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A new white paper has unlocked the tools for real estate agents to get a measurable return on investment while utilising digital marketing.
The white paper, Digital Marketing in Real Estate: A Guide to Better ROI, has been produced by ActivePipe and explores the necessity of digital marketing in today’s age.
“As with almost every sector in the economy, the real estate industry has had to shift its marketing activities online to reliably reach customers. While many still utilise offline channels like direct mail, television and billboards, it’s becoming more difficult to justify the spend without a measurable return on investment (ROI),” the report noted.
“As a result, agents are shifting their marketing spend into digital channels. But what are the right channels for the real estate industry?
“To make this decision, agents must consider how a digital channel will help them identify high-value prospects, generate leads, nurture leads into clients and position themselves as a trusted partner in their clients’ property journey.”
With the coronavirus pandemic impacting the nature of the way real estate agents operate, digital marketing has become that much more essential.
Along with highlighting the pros and cons of each digital marketing channel (pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and social media marketing), the ActivePipe white paper also shared how agents should think about capturing versus nurturing leads off the back of these channels.
“It helps to think of interruption marketing and permission marketing as lead capturing activities and lead nurturing activities. Both are necessary, and one does not replace the other,” the white paper noted.
“Lead capturing activities often require larger investments of time and money, but they are necessary for adding leads to the database.
“Real estate agents looking to achieve a better return on investment, however, should consider extracting value from the leads that they already have — nurturing them into deals.
“Research by Forrester reveals that organisations that excel at lead nurturing generate 50 per cent more sales at a 33 per cent lower cost.
“By mastering lead nurturing, agents can amplify the value of any future lead capture activities as they will convert the new leads more efficiently once in their database.
“In 2015, it took an average of four months and six touchpoints to convert an inquiry into a sale. Now it takes six-plus months and roughly 10 touchpoints (Elite Agent). Calling each lead periodically is time-consuming and sending generic mass email campaigns often does more harm than good.”
Ultimately, the white paper revealed that “targeted email marketing consistently delivers the best ROI”.
“The number of active email users has jumped to 3.9 billion in 2019. Even given the meteoric rise of social media, email still has the most active users globally. It’s this widespread use, paired with the ability to personalise, that has kept email as the most effective channel for delivering ROI — with an average of $42 return for every $1 spent,” the white paper said.
“Compare this to PPC advertising with an ROI of 200 per cent, generating on average $2 for every $1 spent.
“Unfortunately for social media marketing, it is incredibly difficult to measure the ROI of social media activities. The difficulty stems from the inability to track metrics that relate to sales; most social channels only allow you to track engagement metrics such as likes and comments.
“The most reliable statistic on social media marketing ROI comes from a 2011 Social Marketing Benchmark Report from MarketingSherpa which found an average ROI of 95 per cent, thus generating $0.95 from every $1 spent.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Ryan
Emma Ryan is the deputy head of editorial at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, and has since been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia, including across the legal, mortgages, real estate and wealth industries. In addition, Emma has launched several additional sub-brands and events, driven by a passion to deliver quality and timely content to audiences through multiple platforms.
Email Emma on: Emma.Ryan@momentummedia.
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