As 2020 drew to a close, the real estate market in the Capital Region continued to remain strong. Now, as mortgage rates remain low and remote working guidelines remain largely in place, it looks as though the industry in the new year will continue to thrive as consumers look to upgrade to larger spaces or a more fitting location.

As NAR chief economist Lawrence Yung predicts new-home sales to jump 21% and existing-home sales to jump 9% in 2021, real estate agencies must remain top-of-mind with local residents as inventory becomes available. A result of the pandemic, the competition in the market is fierce. To complicate matters further for agencies, through technological advancements, the way in which homes are listed and sold and the way in which consumers interact and engage with listings and agents has changed rapidly.

While adjustments must be made at break-neck speed, staying up to date with the latest real estate marketing trends is critical to formulating and implementing an effective advertising strategy and getting in front of engaged buyers. However, we understand that launching a campaign with a diverse media mix that targets the ideal home buyer (or renter!) is quite the undertaking.

Below, we’ve outlined 3 ways in which organizations within the real estate vertical can enhance their visibility in an innovative, effective manner to best utilize the finite time and resources available to them.

Social Media Management

It is estimated that 77% of realtors actively use social media to market their services and their listings. Why? Because it works! About 47% of real estate businesses note that social media results in the highest quality leads compared to other lead generation mediums. In the Albany DMA alone, more than 533,000 residents use social media apps or websites for at least 1 hour every day, and many use the social media resources available to them for more than 5 hours per day.

Social media is a fantastic opportunity to not only promote services or listings, but also to foster community engagement through conversations, reviews or comments. Social platforms also allow for the creation of relationships with other businesses in your area that you can use to your advantage to brand yourself or your organization as a leader in the field.

Oftentimes, the most engaging content on social media is the least sales-focused. That being said, to keep things simple, social media marketing can be broken down into the following three buckets:

1. Paid Ads

Promote your brand through a paid media strategy to a targeted audience and custom objectives. For example, Facebook ads allow you to target specific demographics and users who have shown interest or intent to buy property in a designated region.

2. Organic Community Management

Create a community for those who have engaged with your brand or business, be a resource, control your message and solidify your legitimacy. Value adds for organic social media include animation creation, video editing of stock footage, and video production. Fresh, new assets are strongly recommended to continue to remain relevant to your audience.

3. Events, Live Streams, Filters

Attract attendees to your events such as virtual open houses and encourage them to participate with live interviews. When COVID-19 hit hard last spring, agents turned to Facebook Live events to allow clients to tour homes from the safety and comfort of their own. Interested in hosting a virtual open house on Facebook Live, but unsure how to get started? Here’s one resource available to ensure your success!

Virtual Real Estate Tours

While this is an unprecedented time for the housing market, it is an exciting time for the creation of new technologies that aid in the sale of homes. While we talked briefly about Facebook Live open houses, there are additional video opportunities that bridge the gap between ease of use and driving effective results.

The Times Union launched a service that makes it easy to create a professional-looking, visually-appealing virtual home tour while also targeting an audience that is most likely to engage with the content. We know that if you’re not reaching the right consumers, your efforts are likely in vain. Through our Virtual Open Houses video solution, we can drive appointments through:

Virtual Tour Video: A video 1-2 minutes in duration that will play for 30 days.

Video Ads: A video ad hyper-targeted to homebuyers in the area (20,000 impressions).

Real Estate Section Front: Video to play on Real Estate section front and auto-play, pop-out.

Facebook: Sponsored video post on the Times Union’s Real Estate Facebook Page.

Website Development & Optimization

As 93% of all home buyers use a website in their home search, your organization must have one. Enhancing your online footprint and visibility is crucial in an increasingly digital world.

While it’s a great first step to create a company website, the next necessary step is to ensure that it is optimized and organically ranks at the top of a search page. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. While SEO is a widely talked about marketing tactic, there is often a great deal of confusion surrounding this principle. By definition, SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results. SEO can improve visibility, website traffic and lead potential.

When a consumer searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing for the goods or services your company offers, your goal is to have your website appear as the first result on the page. Research shows that the first page of a search result incurs 95% of a user’s attention, whereas the second page earns roughly 5%. Still not convinced? Further sleuthing finds that the first site listed from a search results earns about 33% of overall search traffic, while the seventh site earns a mere 3.5%.

We start each SEO campaign by examining your unique scenario – including your target geography, competition, industry, and existing SEO profile.

From there, we lay out our approach using an array of proven techniques from creative adjustments like adding keyword- rich copy to technical enhancements like increasing site speed for optimal performance.

Wrap Up

Without data and insights, it is exceptionally difficult to know who to target and how to target the audience in the Capital Region and beyond. If you need such data, we have it – local, regional and national! Knowing such information can save you a great deal of time and money when it comes to formulating a business plan and in turn, a marketing strategy.

As a trusted partner for some of the largest real estate agencies in the Capital Region, we are here as a resource to help your brand implement an effective campaign using the leading tools and technologies. Our goal is to create a marketing plan that allows real estate agencies, brokers and agents to focus on real estate related tasks and grow their business through the leads we help to generate.

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