Marketing is one of those tricky disciplines that incorporates both art and science. While the relative ease of access to social channels and the scads of free marketing tools may make it seem easy, good online marketing takes work. Business owners and marketing managers regularly find themselves dropping media into the marketplace without rhyme or reason or worse yet, just because everyone else is doing it. If you’ve already begun to engage in online marketing, or even if you haven’t, here are few tips that will help to ensure your approach will pay dividends.

Start With A Plan

All online real estate marketing should begin with a plan. A good plan will guide your online advertising, promotion and communications for your business.  It is vital to successfully running your operation and ensuring that your digital presence is maximized for efficiency. Failing to develop a plan can result in budget problems, low customer volume and, in a worst-case scenario, losing out to the competition.

Be Current and Relevant

It is important to keep content current constantly. Updating improves search results for your business. It enhances the customer experience and puts your CRE brand in a better light. If your marketing team isn’t doing this with your social media, content marketing and, even print marketing materials, you may be eroding your marketing successes.

Attract current and new clients with up-to-date facts that show how in tune you are with the market. Engage your audience with your knowledge and delight them with positive experiences online and in the field.

Engage in Social Media

Engaging your clients on social media helps to qualify their needs. This can move your business forward, as 20% of senior marketers say they received the highest ROI from original organic social media posts. Make solid points by commenting on posts. Start conversation threads and share posts with your networking groups. Contribute to the conversation by suggesting problem-solving tips. By contributing to these, you build trust and sincerity with your audience.

Take SEO Seriously

A great website is useless if your potential customers cannot find you. Your site should incorporate an SEO strategy that allows potential clients to find your company and most importantly, your properties.

Making your website find-able means packing your site with the current verbiage being used by the industry. The National Association of Realtors states that 92% of industry movers and shakers use email, smartphone and, computers every day for conducting business. Making sure your site and your content is found by commercial real estate professionals using these devices will convey your company’s story while offering a user experience that is better than the competition. Including a call to action that identifies your mission and provides links to social media will reinforce your brand and promote your successes and make you even more attractive to search engines.

Consider Outsourcing Marketing

Even if in-house marketing staff members have special skills, they often have other responsibilities, which make it hard for them to give their marketing work the attention it demands.  Compounding this problem is the issue of productivity.  Studies have shown that as much as a third of an employees time each week is unproductive. 

Marketing your CRE business is critical to its success. But, you and your marketing team have a lot to do in order to make that happen, including development of a marketing plan, branding, content creation and distribution, internal and external communications, website and social media management, and so on. It’s hard for even the best in-house teams to get that all done, especially if they’re missing a skill set or dividing their time among other projects related to the core business.

Remember, you’re hiring a team that will act as an extension of your organization. If you hire the right team, you’ll also be hiring a group of professionals that know your industry intimately. Hiring the right team means that you won’t be stuck explaining the difference between a brochure and an offering memorandum.