Well-crafted content is your 24/7 paid or unpaid sales force. Starting and maintaining a business can be expensive without an organic strategy. Organic marketing leverages existing resources you may not have yet considered. Besides being cost-effective, organic marketing focuses on engagement, which allows you to nurture potentially loyal and fruitful connections for free.
The trick to organic marketing is to provide value with every post. Your niche is humans who want content relevant to them and their lifestyles. You may find yourself chasing likes and views even though they do not increase your profit. It is always better to have high-converting traffic rather than vanity metrics.
Quality traffic + natural links + SEO = successful content
Best organic marketing strategies
Content is a major component of organic marketing. Part of organic content marketing is implementing the best SEO practices possible to build natural links, i.e., other websites linking to yours. Accomplish this by writing for client interest first and web crawlers second. Also, research the sites your customers visit and pitch articles to them.
Effective marketing is just being helpful and valuable.
Research
- Who your niche is
- What keeps them up at night
- Where they typically look for solutions
- How your content can be unique and compelling
- Where you can distribute your content
Newsletters
Stay top of mind for your audience with a weekly or monthly newsletter. Clients will value your newsletter if you choose topics that are timely, easy to consume and conversational. Test the best times to send out newsletters by constantly reviewing your MailChimp or similar platform data.
Always link back to your website. And make sure your copy is right for your audience. Use the words they do and use humor sparingly.
Topics should be:
- timely
- easy to consume
- conversational
Hyperlocal connections
Focus on complementary fields to your real estate service to provide additional resources and gain new audience members. Think housecleaners, staging companies and interior designers. Host giveaways together and be featured on each other’s feeds to build community trust. This also makes coveted referrals easier to make and receive.
Referrals
Word of mouth is the greatest form of marketing. Reach out to clients for reviews and referrals with a ‘Do you know anyone who could benefit from our/my services?’ Once you get a referral, sent a handwritten thank you note.
Reviews are a challenge to get in any industry. Your best bet is to ask right away when a client pays a compliment. Scan emails and comments for kind words. Keep asking for reviews, as they are essentially a numbers game.
Evergreen content
Your blog should be updated at least twice a week. Doing so allows the creation of evergreen content to raise your profile to customers, prospects and peers. Traffic, conversions and visibility should increase as your content is established as valuable.
Social media
Figure out where your niche audience is and seek them on social platforms. Make meaningful comments on posts directed toward your target audience. Build a community around your feeds by interacting with followers and posting what interests them.
Use Stories to post personal items, such as your dog or a recent trip. Your feed is the place for advice, hacks and insights. Captions now have more socially accepted space so you can essentially generate an optimized micro article on each post.
Explore online forums and message boards for inspiration. Clients always love Q & A’s. Reddit is a great platform to share authentic stories and promote your services. Do an Ask Me Anything (AMA) or an Instagram Live. Ask your social media followers to join.
Doing so will give insights into pain points and gains to extend your organic reach, improve your SEO ranking and increase conversions.
Solving problems builds trust and results in conversions.
Direct Marketing Strategy
You have to spend money to make money in business. Spending money on ads might seem intimidating at first. Decide which platforms your niche is on and optimize your marketing budget. Paid media can provide an increase in brand loyalty, engagement and conversions.
Your content needs to be worthy of boosting due to its perceived value to your niche. To skyrocket sales, test as often as possible before putting money behind a post.
Steps to kick start your direct marketing campaigns:
- Compile a database by sorting through your contacts.
- Choose which metrics you will use on specific platforms.
- Hire a copywriter specialized in your niche.
- Open a free Canva account to create compelling graphics.
- Perform A/B testing with a consistent goal in mind.
Direct mail
Traditional marketing still works and is welcomed. According to the Direct Marketing Association, more than 60 percent of people say that direct mail has kept a product or service top of mind. Seventy percent say direct mail is more personal than digital content. Think physical mail and flyers. Include a small gift, info about a giveaway and service/product reminders.
Direct mail has many benefits. Real estate agents understand that staying top of mind is everything in any type of market. This type of paid marketing can be:
- customized
- tested
- measured
You cannot achieve great results if the quality of your mailing list is lacking. Not every piece you send will convert. You may even send a few to the wrong address or not get the response you want in the first two or three rounds. Keep going.
With direct mail, you want a potential client to schedule a call, hire you and let you guide their buying/selling journey, so include a distinct CTA with every piece of digital and physical mail.
Cold calling
There is an art to cold calling. Hire a person or team to call potential and existing clients. If you call someone during their commute or dinner, you risk a specific wrath only available during those times. While you risk a scolding, you may also be gifted with immediate feedback and results.
The absolute worst that can happen is someone hangs up on you or tells you off. Just hang up and move on to the next number. A bad streak of calls does not mean you should give up. Every no leads to a yes if you stay consistent.
Social media
Everyone is on social media. Paid social media displays advertisements or sponsored marketing messages to a specific sub-audience.
Examples of paid social media advertising include:
- pay-per-click advertising
- branded content
- display ads
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook monopoly means that if you choose, your ad can run on Facebook and Instagram at the same time.
Many real estate professionals gain traction with Facebook Targeted Ads. The process begins with bidding on a number of keywords targeting your niche.
Harness the power of Facebook by performing extensive A/B testing. Be mindful that your experimentations might only work for this platform.
Boasting more than 200 million accounts, Instagram is a must. Almost 60 percent of Instagrammers discover new products and services on the site. The algorithm for this platform is constantly changing, meaning posts may not show up in client feeds, but ads always will.
Your Instagram budget is tied to the length of the ad’s run, i.e., your ad runs for as long as you pay for. Stand out with a stellar image or video designed for free on Canva.
LinkedIn is now a power player in paid social media with 630 million professionals on the platform. Besides forging professional connections, you can reach your niche easily and raise brand awareness. All you need to do for the site’s targeted ads is type in your chosen keywords and select your niche. Set your budget and keep an eye on your results.
Let’s bring your business to a new level of success. Contact me at 786-208-0451 to discuss your goals and get started today.