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The Metrics You Should Be Measuring in Real Estate Marketing (Hint: Not Vanity Metrics)
Don’t waste your time reporting on vanity metrics, which won’t tell you whether you’ve achieved your ROI.
We all want to see the fruits of our labors. Whether renting a new property or launching a social media campaign, we look for instantaneous numbers that will affirm we made the right choices. But here’s the problem: not all metrics are created equal.
So-called vanity metrics are measurements that have no bearing on your bottom line but can give you an inflated sense of success. Generally, they are easy to calculate but are influenced by too many factors — and are too vulnerable to random external events — to be reliable.
Website visits and number of subscribers are two classic examples. A spike in homepage hits may be the result of your marketing efforts, or it may be because of ghost spam. (Or both.) Regardless, more visits do not necessarily correlate to increased revenue — just more visits. In the same vein, having 100,000 email subscribers means nothing if only 1% are opening them. You actually could be losing money in terms of resources allocated if the emails aren’t helping drive sales.
Investment vs. vanity metrics
That’s why it’s crucial to focus on return on investment instead of vanity metrics. You could waste hours reviewing a hundred different analytics that tell you nothing about how revenue was affected by a particular effort. Or, worse, you could use vanity metrics to justify decisions that don’t achieve their ROI.
As a simplified example: say you spend $1,000 on a display ad for a new apartment complex targeting established professionals on a local news website, and your analytics report that 100 people clicked through. This sounds like success! But don’t celebrate just yet. When you dig past the vanity metric, you find an extremely high bounce rate. That means most of those click-throughs left your site immediately, neither engaging with your property nor moving any closer to becoming a tenant. In fact, you find that only one click-through converts. Was it worth paying $1,000 for this one potential tenant? Probably not.
But say you ran another $1,000 display ad, one that targets a younger audience than you think your property fits. Only 20 visitors clicked through, which sounds less successful than the other ad. But when you follow those 20 click-throughs, you find that 5 ended up renting units, meaning the ad pays for itself many times over. You’ve also learned that perhaps a younger audience is more suited than you thought to your property. The ROI proves that the vanity metric was quite misleading in this case.
Metrics that help you make decisions
Lean-startup pioneer Eric Reis, who coined the term vanity metrics, said, “The only metrics that entrepreneurs should invest energy in collecting are those that help them make decisions.” In other words, measure the things that will tell you if an effort was profitable so you know where to put your time and money.
While vanity metrics tell you nothing about your bottom line, ROI can help you determine whether it was worth spending your resources in a particular way. This is extremely useful on platforms like blogs and social media, where things are constantly changing. Using ROI as a litmus test, you can keep experimenting and making sure you’re using these tools effectively. Tracking a vanity metric like number of followers, which is likely to build over time regardless, gives you no indication of which experiments were successful and which weren’t.
Your resources are limited, so it’s crucial to evaluate your efforts with meaningful numbers that illustrate their effect on your bottom line. Calculating ROI might take some time — both in the few extra minutes to do the math and the amount of time that needs to pass before all the data is available — but that number will be infinitely more valuable to you than any vanity metric on your Google Analytics report.
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- Social Media Can Be a Strategic Weapon in Real Estate Marketing
- How Pay-Per-Click Helped This Property Get 54 Leads
- Learn How Content Marketing Increased Real Estate Sales by 37% in 90 Days
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5 Effective Ways to Use Instagram for Your Luxury Real Estate Brand
With its highly visual platform and growing user base, Instagram is a natural fit for real estate marketing. Here are five ways to make Instagram work for your luxury real estate brand.
Highlights:
- Instagram posts should reflect your luxury real estate brand and maintain the overall tone you set through other marketing efforts.
- Successful brands on Instagram pay close attention to how their posts reflect their brand’s message.
- Hashtags allow your posts to be seen by users outside of your circle of followers, so using relevant, industry-specific hashtags is key in reaching new audiences.
Looking to engage with new audiences and connect with your target market? Instagram is the perfect platform for luxury real estate brands looking to expand their reach. In fact, engagement on Instagram is ten times higher than it is for Facebook, and the demographic is substantially more affluent—making it a no-brainer for luxury real estate.
But to get the most out of this highly visual platform, it’s important for real estate marketers to post the right kind of content. The content should reflect your brand and maintain the overall tone you set through other marketing efforts (i.e. your website, blog, etc.). Marketers who want to reap the benefits of marketing on Instagram need to do more than just post appealing pictures with fun filters. Here are five effective ways to make sure you’re getting the most out of your marketing efforts on Instagram.
5 effective ways to market your luxury real estate brand on Instagram
1. Focus on your target audience
Who are you trying to reach with your Instagram posts? Trying to post compelling content for an unidentified audience is like taking a shot in the dark. Knowing who your ideal buyer or tenant is allows you to create content that is informative, educational, and entertaining to that specific person.
When creating (or curating) content for Instagram, the more detailed you can be with your buyer persona(s), the more specific and effective your content can become. The personal connection is particularly crucial for real estate buyers, and understanding your target audience is key to making that connection.
2. Cultivate your brand message
For luxury real estate developers and property management companies, branding is key for target buyers (or tenants) to know about your properties and understand the lifestyle that the property offers. Creating consistent brand messaging that reflects the tone and voice of your marketing collateral helps audiences grow brand awareness.
Successful brands on Instagram pay close attention to how their posts reflect their brand’s message. Posts have an overarching theme that mirror the overall brand image. Images should do more than just promote your properties. They should add value to your luxury real estate brand’s unique story.
3. Use CTAs
Conversions, revenue, business, and profit—they all depend on the Call to Action. Don’t just post interesting content, give your followers a chance to do something with your posts. CTAs are key to the success of any online marketing initiative, including Instagram posts. Try adding CTAs to each of your posts to encourage audiences to “take an action”. Providing opportunities for followers to visit your website or download valuable resources will boost conversion rates.
4. Make the most of your hashtags
Hashtags allow your posts to be seen by users outside of your circle of followers, so using relevant, industry-specific hashtags is key in reaching new audiences. Hashtags automatically function as links, making your posts easily searchable and available to users looking for specific hashtags. For example, if a user interested in San Diego real estate clicks on #sdhomesforsale, all public posts labeled with that hashtag will show up.
As you start experimenting with adding hashtags to your social media posts, make sure to:
- Use relevant terms.
- Research trending topics as you chose your content.
- Create your own hashtags to match your luxury real estate brand.
- Make sure the audience setting on your posts is “public.”
5. Check your analytics
Many real estate businesses struggle with measuring ROI on social networks. Even for seasoned digital marketers, the collection of data is one of the most daunting tasks. But it’s important to gain insight into the who, when, and where of your Instagram traffic.
Use Instagram Insights to learn more about the people interacting with your luxury real estate brand on Instagram. You can also see which posts your audience sees and engages with the most, as well as a breakdown of demographics. Analyzing your posts will help determine what’s working for your brand and where changes need to be made.
Need help getting started with optimizing your digital marketing efforts? We’re here to help.
Related posts:
- 5 Real Estate Instagram Accounts You Should be Following
- Measure Social Media Success in Terms of Potential, not Dollar Amount
- How to Measure Social Media ROI with Google Analytics for Real Estate
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Push Notifications: Why Real Estate Marketers Need to Start Using Them
Push notifications can help accelerate your digital marketing efforts so that your property gets in front of prospective buyers and renters faster than would happen organically.
Highlights:
- Using push notifications can get your message in front of prospects instantly.
- Websites are now capable of leveraging this technology. Push notifications are delivered to a mobile device or desktop even if the user isn’t on that website.
- Be aware: overly pushy or too frequent notifications can increase user opt-out numbers.
“If you build it, and they will come.” Kevin Costner’s legendary line in “Field of Dreams” could also be said about digital marketing. Or rather, publish quality content, and buyers will come to you. But, digital marketing takes time to show results. There’s not much you can do about that.
Or, is there?
Using push notifications can get your message in front of prospects instantly. Pair quality content with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, and you will be in a position to drive more traffic to your website, create more brand visibility, and sell or lease more properties.
Don’t believe in the power of push notifications? Here are some undeniable stats to prove it:
- Push notifications boost engagement up to 88%
- 70% of adults enabled push notifications from their favorite brands
- 65% of users return to an app (or website) within 30 days when push is enabled
- The average click rate for push notifications is 7.8%
- 50% of customers find web browser push notifications useful and readily give their permission to the website that they would like to hear from
So, what is a push notification?
A push notification is the delivery of information to a device from a server where the request for the transaction is initiated by the server rather than by an explicit request from the client. What does it all mean? It’s basically a fancy way of saying you can push content to audiences on their phone (or computer), even when they’re not using the device, but there is a caveat — viewers have to opt into these notifications in order to receive them.
And don’t worry if your real estate marketing strategy doesn’t include an app. Websites are now capable of leveraging this technology, called browser push notifications. These types of notifications are delivered to a mobile device or desktop even if the user isn’t on that website. And since Americans look at their phones 52 times a day on average, it gives you a lot of opportunity to get your property in front of them.
Don’t be pushy
Beware of overly pushy or too frequent notifications, which can increase user opt-out numbers. And refrain from using push notifications as a sales pitch. Rather than forcing your properties on users, be the expert advice they are seeking. Help them envision themselves in one of your properties.
According to PushAssist, “sending multiple push notifications can enhance your page views, but won’t boost your sales. It could also result in high bounce rates. Moreover, this may annoy your users and even worse may reduce interest in the products and services you offer.”
Don’t fall into the habit of the “spray and pray” approach when it comes to push notifications. Thoughtlessly bombarding users with generic messaging will not attract quality leads. Instead, be thoughtful and deliberate with your communication. Offer your prospects valuable messaging with a personal touch to encourage action.
If you can successfully navigate push notifications with sharp messaging and timing, your real estate brand can greatly benefit from this digital lead generation tool.
3 benefits of push notifications
1. Increased user engagement
When used wisely as a part of your digital marketing strategy, push notifications can increase user engagement. But remember, it’s quality over quantity. Your notifications should be direct and to the point. They should address the needs of your prospects and encourage open communication. Using push notifications to encourage users to interact with your real estate company helps drive brand awareness and lead generation for your properties.
2. Drive action
Push notifications are an effective way to create a sense of urgency around your property. This urgency, in turn, drives website traffic and increases conversion rates. Try sending messages with an undertone of “act now” on topics such as the latest amenities that buyers can’t live without, local restaurants and activities, and updates on high-demand buying and leasing opportunities.
3. Time efficiency
Let’s face it, writing emails and blog posts is time consuming. Marketers know how much time it takes to research topics and keywords, write the actual copy, and edit, proof-read, and distribute. With push notifications, marketers can quickly and efficiently create messaging that instantly arrives on a user’s phone or desktop, saving hours every week on creating content that may or may not even reach your readers. And since users must opt into push notifications, you have prospects that are genuinely interested in your properties.
Is your real estate brand already using push notifications? Have you seen an increase in web traffic or conversions? We’d love to hear about your experience.
Related posts:
- Marketing Automation for Real Estate Marketers is Key to Lead Generation
- Start Your Property’s Social Media Program in 6 Steps
- 5 Marketing Automation Ideas for Real Estate
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Using Messaging Platforms for Real Estate to Deliver Content
The 4 biggest messaging platforms now have more users than the 4 biggest social media platforms. Here’s how marketers are leveraging messaging platforms for real estate to deliver content to target audiences.
Gone are the days when social messaging platforms were just about chatting or making plans with family and friends. You might be surprised to learn that “the combined total monthly active user count of the top 4 messaging apps has grown to 4.1 billion in 2018.”
Just to put that in perspective, that’s well over half of the world’s population and — perhaps even more strikingly — dwarfs the 2.19 billion monthly active users that Facebook reported in the first quarter of 2018.
It’s official: Social messaging platforms have surpassed “traditional” social media when it comes to active users. Not only that, marketers are taking notice, and beginning to think about how to leverage messaging platforms for real estate to deliver content to target audiences.
Popular social messaging apps include, for instance, WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger.
Tip: Use conversational content on messaging platforms for real estate
As you might expect, a key element in the successful use of using social messaging platforms is to tell your story conversationally. This means tailoring your content to the specific wants or needs of your target audience, creating a compelling narrative with your content, rather than an overt sales pitch.
This kind of storytelling is fundamental to content marketing.
“Messaging and chatbots represent the next logical extension of the content marketing mission,” writes Chris Frascella of the Content Marketing Institute.
According to Thomas Husson of Forbes, “Messaging apps will introduce a paradigm shift for marketers where interactive and contextual conversations will replace ad broadcasting. New conversational interfaces will drive deeper relationships between consumers and brands.”
You may be thinking that this is all well and good for marketing products, but how does it apply to real estate marketing? The truth is, if you have a content marketing strategy in place, chances are, you have a story to tell, and these are tools to help you do it.
Chatbots
Enter chatbots, the technology to turn your content into conversations. Chances are, you’ve already come face-to-screen with a chatbot and may not have even known it.
These computer programs simulate human conversation using auditory or textual methods. Basically, it’s software that communicates with your target audience inside a messaging app. Chatbots are already changing the way businesses interact with their prospects — and with each other.
If you’re thinking that you’re about to be replaced by a robot, relax. AI technology that could take the place of human interaction won’t happen anytime soon. Chatbots are a tool, and they need to be fed content and trained by human marketing professionals.
Tips for using chatbots
The first step is adapting your content for use in a chatbot conversation.
“You can’t just duplicate existing content in your conversational scripts,” says Frascella.
While the goals for your content are the same, the way it is delivered is different. That requires a shift in how it’s structured.
It’s also important to be mindful of timing. Because chatbots require users to opt into conversations, retaining permission to access your audience in this way depends largely on content and timing. This means delivering engaging, meaningful, and valuable content at regular intervals, but not intrusively.
For more ideas on creating a chatbot, check out this post.
Social messaging platforms for real estate are opening new doors for you to deliver personalized content straight to your target audience. Make the most of this opportunity!
Related posts:
- 10 Social Media Statistics for Real Estate Marketers 2018
- Good Real Estate Marketing Gets Personal
- Social Media Trends for 2018 Real Estate Marketers Need to Know
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5 Creative Ways to Use Instagram Stories for your Luxury Real Estate Brand
Luxury real estate brands are capitalizing on Instagram Stories to highlight property features and give followers an inside look at what sets them apart.
Highlights:
- With such a highly visual platform comes the challenge of standing out from other luxury real estate brands.
- Stories helps boost reach and engagement by giving users ways to engage with your content.
- Don’t be afraid to make your content pop through filters on your images and videos, use fun fonts and bold text, and create slideshows that break your stories into parts.
Instagram is a natural fit for real estate marketing. And with the growing popularity of Instagram Stories, marketers are increasingly using this feature to highlight their properties and luxury real estate brand. When implemented as a part of a robust digital marketing strategy, Instagram Stories is an ideal place to showcase your latest projects.
But with such a highly visual platform comes the challenge of standing out from other luxury real estate brands. If you want to generate leads, increase ROI, and ultimately close deals, you’ll need to think outside of the box.
Here are five creative ways to use Instagram Stories for your luxury real estate brand
1. Go behind the scenes
Because of the informal feel of Instagram Stories, it’s a great place to highlight your luxury real estate brand and give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your property. This intimate view into what makes your brand unique helps build engagement and brand loyalty.
Some ideas to showcase your luxury real estate brand include:
- Highlight premier features of your property
- Snap a picture or short video at local restaurants, bars, and events by your property
- Upload an image of an office brainstorm or staff meeting
- Feature new marketing ideas or things your staff are working on
2. Engage
I recently read that Instagram algorithms can make organic reach difficult, which means that engagement can be a challenge. But Stories helps boost reach and engagement by giving users ways to interact with your content. Ask viewers a question or create a poll to encourage audiences to share thoughts with your brand. What’s your favorite feature in the new penthouse unit? What color should we paint our office door? What videos do you find most appealing. And when audiences respond to your questions or polls, make sure you re-engage with them.
3. Highlights
Looking to get more shelf life out of your Instagram Stories? Try using the Highlights tool.
“Instagram Stories Highlights can live permanently on your profile. They’re like curated collections of Instagram Stories that your followers — both old and new — can tap into and watch any time they like.
“And because of their prime location directly under your bio and above your Instagram feed, it’s the perfect place to direct followers to your most valuable and interesting content,” writes Benjamin Chacon for Later.com.
Highlights is a great tool for gathering several of your most engaged stories and blog posts, and organizing them by topic. For example, your luxury real estate brand can create different highlights for property features, neighborhood information, and office culture. Viewers can easily sort through your content based on their personal needs.
4. Be visual
56% of marketers said they use visuals in their content almost 100% of the time. Instagram called the feature “Stories” for a reason. Don’t be afraid to make your content pop through filters on your images and videos, use fun fonts and bold text, and create slideshows that break your stories into parts. Visual content has significantly higher engagement rates, so get your camera ready.
5. Luxury branding
Instagram Stories leverages two things today’s buyers love: beautiful images and engaging videos. The tool extends a brand’s audience, shows the ins and outs of what makes your brand unique and promotes engagement with your Stories, as well as your Instagram posts. All of these elements develop brand awareness and, hopefully, brand loyalty.
Final thoughts
I’ve heard some luxury real estate brands are hesitant to use Instagram Stories, because of the informal vibe of the tool, something that’s not usually synonymous with luxury real estate. But as Instagram continues to grow in popularity, it’s important for brands to follow their audiences.
Remember, Instagram Stories is just one part of your dynamic digital marketing strategy. Have fun with the tool, experiment with posts including videos and pictures, and see what followers engage with the most. You might be surprised how well your Stories perform.
Still hesitant about getting started? Let us help.
Related posts:
- Measure Social Media Success in Terms of Potential, not Dollar Amount
- How to Use Social Media Hashtags in Real Estate Marketing
- How to Use Instagram for Real Estate Marketing
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