A guide to content marketing for real estate agents

When it comes to growing your real estate business, agents can’t afford to ignore their content marketing efforts. Regardless if you’re working with buyers, sellers, or renters, content plays a crucial role in attracting and engaging with potential clients. 

We’ll take a closer look at what content marketing is, how to develop a robust strategy based on your goals, and provide tips and tricks to help you get started with content today. 

What is real estate content marketing?

First things first: what is content marketing? 

In short, content marketing is the creation, distribution, and measurement of valuable, relevant content to attract and engage a specific audience with the goal of generating a profitable action. Content includes everything from blog articles to videos to podcasts to guides, and is often distributed across multiple channels like social media, email, and more. 

Within the real estate industry, content marketing is used to help agents connect with their clients, grow their brand, and support their goal of closing more deals. And in an industry where over 3 million people hold an active real estate license, a thoughtful content marketing strategy can help you stand out against the competition. Through content, agents can demonstrate their real estate expertise, drive organic traffic to their website, and nurture trust with potential buyers, sellers, and renters. 

Developing a real estate content marketing strategy

While every real estate agent’s content marketing strategy will look different, the foundation of each strategy will likely start with the following first steps. 

1. Identify your target audience. Do you want to work strictly with buyers and sellers? Where do renters fit in your business? Knowing exactly who you want to work with gives you the focus you need to identify which channels, what topics, and the types of content you’ll want to create to reach your intended audience. Start by building your ideal customer profile, complete with their motivations and pain points, so you can identify which topics will resonate strongest with this audience.
   
   
2. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals. To help keep you on track, you’ll want to create S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, time-bound) goals that align with your broader business objectives. Not only will this provide you a clear pathway to success, it’ll also ensure you’re prioritizing work that actively contributes to your end goal.
   
   
3. Conduct a content audit. Another foundational step to incorporate into your strategy is to take inventory of and analyze all of your existing content. Performing a content audit can help you spot gaps in your content, identify opportunities for optimization, and give you a chance to update old content for a better user experience. This exercise will not only help you boost traffic to your website, but it’ll also ensure your content is always valuable and relevant to your target audience.
   
   
4. Do your research. Once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s time to research the topics and keywords that will resonate strongest with them. Consider asking your existing clients what topics they’d like to see from you or what pain points they encounter during the homebuying or renting process. And leverage online tools to determine the keywords your audience is most likely searching for to guide your content ideation to help get your content in front of potential clients at the right time.
   
   
5. Pick your content formats and channels. With your content ideas and audience established, it’s time to identify which content formats and distribution channels you’ll use. For content formats, there are a variety of options to choose from including blog posts, videos, podcasts, rich media, eBooks, guides, and more. For distribution channels, these often encompass avenues like organic search engines, social media, newsletters, and public relations, to name a few. Which formats and channels you use will ultimately depend on your audience’s preferences, your overall business goals, and what you want to convey through your content.
   
   
6. Build your editorial calendar. To help you maintain consistency when publishing, create a content calendar where you can plan, coordinate, and execute on your content strategy. This calendar should house all details including the topic and title (if it’s a blog post, for example), distribution channels, content type, status, and owners and stakeholders. In addition to helping you stay organized, a content calendar can also keep you on track to meet your goals and stay engaged with your audience. 

Now that we’ve got the foundational pieces of your content marketing efforts out of the way, here are several ideas and best practices to consider as you put the finishing touches on your strategy. 

Brainstorm blog article topics

Blog articles are a great way to provide educational content as well as advice and tips for all kinds of clients. If you’re unsure of where to start with your blog content, consider the following ideas to help kickstart your content writing:

• Neighborhood guides featuring local businesses and attractions
• Local market reports with price trends
• Home buying and selling tips for beginners
• Client success stories with testimonials 
• Mythbusting common real estate misconceptions
• Interviews with local experts like home inspectors, stagers, etc. 

Leverage social media

Social media is a great way to discover and connect with potential clients, and it starts with identifying which platforms your audience is on. From there, the types of content you plan to produce will also inform which social media platforms you plan to utilize. Photos and short-form video content, for example, tend to perform better on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. If you plan to share longer-form articles, consider using LinkedIn or Facebook where you can post links and encourage discussion. Just remember: no matter which platforms you choose, make sure you’re regularly measuring how your content performs, adjusting as needed, and including hashtags into your posts.

Embrace email marketing

Another powerful channel to distribute your content is through email mailing lists. Rather than wait for clients to find your content organically, email marketing allows you to directly communicate with and nurture prospects and clients. With email marketing, you can segment your email list for more targeted messaging, educate your audience, and nurture relationships with clients who may be at various stages of their renter journey. 

Tips for creating high-quality real estate content

With your marketing ideas in hand, it’s time to actually create the content you’ll use for your marketing strategy. Here are several best practices to keep in mind as you begin developing your content assets:

• Prioritize reader-friendly content—As part of your user research, consider what types of content formats your audience prefers and how to deliver information in a digestible way. Whether you choose to go with blog articles, long-form guides, or rich media, make sure you write and design in a clear, easy to understand manner.
  
  
• Leverage compelling headlines and copy—Did you know approximately 60% of Americans get their news just by reading the headlines? With attention priced at a premium, writing bold and persuasive headlines is critical for capturing your audience’s attention. Whether you’re writing a blog post, naming a video, or crafting a social post, make sure to use the active voice, incorporate power words where possible, and always include a reason to keep reading.
  
  
• Optimize your content for search engines—Another way to help your content stand out from your competitors is to use search engine optimization best practices to rank your content on engines like Google. In addition to using primary keywords throughout your content, make sure you’re including title tags and meta descriptions, providing alt test for rich media, and improving your page loading speed.
  
  
• Incorporate visuals where appropriate—Make your content pop by adding rich media such as images, infographics, GIFs, or videos throughout longer articles to visually communicate what you’re saying. Visual content is a great way to break up dense articles while providing your audience with multiple options for digesting information in a way that works best for them.
  
  
• Provide supporting evidence with data—One of the benefits of real estate content marketing is it can help establish your authority within the real estate industry. To further solidify your expertise, use third-party data to back up any claims you make in your content. For example, if you’re talking about trends in the rental market, make sure to include relevant, recent data points to provide context and factual support for your material. 

Measuring real estate content marketing success

If you thought content marketing ended as soon as you hit publish, think again. Once your content is out in the ether, you also need to have a plan to measure and iterate upon your efforts to ensure you’re getting the results you want. There are several content marketing metrics you’ll want to keep track of when evaluating your content’s traffic, engagement, and lead generation performance. 

For traffic metrics, you’ll want to keep a close eye on pageviews, new users, and sessions. These key performance indicators will help you understand how many eyes your content is getting per day, whether you’re attracting new or repeat visitors, and how many other pages a visitor is clicking through to once they land on your site. 

Engagement metrics, such as follower count, likes, shares, comments, clicks, and more can show you how people are interacting with your content. Comparing engagement can also give you a better idea of the types of content, what topics, and which platforms your target audience is most likely to be active on. And last but not least, tracking conversion rates will show you how effective your content is at driving sales or encouraging visitors to take a desired action like signing up for an account or scheduling a demo. 

There are a variety of measurement tools you can use to track your content’s performance depending on what you want to measure and on which platforms. For example, Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking your content’s traffic, engagement, and conversion metrics and creating customizable reports. On the other hand, if you want to measure your social content, a social media management solution like Sprout Social, HootSuite, or Buffer will give you the ability to measure and optimize your content’s performance. 

Jumpstart your real estate content marketing efforts

Real estate content marketing is a powerful way to attract, engage, and convert leads while building your real estate agent brand authority. With a clear strategic approach, you can develop, promote, and measure high-quality content that drives meaningful business results. 

Prioritize getting to know your audience, mapping out a content plan, and committing to consistent publishing and measuring content across a multitude of channels. Remember to keep an eye on your metrics and routinely optimize your content for maximum impact. 

For more real estate marketing tips and insights, check out the RentSpree blog or subscribe to receive our monthly content roundup directly to your inbox!