A guide to real estate advertising: online and beyond
A developer or an agency needs to focus on communication to market their properties: here is our guide to real estate advertising.
The digital platforms used for online advertising make it possible to reach users across various touch points, from websites to social media, increasingly focusing on mobile devices. Moreover, with artificial intelligence, they make it possible to keep serving content of interest to the user. They are therefore the primary useful medium for any product or service, including the real estate market.
Although online advertising has become increasingly decisive in collecting leads and contacts, it is nevertheless essential to ensure a balance between online and offline advertising in order to reach a wider and more diverse audience. This is especially true for real estate, where offline still enjoys a large following.
Table of Contents
Real estate website: why it’s essential
The website is the face of your online business. Therefore, it is essential to create a real estate website that represents the project, whether it’s a new construction site or a real estate agency.
Depending on the case, of course, the content will differ. For a construction project, you need to highlight the features of the project, what will set the development apart from other properties, and the lifestyle it offers. Exactly as ARvis did for House at Quanta Club, the innovative real estate project in Milan that combines a sports hub and a residential center.
For an agency, on the other hand, you need to focus on successes, on positive customer reviews and not only on the properties under management. Social proof is in fact decisive in winning users’ trust. This is precisely what PropTech Company worked on when building the website for dPregio real estate studio.
In both cases, care was taken to ensure that the website was mobile first and featured an intuitive, easy-to-navigate layout. In this sense, one tip is to opt for WordPress websites, which are highly customizable and adaptable, with layouts already designed for mobile. For example, a new website is the foundation in the case of a rebranding and a change in positioning. Starting from the naming that will form the site’s domain, you will develop a coordinated visual identity and integrated communication that will have the website as its reference point and a landing point for real estate advertising.
Social channels for real estate: from the Facebook Page to the YouTube channel
Creating a social media account for a real estate business is equally essential. On one hand it allows you to build the brand; on the other it lets you reach a wider audience and engage potential clients.
Not all social channels, however, are the same. Just as it isn’t necessarily the case that you need to be present on every social medium to have effective communication.
For real estate, an indispensable platform is Facebook. Managing the Facebook Page is essential for building awareness and a positive reputation around the project, thanks to an editorial plan rich in relevant, high-quality content. In this regard, it is very important to use extremely high-definition images and videos: visual marketing is the foundation of real estate communication, both organic and paid.
Since photo marketing and video marketing are the foundation of real estate, another strategic social platform is YouTube. The YouTube channel of a real estate agency or a new construction site can contain virtual tours and emotional videos to show properties from other perspectives and in every detail. The prices of virtual tours, photo shoots and video editing can vary: the important thing is to aim for the highest quality, because engaging images and videos make the difference for a successful real estate project.
Social advertising for real estate
The social media ecosystem is also an important advertising tool for selling homes online. Meta represents the main source: advertising on Facebook is essential, both for awareness and for lead generation.
The Meta ecosystem also owns Instagram and on this platform you can reach a younger audience thanks not only to images but above all to reels and stories.
Also poised for takeoff is TikTok, with its viral videos. The target audience might not seem ideal for real estate, given its young and mostly teenage user base. In reality, however, more and more generations are getting into this social network, and taking advantage of it for advertising could be a competitive edge over the competition.
Real estate advertising on Google
An essential advertising ecosystem for real estate is Google advertising. With Display campaigns, you can show quality banners and images across more than 35 million sites and applications. With search advertising campaigns, on the other hand, you intercept users’ queries on the most widely used search engine in the world.
Not only that: the Google advertising platform is also where you manage advertising on YouTube. YouTube ads campaigns allow you to feature emotional videos and clips before and during users’ content viewing, reaching specific audience segments.
Real estate also wants offline advertising
Real estate is a strongly traditional sector, in which the main players and broad segments of the audience are tied to traditional media. That’s why it is essential to think about an integrated marketing strategy that also includes offline communication channels.
Print media carries significant weight. Coming out with press releases and articles in industry newspapers and magazines can help build awareness of the brand and its projects. Billboards are also very useful, especially near new construction sites.
Finally, you shouldn’t forget the possibility of organizing events and open days, especially in the case of new construction projects.
Client management: the importance of the real estate CRM and DEMs
The ultimate goal of all types of real estate advertising is lead generation, that is, generating potential buyers/clients. But how do you manage a high number of interested contacts? Nowadays it’s impossible to do without a real estate management system.
The real estate CRM is essential for organizing client data, monitoring the various communication activities and effectively fine-tuning marketing campaigns. The management system, in fact, makes it possible to track interactions with clients, send targeted marketing campaigns and measure the success of advertising campaigns. With the data collected in the CRM, for example, it will be possible to structure vertical DEMs, but also to understand contacts’ level of interest and perhaps the reasons why potential clients don’t ultimately complete the conversion. The best way to consult data derived from campaigns is to enter it into understandable custom dashboards that allow you to analyze it over time and evaluate user behavior in order to target marketing actions in the best possible way.
Related service: discover Advertising by ARvis — the agency that scales with you.
