The real estate sector is one of the largest industries in Dubai and all around the UAE. The majority of the population in the country is based on expats. Some of them are living here since generations and each year thousands upon thousands are arriving. The real estate sector in the country have witnessed huge growth, which is the reason the market have become very competitive. Businesses need to think out of the box to ensure growth and survival in the long term. Another big change that occurred in the real estate sector is the customer behavior, the trends have been changed completely in even less than a decade time. Now a days people tend to start with online research, then they do comparison and when they reach out to a realtor they already know what exactly they are looking for and what they are expecting from their future home, or office or property. That is why for real estate businesses the digital marketing become more important and effective.
In Dubai and all around the UAE the real estate businesses don’t pay much attention to their websites, digital marketing and online strategies. However, with the rise of smartphone devices and high speed internet access, everyone is accustomed to look up online for anything and for everything, whether it is fixing a water tap in the kitchen or troubleshooting your laptop, people tend to look up online first. That doesn’t mean the investor will completely rely on online information, in fact the final decision will still be based upon the actual visit to the property but the investors will pretty much short list those properties on the bases of information available online. Majorly such information are provided through the real estate website. Here is how a real estate business can leverage digital marketing to boost their online leads from their business website:
Digital Marketing Generates Website Traffic & Online Leads
Having a great website doesn’t mean anything unless you can bring traffic to that website. Your prospects will only convert when they will reach to your website. The website traffic is a key to online leads and conversions. The website itself is also very important, if a website is equipped with a professional web design and up-to-date content only then it could convert prospects into online leads and sales. If a website have too much traffic but its design and user experience is not as that great, it could still perform well comparing to a real estate website which is not getting traffic. That is why the website traffic is directly proportion to the online leads. However, with a great web design and excellent customer experience the number of leads can be significantly increased.
Here are some important digital marketing strategies to bring more traffic to your real estate website to boost online leads and sales.
Email Marketing
The email marketing is one of the earliest form of digital marketing and it is still very effective. The email marketing is extremely cost-efficient, help reaching out to masses easily, and is also very helpful in re-marketing or re-targeting. Regardless of industry the email marketing is a best strategy to reach out to new prospects and generate leads and to stay in touch with your existing customers to keep reminding them about your business. Which will add value to customer loyalty and is also very helpful in customer retention and generating repeated sales. The email marketing can be leveraged more effective by personalizing customer experience which will encourage your readers to open the emails to see what you have to say. This also increase the CTR (click through rate) and will help generating more traffic to your real estate business website.
Social Media Marketing Paid/Organic
The social media have become a very important aspect of digital marketing as people tend to spend hours on their social media platforms on daily bases. The social media can be used for both paid and organic (free) website traffic building. Real estate businesses and almost all other businesses actively manage their social media pages and profiles for marketing and branding purposes. A brand reputation can be heavily influenced by their social media platforms. These days people tend to look up for businesses on their favorite social medias, people consider the comments, communication, posts, follows and likes very much and on the bases of the social media profile people also judge the business. That is why it is extremely important for brand reputation. On the other hand the social media is also a great source of free and paid traffic. The social media is relatively less expensive and can produce tons of traffic at a reasonable cost. The conversion rate for social media traffic is also good and all popular social media platforms provide comprehensive tracking and analytical tools as well.
Real estate businesses can build their social media channels on various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The social media platforms can also be utilized as a communication channel. Businesses can share their brand message, mission vision, and the properties and relevant content that can help them attract more follows and likes. Once their social media channels got adequate followership, they will start generating traffic from their shared links, and posts which will be absolutely free. Furthermore businesses can also use social media platform for advertisements and paid marketing. For a real estate business it is important to understand their audience and then target them as per their interests and preferences. The social media platforms are very flexible and easy-to-use for paid advertisements or paid marketing and have huge potential to generate leads and traffic.
Search Engine Marketing
The search engine are the most frequently accessed website in the internet. Such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. these are the world’s most popular search engines. However, Google is the market leader and completely dominates the global search market (92% search market share) including having 96% market share in the UAE. This makes it the most suitable candidate for the search engine marketing campaigns. People tend to look up in the search engine instead of contacting someone. That is the reasons the search engine marketing gain rapid adaptation since past decade. The Google alone is considered to be the producing highest conversion rate comparing to any other digital marketing channel. That is why for a real estate businesses it is important to have a search engine marketing strategy. The search engine ads are of two types one are the search ads, which are displayed on the search engine result page when someone searched for something. The search engines such as Google also allow to place your ads on their affiliate networks. Which has slightly lower conversion rate but it could generate a huge traffic for your real estate business website. Usually the businesses use a combination of multiple search ad campaigns to achieve their targeted goals and objectives.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
For any real estate business website the search engine optimization (SEO) is almost essential to generate online leads and conversions. The search engine optimization or SEO referred to the techniques and website building technologies that are compatible with the guidelines of the search engines, especially Google. The Google search engine is the one who dictate pretty much everything in the search engine optimization domain and rest of all search engines follow the same. The search engine use certain automated programs and tools to scan million upon millions of web pages on daily bases. These tools are kind of data crawlers, which looks for certain indicators on the page, its content and source code. Then they store that information in the Google index or data repository. Google then rank all scanned pages on the bases of the quality of the content, user experience and relevance of the topic.
When someone came to Google and writes anything in it, Google immediately pulls out the links from its data repository which are the most relevant to the search query and place them in the search engine result page on the bases of their relevance and quality. That is how the search engine works. The stats have shown that only the top 3 websites gets the most clicks, almost 70% and then the remaining websites as per their stats. Very rarely a user go to the next page and click on the websites in the second and third page. That is why it is important to remain in the first page and make sure you will get most clicks. These clicks will later translate into genuine online leads and conversions.
Content Marketing
The content is always the king, whether it is digital marketing or traditional marketing, the content is always crucial for the success of the campaign. Businesses often don’t realize the importance of good content and content marketing. The real estate sector usually thinks the content marketing is not suitable for them. However, that is not the case. People are not only interested in the photos of the properties but they also want to know a lot about the property, the purchase process, the business or broker they are dealing with and what is happening in the market. That all matters for a good investor. That is why it is crucial for a real estate business to understand their customer’s and their mindset to learn what they should say and when they should say it and where they should say it. That is only possible with a great content marketing strategy.
The primary goal of content marketing strategy is not to sell but to build reputation and enhance customer experience by providing them the useful and interesting materials through their favorite channels. This will help building brand reputation and it will increase customer engagement which strengthens the bond between the customers and realtors. At the end of the day this all will impact your online leads and conversions.
Digital Marketing Help Real Estate Businesses to Understand Customer Persona
For any real estate business it is crucial to understand who their customers are and how do they think. That is what we usually referred to as customer persona. All popular digital marketing channels and platforms whether paid or organic provide a deeper insight to your audience. The geographical and demographical data are key to understand your customer persona. This will help you targeting them more effectively by utilizing the channels and platforms that are more popular among your targeted audience. Targeted digital marketing strategy let business concentrate their efforts to the audience which is most likely to convert. It saves a lot of efforts and expense. The ROI automatically gets higher when a real estate business targets their audience with a prior understanding of their liking, disliking, preferences and needs. It also help real estate businesses to improve their communication which help improving customer relationships and gain their trust. Trust drives loyalty and loyalty drives repeated business, studies have shown that it is almost nine to twelve time less expensive to sell to the existing customers rather acquiring new customer. That could make a huge difference and can boost online leads.
Digital Marketing is Cost-Efficient and Have higher ROIs
One of the biggest advantage of digital marketing is that it is very cost-efficient comparing to the traditional marketing campaigns. The traditional marketing usually utilize print media, electronic media, distributing pamphlets, organizing exhibitions and events, etc. Which is all very expensive, the biggest drawback is that the real estate businesses can’t have much control over the audience, so they must have to be very loud and clear so their voice can be heard by their targeted audience as well which will be scattered all around a big crowd. That is why the cost is very high. However, the digital marketing on the contrary is very cost-efficient and the online leads cost way too less comparing to the traditional leads. The digital marketing provide full control over your targeted audience, hence you can easily control to whom you will communicate which also reduce the cost. That is another reason why the digital marketing is also very cost-efficient and can produce more leads and conversion in the same budget comparing to the traditional marketing campaigns.
In addition to all that the digital marketing also provide a chance to the small and medium size real estate businesses who can’t afford expensive TV commercials, or large billboards, and so on. The digital marketing campaign can be started with a minimal budget and the real estate business can start generating online leads. The organic and free sources are the best bet for small business and startups for that matter, as they cost nothing much. That is why the ROIs of digital marketing campaigns are very high comparing to traditional marketing campaigns.
Digital Marketing Helps Building Brand Image and Reputation
The market have changed a lot since past few years, in general consumers are more likely to stay with the businesses who focus more on the customer experience. The competition is also a major factor that drives customer expectations higher and uplift the market trends. Which made is even more difficult for businesses to build brand image and reputation. The digital marketing is modern, it is digital and it is very cost-effective. Which makes it the best tool for brand image and reputation building in today’s world. With the increasing use of search engines and social media platforms the real estate businesses have a chance to satisfy their customer with relatively less efforts. Focusing a little on your online presence, social media platforms, digital communication channels, and website could build a great brand image.
The customers these days need an urgent resolution of their problem, this craving can be satisfied only by beefing up your communication. Digital channels enable real estate businesses to get in touch with their customers easily and more frequently. That is why the digital marketing can be extremely effective for online brand image building and reputation building.
Digital Marketing Increase Customer Engagements and Customer Loyalty
By leveraging super-fast digital marketing channel a real estate business can easily provide its customers with a 24/7 communication. The customers can reach out to the business anytime from anywhere by visiting their website, going to their social media platforms or through digital communication channels. When your customers search in Google and find you in the top results, they subconsciously feel a sense of trust, credibility, legitimacy and reliability. When your customers are scrolling through their social media, and suddenly saw a post by your real estate business, it will stick to their minds, as soon as a need will arise they will recall your name and most probably they will contact you first. That is the true power of digital marketing. With more communication channels, frequent news and updates from your real estate business and a good content, the customer engagements will get higher which will drive their happiness and loyalty.
The loyal customers are one of the most precious asset of any business. They tend to be a good brand advocate, and they are most likely to do repeated business. They always have a positive mindset about your business and a small problem or a bad experience won’t let them go away. They will most likely to stick with your brand for years. All these efforts help generating more online leads and conversions.
Digital Marketing is the Future
The digital marketing is the future! By this statement I am not claiming that the traditional marketing is dead. The point I am trying to make is that the digital marketing will clearly dominate the traditional marketing in coming future. According to Hubspot, 63% of marketers say that their biggest challenge is driving traffic and generating leads. The SmartInsights suggests that 36% of the marketers are seeking ways to integrate their digital and traditional marketing efforts. Another Hubspot study suggests that inbound marketing’s ROI is improved by regular blog publication and content strategies. According to GoRemotely the traditional marketing produces only half of the interactions as comparing to the digital marketing. These all studies and stats are pointing out to the dominance of the digital marketing over the traditional marketing. That is why in the coming future here in Dubai and all around the UAE, the digital marketing will dominate and it is crucial for real estate businesses to have a great digital marketing strategy in place because the digital marketing is the future.
Conclusion
Real estate businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are actively seeking ways to leverage the online and digital domains. The digital marketing is the best strategy to build a great brand presence in the cyber-sphere. The rise of social media, increasing demand for digital experience and market trends pushed the realtors and real estate businesses to invest their efforts in digital marketing methods ad channels. The digital marketing have already surpassed the traditional marketing market, studies have shown that the digital marketing is still growing and with each passing day its dominance is becoming more visible. On top of that the digital marketing is very flexible and convenient for the businesses, the businesses can utilize as many digital channels as they want, they can use them whenever they want and more importantly they can control the spending more accurately. The digital marketing also help real estate businesses to understand their customer persona, which help them to improve their communication and strategies.
Overall the digital marketing produces much higher ROIs comparing to the traditional marketing. That is why it is more efficient in generating leads as well. Business can utilize the digital marketing channels which are popular among their targeted audience to generate more online leads. RSI Concepts is a leading digital marketing service provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want to get a quote or suggestion about your digital marketing, please feel free to reach us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
Check out this blog: Importance of a Professional Web Design for Hospitality Business in Dubai
