Brand content creation is vital for generating visibility of ‘you’ and your real estate brand within your neighbourhood. Without brand content you have no way to differentiate yourself from competing real estate professionals.

Leaning on your vendors marketing budget and property campaigns is not going to help you build that all important ‘trust’ with prospective sellers, buyers or investors. You next client will decide to call you off the back of the advice you gave freely online, ahead of them talking with you in person.

“Your listing presentation doesn’t start in
the lounge room. It starts online!”

You may find it challenging to conjure up ideas for brand content. In an ideal world you, to ensure a steady flow you leads, you need to publish something compelling – enough to keep our followers and prospects engaged – each and every week.

If you find yourself lost for ideas for your next social media post, or feeling overwhelmed with the thought of writing blog posts or email newsletters that prospects will want to open – engage a professional marketing team!

Content marketer Fiona Okeson talks to me today about the importance of brand content for real estate professionals. Together we explore why content is critical for generating leads and why distributing your branded messages across multiple channels is part of the brand marketing parcel too.

Click below to watch the video.

Following is the video transcript.

Melanie Hoole
What do you think the biggest challenges are to producing brand or informational content?

Fiona Okeson
The biggest challenges that I see are just actually doing it. It’s about saying, I need to have these 10 articles on my website, and they are covering the basics. Recognising where your genius is, and from a real estate agents perspective, the genius that agents have, is about engaging with people and talking with people and getting all of the expertise and the knowledge that’s in their head and talking to people and forming those relationships. But when they look at being able to create some content to effectively electronically talk to people on the line, that is where they need to be able to look at ways that they can outsource that. You’d like to be able to go, well, let’s not have any burnout, because I’m trying to do everything. Let’s focus on your genius, make sure that what you’re doing there is working really well.

Melanie Hoole
And your core strengths.

Fiona Okeson
Exactly. And then if you don’t have the skills in a certain area, but you know how important it is to your business, then find someone who does have that expertise and does know how to do it properly.

Melanie Hoole
And I say it’s like when people pick up the phone to talk to you. Or they fill in a form and say I’d like to have a chat can you get in touch. I say it’s like they’ve travelled from a far, far distance. So all your ongoing marketing or content, when your ads are drawing people in so they start way, way over there, over the horizon. And then they get a bit closer and a bit closer and they get a bit closer and a bit closer. And then when they get to you, it’s like they go tadaaahh. I already know you I’ve been following you for two years.

And it replaces the ongoing catch up phone call, isn’t it. Because the phone calls are quite intrusive nowadays, because we’ve got really into a habit of messaging, text messaging, and now we’re in our messenger groups. So when you get a phone call from an agent, if you’re not in the market at that point in time, and you’re not thinking about selling your investment apartment or your home,

Fiona Okeson
It’s an intrusion.

Melanie Hoole
Yes, it is an intrusion. And so that’s the beauty of ongoing content and content marketing as a solution, as a channel.

Fiona Okeson
I think it’s really important for agents to be able to look at the lessons of what other portals have been able to do when it comes to being able to make sure that content is king. They’re doing video as Queen on their social media. And they’re also making sure that video is in with their content. And it’s a really important way to be able to engage and attract and build on those leads that they are not necessarily knowing that they’re attracting until people are contacting them.

Melanie Hoole
And that’s a real challenge for agents, right? Because they’re so used to it, because then they live in the sales world. And for everybody in the marketing side of the industry, we understand that it’s not instant gratification. There are people out there, you look at the stats, but most people look at the stats and go I don’t know what I’m looking at. So a lot of the time, I’m told well, you know, how many people have walked into our office, how many people have come to that open home, and it’s no different to doing a property campaign. You throw the net out. And then you’re casting it wide, and trying to gather as many people as possible. And really, you only need a few people.

Fiona Okeson
Exactly. And you know, you’ve got the property campaign, which is so important. That’s the bread and butter of a real estate agents business. And that’s being able to make sure that the property that is for sale is marketed well. Once it’s marketed well, and it’s you know, positioned at the right price point in the marketplace, it will sell. But it’s attracting those sellers, and attracting those buyers at that point through the property campaign.

I remember the last lot of information that I can recall about the time that people actually spend researching to find an agent to sell their home. It was about three weeks before they actually called up and said or emailed and said, I want you to come in and do an appraisal on my home. And content marketing is such an important part of that. Because it’s about being able to educate and inform people at that point, as well as being able to, like you said, introduce that agent to that person well before they actually make that contact.

Melanie Hoole
And you might just be in the peripheral vision. That’s where having regular content and having it appear, maybe people don’t even click through. So it’s even the stats around how many people saw it, how many individuals, uniques, saw that content pass their stream. As soon as you’re ready to get help, it’s like your blinkers come off. I quite often have agents, come to me and say you popped into my inbox, or I saw you on social media, and it just jogged my memory that you are around, and that you’re the person to come and talk to it. And it’s the same for agents.

Fiona Okeson
Absolutely. And one of the things that content, the value of content is that it’s not just about being on social. It’s also about being in those other digital and print platforms that is really important about reaching people at any point.

Melanie Hoole
Yeah, it’s about building familiarity with your brand, about building your reputation as an agent.

Fiona Okeson
Building trust.

Melanie Hoole
Bringing people to your branding, not to places that have directories. It’s about feeding the machine. Be it Google, be it the letterbox, dare I say. Wherever you want to spend your distribution money.

Fiona Okeson
Yes.

Melanie Hoole
The content can be repurposed. That’s what we’re talking about.

Fiona Okeson
Absolutely.

Melanie Hoole
One piece of content can be repurposed in multiple locations, online, offline. And one piece of content can actually live and have a life of its own. So it can keep bringing you people back through search. Whereas print is printed. It’s a one hit wonder. Whereas digital content lives there and it keeps building. It’s those building blocks to build up your brand and visibility over time.

Fiona Okeson
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So they can all work together really beautifully.

Melanie Hoole
But one piece of content can go off everywhere. It can be everywhere. Yeah, and recycling it as well. So we need more of the industry, using content, building their brand, taking more interest in promoting themselves, their knowledge and know how over and above the properties that they promote for their clients.

Fiona Okeson
Absolutely.

Melanie Hoole
Thank you for your time today. It’s been wonderful having you Fiona, thanks for talking to me.

Fiona Okeson
Thanks, Mel. It’s been great being here with you today. Really appreciate it.

About this video series

Hoole.co’s video series brings together the best digital and social media minds in the real estate industry, to share the wonders of the web and the magic of mobile. Subscribe to Hoole.co or follow us on social media (below) for free tips and tricks to grow your reputation and attract prospects, digitally.

If you would like to discuss your marketing and how you can improve your brand reputation and acquire more clients, feel free to book a FREE one-hour consultation with me, Melanie Hoole.

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Written by Melanie Hoole

My team and I specialise in helping real estate and property professionals perfect their personal brand, build a first-class digital profile and implement inbound marketing activities to attract leads. If you are unsure which direction to take with your digital marketing contact me for help.