Marketing for Real Estate in the “New Normal”

It’s no secret that Coronavirus has done a real number to the economy, but you might be surprised to hear that some areas of our local economy – real estate included, are still thriving, even as we reemerge from lockdown and enter ‘The New Normal’. In fact, home prices are still expected to grow this year, as demand is as strong –if not stronger, than ever, especially in the luxury end of the property market.

Golden visa opportunities continue to attract a large percentage of Russian and Chinese investors to Spain, British investors may have been hesitant in the wake of Brexit but are returning at a steady pace now, even in the midst of Coronavirus concerns, and there’s an increasing demand for family homes amongst internationals including Scandinavians, Dutch, French, and German buyers looking for year-round family homes and holiday homes abroad. And with 35% of all holiday makers in Spain opting for private home rentals versus hotels when visiting, the market for buy to rent investment properties is continuously increasing too.

There may be high demand for homes, particularly along Spanish coasts -including the Costa del Sol, but there is also significant competition to go along with it. Marketing for real estate in the new normal then, needs a specific strategy to be successful, including a strong digital marketing plan that meets the needs of today’s online and overseas customers.

With the dedicated time, equipment, experience, and knowledge they can offer, having a professional digital marketing agency on your side is always recommended to help you achieve your plan and execute your real estate sales goals. Here’s why:

• • Successful real estate marketing requires a well-planned, client-centric website and constant maintenance to keep it up-to-date in terms of technology as well as content, aesthetics, and user-friendliness, all of which today’s real estate buyers are demanding. Keep in mind, too, that your website absolutely must be mobile-friendly, fast, and completely glitch-free! With copious amounts of knowledge and experience in this area, a professional digital marketing agency is your best bet for achieving this.
  • Once you have a great website, you will need to market it! Setting up and maintaining a Google my Business page is more important than ever, as is finding and maintaining a profile on other global real estate websites (like Zillow or Trulia) or local sites (like fotocasa, idealista, enalquiler, or yaencontre here on the Costa del Sol). Letting a professional marketer handle this can save you plenty of time, money, and frustration!
  • Consistent branding is essential across all your marketing strategies, on- and off- line. With a creative marketing team on your side, you can not only create your real estate brand with an eye-catching and memorable logo, you can market it to reach your ideal audience and use it to build the trust and loyalty you need to grow your business.
  • High quality photography (with perhaps just a touch of editing) that professional marketers can provide is critical to attracting potential clients and converting them into buyers in the real estate market today. Under instruction by marketers who know what buyers want, professional photographers know how to capture and highlight the very best of every property you’re offering.
  • Taking photography one step further and capturing your properties on video is one of the biggest trends in real estate marketing, especially in today’s online world with increasing levels of market competition. A professional video marketing team can create high quality, professional virtual tours and short, eye-catching animations like they would photography, giving your potential buyers a better feel for a home or your brand and significantly increasing engagement, thus greatly increasing your potential for converting viewers into buyers.
  • When done correctly, blogging and other content marketing is one of the best ways to build and expand your online audience, and professional marketing agency teams include great bloggers and content marketers who can use the power of words and information to steadily build your reach in the real estate market with value-driven content marketing online. Together with statistics gathered from other aspects of your digital marketing strategy, they can research and create a unified marketing plan that appeals to your target audience and provide them with the information they are looking for, including marketing the area and the lifestyle that your homes provide and casting you as an expert in the real estate field and a go-to person for all things property -including buying or renting a home when the time comes and influencing others through direct and indirect recommendations.
  • Critical to your online success, great digital marketing is often built on numbers -and analyzing the vast numbers and combinations of numbers that come from your tracked statistics online can be a daunting task. A professional digital marketing agency can tackle your analytics and provide easy-to-understand analysis and, perhaps more importantly, offer strategies for improvement so that your real estate business continues to grow and thrive.
  • Direct email marketing is still one of the best ways to build and interact with your online audience. Obtaining email addresses to send out newsletters or other email campaigns such as landing page campaigns for your real estate business, however, can be a difficult task, especially with new, stricter privacy laws in place. Digital marketing companies not only know the ins and outs of the legalities involved, they have the best strategies to encourage potential buyers to continue to request email contact from you, with a great chance of it converting into sales (with very little up-front time, energy, or cost to you!)
  • Pay per click (PPC) advertising is another great way to quickly build your online audience and attract buyers and renters for your homes. But only if done correctly. An experienced digital marketing agency professional will be able to identify the key markets and implement campaigns that will target them efficiently and cost effectively. If you are not a savvy digital marketer, then we’d suggest you bring in a marketing agency to manage this for you, as you could potentially spend a lot of advertising money on ads that provides little to no return on investment.
  • Being on social media is an absolute must when it comes to digital marketing, and in the real estate market, you have huge potential here, especially on Instagram, which was almost purpose-built for showcasing all those beautiful property photos and videos you had done to potentially millions of people in captured audiences worldwide! Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social medial platforms also offer huge business opportunities –just make sure you are consistent and keep your standards high about everything you post!
  • In combination with your social media postings, hashtags are an incredible way of attracting new online audiences to your real estate business. If done correctly, you have the potential of drawing in even more world-wide buyers and influencers who are searching for exactly what you are selling. By working with a professional social media marketing team who can research your ideal audiences as well as trending hashtags that will appeal to them, you can find the best combination of the two that can expand your online audience and build your real estate business.

Real estate is a big business, even today when other markets are struggling. But because of this, competition is increasing. Keeping your real estate business in the forefront of the industry and in the minds of potential buyers requires a strong, multi-pronged digital marketing strategy that, for optimal success, is left in the hands of marketing professionals.

At Peppermint, we have worked with a number of real estate agents and developers over the years and offer high quality, well thought out, integrated marketing strategies that are designed to increase brand awareness and generate leads – contact us today to discuss how we can take your real estate business to the next level.