Consumer behaviors and expectations have changed significantly during the past couple of years, and this shift is impacting the real estate industry.
Whether clients are looking to buy, sell, or rent, they want the ability to interact with real estate agents through various digital channels whenever and wherever that’s most convenient for them.
If you want to generate more leads and make more sales, you must show up where your prospects are. This means you need to understand the various digital touchpoints in the real estate customer journey.
What Is a Real Estate Customer Journey?
A customer journey is essentially the story of your client's experience. It’s often presented as a diagram called a customer journey map that visualizes all the interactions from initial contact and engagement through closing and the development of long-term relationships.
In a typical customer journey, prospects first become aware of the need to work with a real estate agent. Next, they compare different agents during the consideration stage. Then, they choose to work with a specific agent at the decision stage. Finally, if they’re happy with their experience, they may continue to use the service of the same agent.
At each of these stages, prospects will connect with you through various touchpoints. Optimizing these interactions will help you progress potential clients down the sales funnels by sharing the most relevant information at the right time.
Key Digital Marketing Touchpoints Along the Real Estate Customer Journey
Here are the customer journey touchpoints you should address in your marketing plan:
Online Advertising
Digital advertising platforms (e.g., Google and Facebook) allow you to leverage their vast database and granular targeting capabilities to reach people who are most likely to engage your services. You can also use retargeting ads to stay on prospects’ radar by sharing timely and relevant information based on their recent interactions with you.
Using automation technologies to scale up your campaigns is the key to increasing your reach — a platform like LeadHax Pro enables you to build personalized ads in seconds and make sure that they reach the right people at the right time.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
Most consumers research products or services online before contacting a provider. Start your relationships with prospects as soon as they begin their searches. Implement the right search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to get onto the first page of Google, boost your online presence, and get found by people with a high purchase intent (i.e., they’re looking for real estate agents in your area.)
Lead-Generating Website
After prospects find you on SERPs or online ads, they’d most likely click through to your website, where you’d make the important first impression. But not all visitors are ready to engage your services right away. Besides showing your listings, your website should have the mechanisms in place to capture prospects’ contact information, so you can continue to nurture the relationships, progress them down the sales funnel, and stay top of mind.
Email Marketing
Once you have collected prospects’ contact information, stay in touch and build trust through email marketing. With the right segmentation strategies, you can send the most relevant content to the right recipients at the appropriate time. For example, you can alert prospects of new listing, follow up with clients after a showing, and continue your relationship after closing a deal to gather testimonials and get referrals.
Online Reviews
When prospects enter the consideration stage and try to decide which agent to work with, they’d often look you up on third-party sites such as Yelp, Google, etc. In fact, 87% of consumers read reviews on local businesses in 2020. To build a stellar online reputation, gather glowing reviews from your clients and respond to comments promptly. Don’t forget to complete your online profiles and include a link to your website (this can also boost SEO.)
Online Scheduling
Don’t make prospects jump through hoops when they're ready to engage with your services. Include a link to your online scheduling tool in your email communications, website content, and social media profiles to make it easy for clients to book appointments with you. You can also automate confirmation, reminders, and follow-ups via email or text to keep prospects engaged and reduce no-shows.
Engage Prospects Every Step of the Way
Mapping out how you interact with prospects and clients at every stage of the customer journey can help you identify the most critical touchpoints so you can focus your time and resources on creating communications that will move prospects down your sales funnel.
