Why Real Estate Agents Must have a Content Marketing Strategy in 2019

Content marketing is an excellent tactic to bring in new, qualified leads. It’s also a broad term used to describe the sharing of online materials, such as blogs, social media posts, or emails, to garner user interest in a product or service. For real estate agents, content marketing is crucial.

Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. What’s more, content marketing builds trust with buyers and sellers, improves SEO, and brings in leads. Many agents have some sort of content marketing strategy. Some post on Facebook, others use email marketing. However, a robust, organized content marketing strategy will better serve agents who want to broaden their customer base, and here’s why.

Blogging builds trust and increases brand awareness

Publishing blogs position brands as industry leaders. Real estate agents can share their knowledge about the buying or selling process in blogs, which show potential customers that they can trust that agent. It’s no wonder that 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.

It’s interesting that only 9% of real estate agents have a blog. Especially because companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 4.5 times more leads than companies that published zero to four monthly posts. Blogging is a content marketing tactic that works. Real estate agents can take time to write content or outsource that work. Especially since not many agents have a blog, those that do have a blog will enjoy a competitive edge.

When writing a blog, real estate agents should be sure to focus on customer pain points. For example, write blogs surrounding what customers need to know when buying in a certain neighborhood. Blogs are also a great way to build SEO.

Content marketing improves SEO ranking

Content such blogs and social media are an excellent way to show up higher in search engines. This is called organic SEO, and it’s about 5.66 times better than paid search ads. Fresh, value-driven content ranks high on search engines. When prospects are searching for terms that agents blog about, the agent’s website will come up high on the results page. Social media helps with this as well. Sites like Google take into account social media posting as well when they rank results for search terms.

Most agents use social media (77%), so this tactic is typically part of the content marketing strategy. Agents should remember to post on the right platforms (that their prospect uses) and use social media best practices on each network.

Content marketing brings in leads

Perhaps most important, content marketing is a lead generation tactic and, when done right, has a good ROI. Roughly two-thirds of marketers believe email, for example, gives an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI. Email is a content marketing tactic many agents use already. Email gives agents a way to stay in touch with prospects and offer useful touch points along the sales funnel.

Other content marketing tactics that are great to help nurture sales are eBooks and case studies. Real estate agents can gather blog material and turn it into an eBook to guide buyers or sellers through the process. Alternatively, agents could make a neighborhood guidebook with family-friend places to visit and eat. All of these materials are useful for the prospect, which is why they work so well to create clients.

Time to build out a content marketing strategy

This year is when more agents must build out a content marketing strategy. Using tactics such as blogging, email, and social media are excellent ways to get in front of prospects and generate more leads. The statistics prove that content marketing is a strategy that works to build trust and awareness of a brand, improve SEO, and build leads.

Creating a strategy can seem daunting for agents who simply do not have the time to allocate to marketing efforts. Luckily, there are many tools that can help get agents up and running. And since more and more agents are likely going to ramp up content marketing efforts, it’s important to keep up and add on content strategies to compete. e