Why Commercial Real Estate Brokers Should Expand Their Digital Footprint?

And How This Works for Any Business.

A digital footprint is the online version of your business and consists of every platform, website, and business or property listing you have. You have a digital footprint if you have a LinkedIn, Facebook, Yelp, TikTok, Google Business Profile, other social media profiles, or a website. When creating a digital footprint, you want it to be large enough for interested investors, buyers, and sellers to be able to find you by typing your name into any search engine. This takes time and does not happen overnight. With a consistent effort, you can go from not being found to having a solid digital presence and be found 24/7. 

Your digital backbone…your website

A good website is the backbone of all good marketing. If you write a great article about a property or have an amazing virtual tour to share but then lead your client to a YouTube video instead of back to your website, you’ve lost them. The point of all marketing is to drive interested buyers and tenants to your website. When they get there, they should see a professionally designed place with your branding and messaging, giving them a better understanding of your company. 

You don’t own any of the other online platforms. You should build up your website to be a hub of information, education, and offers that you can use to drive traffic to from all other platforms. This same information can be used in a free report, article, or e-book exclusive to people who visit your website and provide their email. Email is gold in marketing. With an email, you now have access to your target audience until the email address changes or they unsubscribe. The network effect is also in play when you start an email campaign through your website.

As not every person in your target audience is ready to buy, sell, or invest today, they may know others in their circle of influence who are ready. By sending a consistent email with property listings, virtual tours, a process of how you work with clients, and other educational and valuable information, you stay top of mind when they are ready to move on a property. 

Consistency is important

Consistency is the key between your content marketing that works for you or not. You can’t take your property listing, upload it to your website, expect it to be found and bring you a buyer. It would help if you shared bits and pieces of it consistently over all of your social media channels. 

When your target audience follows you to get your information, they expect you to share more. When you do, it builds trust, and they come to rely on you for valuable market data, insight and to watch for deals. Take the time to make a content schedule. It can just be the days you load new listings or virtual tours. At that same time, create an action item to share the post across all of your social channels and share the link in an email you send at the end of the week with all of the updates for the week. 

Don’t be an aggressive salesperson. When you send consistent messages via social or email, you want to share who you are, why you love real estate. Pushing a sale or purchase is not endearing and doesn’t promote trust and likeability. People do business with those they know, like, and trust. By sharing your listings, articles, or opportunities with an attitude of service, you’ll be more likely to get responses. 

Your target audience

Just like being intentional in sharing educational and helpful information on your website and social channels, you want to pay attention to the audience you’re targeting with your content. You want to give your audience the information they want to see, not just the information you want to share. The best way to do this is to narrow down your target audience. These questions will help. 

• What are the criteria of your best clients?
• Where do your clients spend their time online?
• How will you reach them?
• What content do you need to create?
• What tools and resources do you need?
• How will you measure success?

Knowing who you want to reach, where you’ll reach them, what you want them to know, and the next steps they should take, every message you publish will have a greater chance of reaching the right target instead of casting a wide net. You can customize your message to different personas to reach the right audience; for example, a message for buyers on Monday, sellers on Tuesday, investors on Wednesday, and so on will give you a good mix of content and not overload one audience. When you are consistent, people will expect messages from you, so make them relevant to their wants and needs.  

Expanding your digital footprint takes time, but it works for every type of business not only commercial real estate. You will not be able to post every listing, share across every channel, and create engaging content overnight. By starting with a content plan, you can see where you can make changes to get the best results. 

To discover “3 Proven Ways Commercial Real Estate Brokers Can Close Listings Faster with Content Marketing,” download the report today.