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Channel your energies

We’ve dealt with creating content, now we need to put it in front of the audience. Art Division’s Nelly Berova points the way.

Nelly Berova

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This month we’re talking about an essential element of any estate agent’s content marketing strategy – the channels. Channels are important because no matter how carefully you have analysed the local market, identified your key audiences and crafted your blogs, videos, podcasts or infographics, your strategy won’t succeed if your content doesn’t reach the right people.

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Nelly Berova

You will need to deploy a mix of methods and platforms, both paid and organic, to get your content out there. Some work better than others depending on the stage of the customer journey and the type of content you’re looking to promote, but as a guide, here are five key channels you probably should consider.

You need to deploy a mix of methods and platforms, both paid and organic.

1 Paid social media

Paid social media advertising is one of the best ways to reach your audience. Organic (free) social media accounts will get you so far but are labour intensive for the return they will bring. Paid social, on the other hand, allows you to target your content to precise audiences in your local area, meaning the niche messages contained in your content can really hit the mark.

While new social platforms have entered the market, Facebook is still the biggest player and ideal for paid social because it allows a high level of audience segmentation. For example, if you’re looking to attract vendors, you might want to target your marketing at young families looking to step up the housing ladder. Paid Facebook content will allow you to direct your content to this particular demographic.

2 Email marketing

Many people think email is a thing of the past but leave this channel out of your strategy and you could be missing a trick. Email newsletters are still one of the most effective ways of communicating with an engaged audience, placing your content directly into their inboxes. As with any aspect of content marketing, it’s vital that you tailor your newsletters to each audience, so create separate lists, at least, for vendors, landlords, buyers and tenants, segmenting further for first-time buyers, second steppers, portfolio landlords etc, if you can. Direct the right content to each audience for maximum results and use the analytics on your mailing software to really interrogate which pieces of content resonate most.

3 Organic social media

We said earlier that organic social won’t give you the reach or targeting of paid posting, but it is still an important part of your strategy. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram to share your content. Plan how you will do this, starting with your target audience – Instagram has a younger profile and plays well if you have high-quality visual imagery, LinkedIn is a professional platform that gets results with portfolio landlords, for example.

You can also use organic social on a local level, by posting in Facebook groups, which have a strong presence in many neighbourhoods. Use your social accounts to communicate directly with customers too, by answering queries, promoting events and talking about local issues.

4 Video

Whether you share films via your YouTube channel or your other social platforms, don’t ignore the power of video for grabbing attention, helping you to show not tell and raising awareness of your brand.

5 Search

Optimising your content, whether blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics or more, so it is findable on Google is another key part of your strategy. SEO is a complex area and getting your content to rank takes expertise and practice. Start with quality information that answers people’s questions alongside the right keywords they’ll be using. Your focus should be on the long tail phrases that people are using to find answers to their problems, so put some time into research. Also think about localising your search terms to give your content more of a chance of reaching your ideal audience on your patch.

6 Retargeting

Retargeting is paid content that cleverly reminds people, who’ve shown an interest in your business, that you exist. When potential customers visit your website, pieces of code, or cookies, are added to your pages, allowing you to follow the customer around the web, showing them your banner or display ads as they browse. Retargeting is a great tool for converting prospects into loyal customers.

The key to all of this is knowing your audience and making sure the content answers the questions they are asking and in a well-written, informative and accurate way. But it is also about understanding the channels that audience is using to get your content seen. Plus, it is about testing, seeing what works and what doesn’t and honing your strategy.

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Got a question? Visit www.artdivision.co.uk.

August 10, 2022

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