Leveraging the Power of the Web: A Tutorial for Real Estate Investors

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At REIN, we’re always driving home the fact that real estate investing is a business. Some investors may not realize this on their first or second door, but most will discover it pretty quickly. The sooner you discover this, the better your investing experience will be. From finance to systems, from best practices to marketing, a business approach to investing helps you reach your investing goals sooner, more often, and more profitably. A great place to start establishing a solid business approach is with an effective online marketing strategy.

The Growing Power of the Web

Recently, Google Canada’s Sean Cunningham shared with REIN members how online marketing can impact and benefit real estate investors. As investors look to market their businesses to buyers, sellers, tenants, and investors, they quickly discover the massive variety of online marketing options available to them but struggle to know how to use them effectively. There are so many ways to market a business nowadays! From social media influencer marketing to enterprise text messaging software, it’s hard to know where to start. Sometimes free online marketing options seem attractively-priced but less effective; sometimes paid online marketing options seem more effective but financially out of reach.

Mr. Cunningham pointed out that within the past year, there was a huge tipping point for Canadians and the time we spend with different types of media devices. For the first time, our time spent with laptops, with tablets, with mobile devices, overtook the time we spend with our television. On the leading edge of this change, Sean said, is the mobile [device] that’s in your hand.

Those mobile phones, he continued, change the way people communicate, access information, make decisions, and make purchases. The mobile device is so personal, it’s a part of you. Think about how constantly connected we are and how lost we feel when our battery runs out. This is the new normal. Mobiles are actually what has brought around o2o marketing. Because of mobiles, we can connect from anywhere which is why most consumers start online.

At Google, Sean explained, he gains significant insight into Canadians’ collective human behaviour based on what they search for online. Whether we have a cold symptom and are looking for the remedy, or want to know how to make a new recipe, the first place we turn to is Google Search. As consumers raise their hands to ask questions, this presents a huge opportunity when you are trying to build your business or brand online.

Accordingly, researching a few different content marketing strategies can help businesses to boost their online presence. For instance, SEO marketing techniques such as niche edits and backlinks are a simple and affordable way to help a website rise through the search rankings. Ultimately, finding the best marketing techniques for any business is all about doing plenty of research into some of the most popular options out there.

Real estate investor lesson: Your marketing strategy needs to include a growing online component, especially one that is mobile-friendly.

A 3 Step Strategy to Successful Online Marketing

Many ideas and strategies were shared throughout the presentation but perhaps one of the most significant concepts that Sean shared was this simple 3-step strategy for online marketing. It starts with reaching the relevant audience, at the right time, and then leveraging the digital capabilities and the tools of today to build much stronger relationships with consumers than we ever could before.

If you want to market your investing business (such as your properties or a joint venture opportunity) to buyers, sellers, tenants, or investors, then your best first step is to invest some time to work through these three steps.

Step 1: Reach the most relevant audience

As you build your real estate investing brand and harness online tools to do it, you’ll have many different options from websites to video to social media and more. For example, you can use Tiktok, a hugely popular social media platform, for posting teasers of your property. Recently, TikTok has made headlines for its short viral videos. Furthermore, TikTok is widely popular with Gen Z users, but the audience base also includes millennials- who are in the market to buy homes. That alone should make you want to set up an account on this platform. To add, TikTok hashtag #realestateinvesting has 68.5 million views. This means that you can have a chance to leverage a good deal of the audience. Not satisfied yet? Well, in that case, you can also buy TikTok views fast with the help of apps like Tokupgrade and SidesMedia to expand your customer base.

If you are looking for expanding your real estate business, becoming well-known in the investing space, and getting leads, then TikTok is a great community. So, fire up the video and start talking!
Remember, social media platforms are a constantly evolving mosaic of opportunities. You’ll need to create content with the intention that your content will be consumed by the right customers.

Sean pointed out that our understanding of audiences has changed over time. Traditional marketing would see businesses put an advertisement in a newspaper, magazine, or on television with the hope that the right people might see the ad, and those marketing channels would be chosen based on audience demographics. But those concepts have changed, Sean explained: I love this quote from the ex-CMO of McDonalds: It no longer makes economic sense to send an advertising message to the many, in the hopes of persuading t the few.

Real estate investor lesson: Focus your marketing on the audience you’re actually trying to reach.

Audiences have changed: First and foremost, consumers are mobile. Second, consumers can’t be defined anymore by age, sex, [or other demographic criteria]. Third, consumers are in control you need to be there when they need you.

Although this might make things seem more challenging for real estate investors to find the right audiences to target, it can actually be more rewarding because accurately targeting your message to exactly the right audience when they want the information will substantially increase the effectiveness of your marketing.

Real estate investor lesson: Your target audience might be made up of a specific demographic but that’s not the only criteria you should be targeting. Understand that your audience isn’t defined by just demographics and instead connect with anyone interested in your product through their shared behaviour online .

Step 2: Reach Them at the Right Time

In traditional marketing, the ‘right time’ was when consumers picked up a magazine, or stuck around during their TV show to watch the commercials in between. But in today’s online and connected world, the right time is all the time, and it is now much easier to reach consumers at that point in time when they are open to your message. Marketers do not need to constantly advertise around the clock, but instead only appear when it is relevant for the consumer.

Taco Bell’s lunch-time strategy is a great example of this. When someone searches for lunch between 11AM-2PM, Taco Bell’s ad would show up. Again, [it’s about] understanding the audience’s mindset; where they are in that day.

Real estate investor lesson: For the target markets you work with, pay attention to when they are likely to be searching online during the day, week, and throughout the year. If you market to college students, they are likely searching for apartments in the summer. Every property type will have certain times of the year or the month when searches for that property increase. The same goes for other marketing you do, for example if you market for joint ventures or cash buyers.

Step 3: Leverage Tools and Capabilities

Not Every marketing channel or strategy is right for every investor every time. When deciding upon the type of message to produce to speak to your consumer, Sean recommends that you should aim to entertain them, inform them, educate them, and most importantly engage them.

You do not have to be a big brand, company, or enterprise to produce content that will resonate with people, Sean said. As one example, he mentioned EvanTube, an 8 year-old boy with millions of YouTube followers who has become wildly successful by unpacking toys and playing with them for a few minutes, and releasing these videos through his channel. He and his parents understand what their consumer is looking for, and have built authentic content that speaks to the consumer not necessarily in a splashy, big budget kind of way.

Real estate investor lesson: Decide which strategies you want to use to connect with your target markets and then identify the online tools to help you do it. For example, if you want to educate, engage, and entertain, perhaps YouTube is the channel to use.

Another powerful way to leverage online tools is to understand the trends and get ahead of them so you can predict your target market needs and respond appropriately. One free tool available for investors to use is Google Trends (Google.ca/Trends), which plots out trends in search behavior depending on the word you type in.

Sean showcased the power of this tool through the eyes of the real estate investor. For a real estate investor interested in selling a home, for instance, Sean explained, they can type in home for sale into Google Trends and understand the top terms consumers are looking for, what is top-of-mind this year vs. a year ago, and how the searches differ throughout the year. Investors can mine this data to better understand their industry and their consumer.

Real estate investor lesson: Use the tools available to you to better understand your consumer in real time and plan your marketing strategy.

The internet created a massive shift in how consumers buy and how businesses sell. It transformed the marketplace into one of content and conversation. For real estate investors, this is a massive opportunity and there are so many more ways now to target the right market, connect with them at the right time, and leverage tools and capabilities to grow your business.

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