some of the opportunities for the property and real estate companies on social media. Each company has unique selling points and therefore requires a unique strategy to stand out over and above competitors. Tell us your objectives, and we will tell you how we can help you achieve them through social media.