Real estate in Nigeria and the rest of the world has become a major source of wealth for many individuals. Whether you are already worth billions of Naira or just raking in hundreds of thousands, you can thrive in the real estate industry.
In addition to that, implementing technology in real estate has played a massive role in helping those who want to reach their target audience fast and make a lot of sales.
As a result, the role of digital marketing in real estate cannot be overemphasized. In Nigeria, it is now more important than ever if you want to become a major player in the industry.
With that already established, how can you get your digital marketing started on the right foot?
It's so alarming to know that some real estate business owners still do not have a website. If you are one of them, not only are you reducing the credibility of your business, you are also missing out on a lot of leads.
Your website is your online office where people visit, interact with you and do business with you. That is why it is something you cannot do without at this time and age.
Now, it is not enough to have a website just because I said so. Different factors make your website stand out and usable.
You have to make sure it is responsive, user friendly and has a professional look.
With a professionally looking website, you can be sure to gain the trust of your audience and put them in the position to do business with you.
If it is responsive and user friendly, you will have your audience spending time on it and reaching out to you often.
That's not all!
Your website should be well optimized for search engines (Google being the most popular), as your potential clients use it as a means to find you.
If your website is not well optimized, your clients will certainly not find you via Google. More on that in point 5.
A website has the ability to drive thousands of traffic to it and ultimately initiate sales, provided it is responsive, well optimized and full of very important information presented in interesting ways.
Let me mention a few social media networks to get started with.
With over a billion users on Facebook, setting up your business on the platform is very vital. You can start by creating a simple Facebook page and grow it gradually while also running ad campaigns to quickly reach your audience.
A very interesting part of Facebook advertising is that you can target very specific people and streamline your ads to just those that are very ready to buy your products.
In the real estate industry, pictures sell massively. People want to see pictures of the properties you are showcasing and Instagram is a very good platform to do that.
You can use your Instagram business account to promote open house, upcoming events, new estate launches etc.
Similar to Facebook, Instagram now also has over 1 billion users, making it an absolutely great place to put out your products.
The place where professionals gather and network. LinkedIn can grant your businesses access to investors and potential clients in your immediate area.
You can get your company involved in the group discussion boards, blogging, or private messaging features that LinkedIn offers as well.
Furthermore, you can share your newest exciting projects or listings, or post relevant articles, white papers, or reports to engage other companies.
- YouTube
From new estate tours to client testimonials, YouTube helps you create different types of video content.
People use YouTube to search for videos they are really interested in, so, try to create contents that carry keywords people will search for.
Using ads on YouTube is also a great way to reach a much targeted audience.
The aforementioned social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube) give you permission to create content in various forms including long and short videos.
It is smart marketing strategy to utilize each content type and see what works best for you. A combination of these content types in each platform is your best bet.
Emails are so powerful and if you can grow a subscriber base, you will surely find those who are going to show great interest in your properties and buy them.
Use emails to share industry information, new development and latest updates.
From time to time, you also need to announce properties for sale and ask your subscribers to go and purchase.
A great way to get your subscribers to take action is to put a limited discount on the properties you are offering. This way, they will want to be the first to purchase as they are already aware that the discount is only for a period of time.
Like I already insinuated, your website is not for fun. It should have very valuable content that will get your audience flooding it.
Content is very important on a website because they give the reader information geared towards making them buy what you offer.
Content can be in form of articles, videos, pictures of properties etc. Once you can apply content the right way, you may no longer have enough room to contain your clients anymore.
Yes, I know that will be a dream come true.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the use of search terms that will enable you to be found through Google and/or other search engines.
Your audience is constantly looking for solutions to issues that they face on a daily basis, so if they go over to Google and search for answers to those issues, they can easily find you if your content has been optimized by Google.
Some examples of topics that interested real estate clients can use to find you on Google are:
- Plots of land for sale in Lagos.
- How to avoid real estate frauds.
- How to get authentic property documents.
- How to make sure property documents are real.
These are just a few keywords you can create content about and help your customers find you with. Many more keywords like this can be generated to improve your chances of getting found on Google.
It is not only articles on your website that can make you rank high on Google. You can make some changes and tweak your website to get it to show up on Google even without too many articles.
SEO works by making sure your content is optimized and indexed by Google and is also highly relevant to the information your audience is searching for.
With SEO, you can reach a large number of your potential clients organically. However, it may take a while to start delivering results to your business.
To get faster results, your website must be in good shape for SEO and must contain very relevant content that your audience wants to see.
If you would like to improve your website's visibility and search results, you can easily get started here for free.
With a very visible website on Google, you will get clients flooding your website on a daily basis.
Especially in this COVID-19 era, virtual tours have become increasingly useful. These days, people prefer to sit at home and interact with the outside world than catch the deadly virus.
Through virtual tours, potential clients don't have to be physically present at the location of your property for them to have an idea of what it looks like.
You already know that your chances of convincing a potential client who is not physically available to make a purchase (especially in the real estate industry) is much higher if your marketing is based on visuals and videos. I'm sorry, but word of mouth alone will most times not cut it.
Virtual tours are also a form of video marketing which is a great means to reach your audience. In fact, marketers that use videos to reach customers generate about 49% more sales than non-video marketers.
If you have well created virtual tours, it will get your audience intrigued, more interested and somewhat satisfied with what you have to offer.
The truth is; the possibilities of putting all of these together by yourself is very very (not a typo) slim and even if you manage to do, can be a serious pain in the butt.
You may end up spending your time, money and resources on what doesn't work.
That's why you need a great team of experts in the digital marketing field to help you execute your online marketing strategies to get almost perfect results.
Bloom digital media provides you with the right tools, skillset and manpower to enable you achieve your digital marketing goals from the planning stage to acquiring highly targeted leads on a regular basis.
Set up a free session now to discuss how we can help you achieve your goals.
Digital marketing for real estate in Nigeria is still a very large playing field to take advantage of right now.
To be at the top of the park and on the right path, you must have the relevant skillset required to be successful.
Getting started is the first step to achieving any goal and if you are still not sure where to begin, you should start here.