It’s painful, grueling, laborious work. Especially when you have so much else on your plate. As a real estate agent, you know you need a content marketing strategy for your real estate agent website.
But you also need to schedule house visits, drive homebuyers to potential houses, meet with house sellers, solidify contracts, and do a whole lot more.
When the heck are you going to find the time to (1) come up with content marketing ideas for real estate agents and (2) create the content?
Well, that’s exactly what we’re talking about today: Real examples from real agents who’re using content marketing to catapult themselves to the head of the pack. Because potential customers aren’t just looking online… they’re making decisions based on what they find.
Content marketing is how you dominate search results, build trust, and attract new clients all before they even meet you.
Why? Because your strategy has to be built on your strengths … and loves:
Content Marketing For Agents
This post digs into the details with two top-to-bottom examples of exactly how to execute your content marketing master plan and a host of supplemental examples along the way.
So, let me introduce you to our content marketing test case …
Judy Weiniger runs the Weiniger Group, a seven-person real estate agency in central New Jersey. She’s active on various platforms, including social media, Youtube, and her website.
But, Weiniger doesn’t do content marketing just about selling houses; she makes it about what someone buying a house in the area would need and want to know. In other words, the content she provides is not one promotion, listing, or sales pitch after another. It is useful information that helps her audience.
That is the pinnacle of great content.
7 Content Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents
1. Real Estate Content Marketing Ideas All Start With The Right Agent Website
Let’s start by looking at her website. To begin, it’s gorgeous. You should click through to see the video background in the hero section; the following screenshots don’t do it justice.
Visitors are greeted with a friendly hello message — “Welcome to our neighborhood!” — followed by two CTAs directing them exactly where to go next.
While this isn’t connected to content marketing, notice that in the top right there’s a prominent “Let’s Talk” button for anyone wanting to connect directly.
As you scroll down, you’ll see the type of content she’s releasing, and it’s just what home buyers want to see.
First, there are the featured listings.
If the prospective homebuyer is there to look at houses, this section lets them do that … immediately.
Homes By Krista (a Carrot customer) takes a similar approach. It opens with a beautiful hero image and simple problem-solving message: “Sell your house faster and for more money” and “Find and buy the perfect home with less hassle.”
To find out more about getting your conversion-optimized Agent website, go here!
In Weiniger’s case, after taking care of the low-hanging-lead-fruit, she turns her full attention to content.
2. Real Estate Agent Blogging Ideas That Are Way More than Just Listings
Rather than just featuring houses and soliciting sellers, Weiniger caters her blog to people who either don’t know if they want to move to central New Jersey yet or are looking to explore the area.
Want proof?
Scroll further down the homepage, and this is what you’ll see.
Weiniger doesn’t just play the part of a real estate agent — a home-finder and home-seller — she plays the part of friendly food citric, supermarket expert, school advisor, and more.
And they deliver. Two of Weiniger’s most popular posts at first appears to have nothing to do with real estate at all: The ULTIMATE Guide to Farmers Markets & Farm Stands in Central New Jersey and 11 Favorite Yoga (& Pilates!) Studios In & Around Warren.
But that “appearance” is exactly the point. Both articles answer the kinds of questions someone relocating or settling in would naturally have. When they take to the internet to find answers … guess who they find:
Weiniger occupies the second organic search result on page one of Google (the only result that beats them is an actual yoga studio and they even outrank Yelp). Plus, the posts are more than just words. They include embedded YouTube videos, direct links to all the mentioned resources, and interactive maps.
At the end of each post is Weiniger herself, her contact information, and a CTA to “Schedule Now”:
Naturally, once a visitor reaches the end of a post, Weiniger has positioned herself as an advisor. She’s helped them. She’s generated trust. And really… that’s the point.
Feel like that sort of design and technological integration is beyond you? It’s not because all those slick elements aren’t necessary.
Cranford & Westfield New Jersey Real Estate’s blog follows a similar topic pattern, without all the visual bells and whistles. And yet, this post — Grilled Cheese Shoppe Opening Celebration TODAY in Westfield, NJ — has generated nearly 2k shares on social media and ranks on the first page of Google:
The point is: that every real estate agent can do this with their blog content. After all, real estate agents know the area they live in better than almost anyone else. Why not utilize this knowledge of your town like Weiniger has?
Want even more real estate blogging resources?
Also, check out these two posts for inspiration:
3. Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas Where You Aren’t The Star
If you didn’t notice on their homepage, Weiniger also has a box linked to her YouTube page. One of the reasons you might have missed it is because it’s not titled, “Real Estate Videos.” Instead, it’s enticing: “Explore NJ Community Videos.”
On her YouTube channel, Judy educates viewers about everything from New Jersey’s local pharmacy to great pizza, pasta, and seafood in the area.
She does this with short video clips introducing each industry.
Sight is our most engaging sense, and using video to leverage that fact is a great way to engage potential clients. 51% of marketers name video as the type of content with the best return on investment.
But rest assured, these don’t need to be cinematic masterpieces. All these videos have in common: they’re about serving their audience… not serving the agent.
And as a Carrot member, you can even turn your video content in long-form blog content with the click of a button using what we call VideoPost.
But what should you talk about in these videos? What kind of advice should you offer? Here are a few ideas…
- Advice For First-Time Homebuyers — Show new homebuyers how to secure a low-interest loan, how to negotiate with sellers, what to look for when seeing a home for the first time, and tons more.
- Advice For People Trying to Sell Their Home — Show home sellers how they can get top-dollar for their house, how they can stage their property on a budget, or what kind of renovations they should make before selling.
- Testimonial Video For Your Business — Do you have a client who is exceptionally happy with your services? Ask them if you can record a short video of them giving you a recommendation. That will make for some great social media street-cred.
- Community Videos — As a real estate agent, you know your community better than most people. Record a video showing potential buyers all of the great things about your city, where to eat, what to do, and the best places to live.
Need some more inspiration?
- Here are 12 ideas to fuel your Real Estate Video Marketing campaign.
4. Real Estate Lead-generation Guides Worth Signing Up For
Also, on her homepage, Weiniger links to a piece of content that is real estate lead generation gold: a guide. In her case, it’s the “40 Top Tips For Selling Your Home!”
Because this guide goes above and beyond the typical blog post, it’s “gated,” meaning you have to signup for access:
This is precisely what you should do with your free guides — make it so people have to give you their contact information to receive the resource. That way, you’re simultaneously providing free value to your audience and generating leads for your business.
Bend’s Station takes the same approach, though they dedicate considerable online real estate to their guide on their homepage:
Inside is a beautiful and picturesque overview of the entire Bend area. And it ends with two opportunities to go deeper with Bend Station: (1) an email signup box and (2) a full form to “Get in Touch”:
Both guides major on the needs and wants of either prospective sellers or prospective buyers. They’re helpful and provide genuinely valuable content you can replicate for your local area (seeing a trend yet?).
5. Real Estate Agent Infographics Should Make Sense Of The Numbers
Speaking of beautiful and picturesque, also on Weiniger’s blog, you’ll find a series of Warren NJ Market Reports. Each one contains easy-to-understand (and easy-to-create) graphics summarizing the previous month’s real-estate financials:
Each time they culminate is a powerful, one-two content punch: (1) access to a digital copy of the report and (2) a CTA to “Chat with Judy!”
Keeping Current Matters follows a similar path with their simple, but wildly popular infographic that has been shared nearly 10k times:
Likewise, 1850 Realty supplies local market trends in a visual form both on their blog and across their social media:
Raleigh Reality takes a good versus bad approach with their companion infographics:
Even more simplified (but no less beautiful) are West + Main Homes’ monthly Real Estate Market Reports:
If creating graphics with something like PhotoShop or InDesign intimidates you, check out Canva or Venngage to build your own … easily.
Learn more about how you can create amazing real estate infographics
- How to Create Real Estate Agent Infographics with 10 Examples
6. Genuinely “Social” Content Marketing On Your Real Estate Social Media
Not surprisingly, Weiniger’s real estate content is all over social media. So we’ll take each one in turn.
To start, she uses her Twitter account to do much the same thing she does with her blog and Youtube videos, but with less defined reason.
Her reason for creating the content I’m going to show you seem to be because she realizes that creating helpful content for everyone in central New Jersey is a great way to build rapport.
Plus, the more rapport you build, the more clients you’ll receive through word-of-mouth advertising; which no one needs to tell you is the most powerful form of advertising.
This Twitter post that leads to her blog is particularly engaging.
Our weekend guide is LIVE! 🎉 Don’t miss out on what’s happening in #CentralNJ 🗓😃>> https://t.co/psYJz2ZZdO pic.twitter.com/fyCAaoXIi8
— Judy Weiniger (@judyweiniger) January 26, 2017
You might think that when you click on the link, it’s going to be featured houses for sale that she’s trying to trick you into purchasing with some well-placed click bait, but that’s not the case.
Click through, and you’ll see a very legitimate list of weekend activities for the everyday New Jersey family.
Or…
She also uses Twitter to direct traffic to her blog cleverly:
Make the most of spring & get ahead on some home maintenance projects! 🌱🛠️💦 Check out these ideas & tips >> https://t.co/qBoczJH8oE pic.twitter.com/svDIIcEXTP
— Judy Weiniger (@judyweiniger) March 13, 2017
Twitter also serves as a way to send “follows” to her other social media platforms, such as Instagram:
Thank you @placester for the opportunity to share my passion of creating valuable content https://t.co/vEEARUDeRW
— Judy Weiniger (@judyweiniger) March 12, 2017
The tweet leads you here:
From Instagram, you can then jump to her blog post and webinar on Placester
And what’s the webinar about? Creating exactly the kind of content we’ve worked through above:
“I wanted to always lead with value and lead with trust. A better way for me to do that was providing content that really mattered. Valuable content that people couldn’t find elsewhere. As a local expert in my community, I was the perfect person to be able to create it and then distribute it.”
Judy Weniger, CEO of Weniger Group
Take Tom Flanagan, who is a believer in posting helpful tidbits of content for his followers on Twitter that lead back to content on their blogs:
#Amazon now offering smart home consultations in select cities: https://t.co/Ka1CQAbmJM #IoT #InternetofThings #smarthome
— Tom Flanagan (@tflan) March 1, 2017
These agents prove that not all your content must be a sales pitch. Content that is not a sales pitch is attractive to everyone… including those you want to sell to.
Weiniger’s Facebook account reveals how every realtor should use social media. One obvious application is posting pictures of houses that are for sale.
Because while you don’t want to be overbearing, you also don’t want to avoid talking about houses totally. People know you’re a realtor and they want to see what you have to offer. Pictures are a great way to do that.
Heck, even people who aren’t looking for a house might reconsider if they see some incredible pictures of an affordable home.
She also uses a Facebook page rather than a personal account which conveniently allows clients to review her.
Weiniger also posts fun, personable, and interesting videos of local restaurants. This video content benefits the local diner, people moving to the area looking for somewhere to eat, and — ultimately — your business.
You can even take inspiration from a real estate agent, Jim Walberg, and post quick tips for people living in the area. Because, if we’re being honest, real estate is nothing without a healthy dose of city and state pride.
Saddle up for a deeper look at Facebook Ads for Real Estate
- Facebook Ads for Real Estate: The Why and How of Getting (REAL) Leads
Let’s not forget Instagram!
Instagram is great for real estate agent content marketing because it’s a highly visual platform and, well… real estate is a highly visual product (house buyers love to look at pictures of houses).
Here’s a great example of a real estate agent’s post on Instagram…
Like this post, be sure to include your phone number and email address in every post so people can get ahold of you if they’re interested. Also, don’t forget to include relevant hashtags since that’s one of the best ways to get found out on Instagram (#housesforsale, for example).
I’d recommend using at least 10 hashtags on everything you post.
TikTok
TikTok is a new social media platform where users can view and share short video clips of just about anything — funny, serious, motivational… whatever!
And the platform is growing like a weed. It already has 500 million users, 41% of whom are aged between 16 and 24. Still, quite a few home-buying millennials and even some older folk visit the platform regularly.
You might be even more surprised to find out that many local businesses are finding great attention-grabbing, lead-gen success on Tik Tok — doctor’s offices, dentists, and even real estate agents are using the platform to spread brand awareness in their local area.
Here’s a great step-by-step video from a real estate agent talking about how you can use Tik Tok to generate leads for your real estate business.
![🔴 How to use TikTok for Real Estate Agents [ Step by Step TUTORIAL + Marketing Strategy ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ggNl1mx8LS4/maxresdefault.jpg)
7. Podcasting For Brand Awareness & Leads
Maybe you’ve never thought about creating a podcast before.
It’s probably not the first thing that came to mind when you considered creating a content marketing strategy for your real estate business.
But why not? There are plenty of buyers, sellers, and other agents who’d like to learn from an expert like yourself — why not be the one to teach them? Especially since doing so could result in tons of referrals and leads.
After all, when your committed podcast listeners here about someone who needs help buying or selling a home, who will they recommend?
That’s right, YOU!
And the best part is that creating a real estate podcast is as easy as pie in today’s world. You just need a decent mic (audio is one of the most important elements of any podcast) and some great content ideas.
Then, you can start recording your podcasts for free over at Buzzsprout — after some time, you’ll have to pay for hosting, but you can get started for no cost.
As for getting a decent mic, check out our technical recommendations over here for creating a real estate podcast.
And for coming up with great content ideas for your first few episodes, consider…
- Doing a few history lessons about the town where you operate. This can work to create interest in your local market and establish you as the go-to expert.
- Tips and tricks for selling or buying a home. You know way more than most people about how to sell a home for top dollar or how to buy a home at a discount. Why not share what you’ve learned and by so doing, increase people’s perception of your expertise.
- Real estate education. If you’ve ever thought about coaching other real estate investors or agents on how to build their own successful businesses, a podcast is a perfect place to do just that. Share what you’ve learned and, eventually, you might even get paid to consult up-and-coming agents or investors.
- Weekly updates. People read the newspaper and look on social media to find out what’s going on in their local community… how about they listen to your podcast instead? Every week, you could give updates about scheduled events, political developments, and other items of local interest.
One thing’s for sure — your podcast won’t start itself! So grab a mic and get recording. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy doing it.
Content Marketing for Real Estate Agents: What You Can (And Should) Use
Content isn’t truly content unless it gives. At its heart, content is a mode of creation that offers something to someone else before expecting anything in return. It really comes down to one question: Does it add value?
Have fun. Look for inspiration anywhere and everywhere, even in industries that aren’t about real estate — like technology, B2B, SaaS (software as service), and ecommerce content marketing. Sometimes, that’s where you’ll the best and untapped ideas.
Write about a local pizza shop that is making a killing. Do a video interview with your community college about its success. Create an infographic discussing how safe the local public schools are.
Whether it’s a guide for PPC or a list of popular local restaurants, your content strategy needs to revolve around the homebuyer and home seller, not around your monetary gain.
Realtor’s who’ve found the balance between when to make a sales pitch and when to produce purely helpful content are the most successful realtors.
In other words, your real estate content marketing strategy shouldn’t focus on selling yourself, but on buyers and sellers themselves, the people behind the money.
Thanks for the highlight. Cool to see what other people think about our efforts!
Greg! Happy to highlight great work man! Keep up the great work!
Awesome. I’m going to be referring back to this post often. LOTS of ideas here. And, she’s doing it right. Love the emphasis on giving value. Currently, as a one man team, the challenge of content/wholesaler/realtor is real. :)
Hey, Eric!
Gotta give props to Judy’s crazy consistent and helpful content creation. She DEFINITELY knows what she’s doing.
Glad you enjoyed the piece! :-)