When it comes to attracting the interest of cold leads in estate agency it can be hard. A large number of people online are becoming conditioned to ignore traditional advertising messages. To combat this one of the best things you can do to improve your estate agencies online engagement is to invest in forms of inbound marketing, where leads come to you because your website and brand talk about things that matter to them.
The local property market blog aims to give your audience useful relevant content which they can read to learn about your town and how property matters are changing. Over time as you build this audience you will become increasingly familiar with them as local experts.
In this help series, we will refer to marketing funnels as the main way to drive engagement. If you are unfamiliar with funnels read our article lead funnels for estate agency marketing.
The Basic Funnel Stages
The funnel starts by promoting your articles on social media, your website and other marketing. Once you have captured the attention it uses Facebook remarketing to target directly those people who enjoyed reading your articles.
From there the aim is to get them to sign up for your newsletter so they can receive your latest articles for free without you paying expensive advertising fees. Long term the aim is to continue to demonstrate that your estate agency is filled with local experts and guide them to use your services when they come to sell or rent their property.
The Funnel
The main stages explained
1. Create interesting articles about the local property market.
Today we are constantly advertised to and conditioned to ignore adverts. With a cold audience, the aim is to simply get them to read and enjoy your content and become aware of your brand. For estate agents, local property related articles are a good way of engaging with this audience. Try to write at least 1 article a month and then build up from there once you start to see results.
Tip: Craft articles that your audience would find informative and interesting when thinking about property in your local area. It’s not about selling them something it is about giving away valuable insights. Use local property market data and other local stories of interest to engage with a broad audience. Show you are the local property experts.
2. Create a Facebook sponsored ad for your blog posts.
Having a great blog alone is unlikely to generate huge amounts of traffic. That’s why you will need to promote your blog articles on social media and on website banners. Creating a sponsored ad allows you to target new potential clients who are unfamiliar with your brand.
Tip: Ensure you have an interesting image in the post. Experiment and learn what works. You can also promote it on your website and on other social media channels for free.
3. On your blog ensure you have multiple ways for people to sign up to join your newsletter.
Once you have caught their interest you need a way to keep in touch. This is where adding banners and ads to sign up for your newsletter can help you capture their email address.
4. Create a Facebook audience to retarget those who view your blog but don’t sign up.
If someone showed interest in your blog then they are closer to converting than someone who did not. By targeting this group with another article or a newsletter signup you can keep them engaged.
5. Create a dedicated blog sign-up page giving info on the news and local info they will receive.
We all are sceptical when it comes to giving away our email address. To increase conversions, create a dedicated landing page which is clear and simply describes what they will get (and not get) if they sign up for your newsletter.
Tip: GDPR is coming. Make sure you get them to acknowledge your terms and record their consent correctly.
6. Create a Facebook audience to retarget those who view your sign-up page but don’t sign up.
Again, a high percentage of people who view your sign-up page will leave. You can create a Facebook ad to target this group and convince them it is worthwhile.
7. Ensure everyone who signs up is added to your newsletter mailing list and tagged accordingly.
Ideally, automatically have their details recorded in your estate agency email software. Properly record who signed up, from what source and capturing their consent for GDPR purposes. This will allow you to properly manage this list into the future.
8. Cross promote your other content in your newsletters
If you are sending them content they agreed to receive in your newsletter then you will keep your clients happy. You can now start adding additional banners and links at the end of your emails to cross-promote your other marketing and services to them, for example, instant valuations and eBooks.
Tip: Always make this a secondary priority otherwise you will cause them to unsubscribe
Conclusion
The local property news blog funnel takes more effort than other funnels. However, we hope you can see that there are many benefits that will help you stand out.
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