After what was a whirlwind 2021 for many estate agents, it’s now time to look at how you can continue to grow in the coming year.

The UK property market is still very much on an upward trajectory but the shortage of homes available for sale means that competition is becoming fiercer between agents.

So how can you ensure that your business continues to thrive?

The answer is implementing a strategic marketing plan that ensures your business is front of mind when someone is looking to sell their home or let their property.

But what are the best marketing tactics you can utilise to build your brand?

We look at some of the best ways to market your estate agency in 2022…

2022 – the year of the short video?

Our attention spans are getting shorter, and therefore so is the content we consume. Short, snappy video is some of the best performing media on social platforms, with TikTok leading the way.

Indeed, the social media platform became the most popular destination on the internet in 2021, beating Facebook and Google for web traffic.

We’re not suggesting every agency needs to start a TikTok account but be aware of the current trend and consider how you can incorporate short video into your marketing materials.

Content is still king

For any estate agent to stand out from the crowd, producing relevant content that shows their expertise is still the number one priority.

Content can be in the form of social media posts, website blogs, email newsletters or even good old-fashioned printed materials.

The key is to consistently show that you understand the local market, are completely up to date on property news and highlight the benefits of choosing your business over the competition.

While creating great content is a way to display your knowledge and personality, it’s also important that you have a plan for making sure that it actually gets seen. Consider factors such as optimising blog content for search, for example. Or incorporate a growth strategy into your social media plan.

Email marketing

Email marketing is still one of the very best ways to get your message directly in front of your audience. Of course, you need to be sure that you are consistently building your database of leads, but it’s also worth considering the long-term view.

If you engage your buyers, tenants, landlords and previous vendors with your content, they will want to remain on your email list.

This helps to keep you front of mind when they look to move on and is also likely to increase your reputation as the “go to agency” in your area as you are top of the list when it comes to recommendations too.

Whatever the housing market brings in 2022, creating a solid marketing plan will help you to stay on track to achieve your goals and growth well into the future.

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Content marketing continues to grow in popularity. In 2021, 82% of marketers reported actively using it – up 70% from 2020.

You’re likely already using content to attract attention, but how do you know that you are doing the right thing?

We explore what type of content works best for estate agents.

What is “content”?

Put simply, content is any information that your business puts out into the world. It could be written articles, social media posts, videos, designed images, website copy or even podcasts.

Having a clear content strategy for your estate agency is about more than just creating great content. How you choose to distribute it to your audience is vital. There’s no point having an amazing blog post written on your website if no one is going to be able to see it. So, consider how you would like to “push out” your content pieces. It could be via your social media platforms, by guest posting on websites or by sending direct email to your target audience.

Creating a clear content strategy – knowing what you want to say, what medium you will use and how you will push out your content will help you to achieve your goals. With that in mind, we explore content themes that work well for estate agents.

Educational content for estate agents

It will often be the case that your potential customers are looking for answers to specific questions prior to making a move. Being a source of information will help you to be the “go-to” agency.

Educational content can take many forms; you may choose to give up-to-date information about the local property market, or provide long form guides for sellers or landlords answering their common questions.

A good start is to get the team together and write down your ideas for educational content. Are there questions you get asked time and time again? Put them together in a great blog, or an explainer video.

Look at your own sales statistics, is there data there that will interest your ideal clients – such as what local areas are selling the fastest, or where there is a specific trend?

Brand content

Don’t confuse brand content with your sales content. This is the content that will help to differentiate you from your competitors.

This is where you “pull back the curtain” on your business. Tell people who you are and what you do well. Let them meet your team and give a bit of background to who you are.

Trust and authenticity are becoming ever more important to all types of consumers, and the property sector is no different. Consider how you can leverage your content to show a bit more about your brand. From “meet the team” style videos, to showing a day in the life of your agency, giving your audience more of an insight into who you are will help to engender trust and increase conversions.

Sales content

We have put this last for a reason. Constantly bombarding your audience with sales content is not likely to give you the results you want. While of course you do need to sell – it’s what makes your business work – when it comes to pushing out content, you need to ensure you don’t “lose your audience”.

Instead, mix up all three types of content to keep people coming back to your social platforms, keeping subscribed to your email list, and revisiting your website. This means that, when the time is right for them – they are far more likely to choose you as their agency.

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There’s no doubt that email marketing is still one of the most effective tools for estate agents who want to reach their objectives. Whether that’s gaining new instructions, promoting an open day for a specific property, or simply raising brand awareness – the beauty of email marketing is that it provides you with the opportunity to put your message straight into your prospective customers inbox.

To really track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, it is important to then measure the return on investment (ROI) of each email sent.

Put very simply, return on investment is measured by dividing the amount earned on your campaign by the cost of your campaign.

We’ve taken a look at the best ways for estate agents to measure the ROI of their email campaigns…

Consider your goals

Not all email campaigns will have the same objectives. Therefore, when putting together your email marketing strategy, it’s important to consider what you want to achieve with each campaign.

Let’s look at some of the most likely goals you may have as an estate agency:

·       Brand awareness

Familiarising your audience with your brand sits at the top of what is known as the sales funnel. This is where you can talk more about your agency and what makes it unique. You would generally measure the number of opens of your email, the numbers reached and the click through rates.

·       New valuations

Often you will be interested in gaining new instructions through your email marketing. This can be relatively simple to measure. You just need to link your campaigns to your website to track who fills in a valuation form and ideally to your CRM to follow the contact through the process.

Here’s a great example of what measuring your campaign ROI allows you to see; from a single email campaign, Ben Charles booked 7 market appraisals and converted 2 of them into instructions.

·       Lead nurturing

Email marketing also provides you the opportunity to nurture your leads. From providing your landlords with market updates to following up market appraisals, sending targeted nurture emails helps to get customers over the line. It also keeps you at the fore front of their mind when they may think about selling in the future.

Typical email marketing measurements

Open rates

This is the number of people who opened your email. While the number of opens will vary, according to benchmarks, the industry average for real estate emails is 19%.

Click through rate (CTR)

This is the number of people who clicked on a link once they had opened your email. The average click through rate according to the same benchmark is 1.77%.

Unsubscribes                                                     

It is also important to measure how many people unsubscribe from your email campaigns. This helps you to understand what content may not be as relevant to your audience. On average, estate agency unsubscribes per campaign sit at 0.27%.

Conversions

To track conversions, you must first agree on what a conversion is based on your goals. For example, if you are running a campaign to get more valuations – a conversion might be a new valuation request, or you might say it doesn’t count until that request has been booked or taken place.  

How BriefYourMarket can help make the most of your email campaigns

As experts in email marketing for estate agents, BriefYourMarket has a world of data at its fingertips.  We know what works well, how to drive conversions and the types of campaign that are likely to be the most successful.

By integrating with your existing CRM, not only are you able to campaign to your archive database but you can track success from email sent to instruction signed.

We take all guesswork out of measuring ROI and put you in control.

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It’s the local app that’s been taking the UK by storm over the past few years, but what is Nextdoor, and how can it help your estate agency?

What is Nextdoor?

Put simply, Nextdoor is a social networking app aimed at offering neighbours a place to come together and connect. The app blends some of the best bits of discussion forums, Facebook groups and buy and sell platforms to provide a great space for locals to talk about what’s important to them, local issues and ask for recommendation.

When a new user joins the site, they add their address and postcode in order to allow them to connect with people living in their local area.

Usage of the app has hugely increased since 2020, as neighbours came together on the app throughout the various lockdowns to provide support to others.

Why should estate agents care about Nextdoor?

The benefit of Nextdoor for estate agents is that it’s so localised. It’s also a platform that is still relatively underutilised by businesses. As a local agency, you can get involved both as an individual – providing value in discussions – or set up a business profile and create groups too.

Setting up a business on Nextdoor

Like Facebook, LinkedIn and the other social platforms, you can set up a business profile for free on Nextdoor and it’s really easy to boot. This allows you to be found by people in your local area who are looking for estate agency services. Perfect.

Your business page displays basic information about your agency and adding your business information on Nextdoor allows neighbours to easily find you when they’re searching for goods, services, or recommendations. With your business page, you can see recommendations for your business by neighbours, advertise local deals and post as long as your business is verified.

Advertising on Nextdoor

Naturally, like most social media apps, Nextdoor also has an advertising option for businesses to promote their services in their local area, or even at a national level.

There are several options for advertising including promoting “local deals” and also being a local sponsor.

Local deals give you the opportunity to promote a specific offer that may be of interest to those in the local area. Local sponsorship is, to some degree, the online equivalent of billboards in your local area. The costs will vary, but with prices from as little as £30 per month – it’s still a very cheap alternative to advertising on platforms such as Facebook or Google. And another for you to test its return on investment.

For estate agents, Nextdoor offers a wealth of ways in which to truly get to the heart of what matters in their local communities. From offering advice to selling services, it’s a great, untapped space that allows them to stay front of mind when locals are looking to make their next move.

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