It is important to understand the behavioral psychology of homebuyers in order to sell homes. According to a recent homebuyer survey by NAR, 92% of home buyers used the internet to find the home they purchased. The survey by NAR also suggests that 76% of buyers drove by a home they first saw on the internet. 75% of prospective homebuyers start searching for a home online a year prior to purchasing. 62% of buyers walk through a home they first viewed online. These are some pretty strong statistics suggesting how homebuyers behave online prior to initiating a purchase. Therefore, it is important to think about whether or not your marketing strategy has considered the internet and the related devices people are using to get property information. For example, desktop computers, tablets and mobile devices.
Here are some general tips to consider when developing a marketing strategy in a cross-device world.
- Content – be direct on communicating the price, affordability (if relevant), product type, location and lifestyle elements.
- Value Propositions – Think about the attributes an appraiser would consider and apply that context to the headlines and sub-headlines. Also consider incorporating the advantages, and/or differentiators of the community as a headline.
- Mobile Sites – Zillow recently reported at a conference that 70% of their traffic comes from mobile devices over the weekends. Is your website responsive to mobile browsers? Speed matters as well. A recent report cited 71% of mobile users will leave a site if it does not load within five seconds. Mobile is as important as desktop computers.
- Video – One study cited 89% of believability is based upon a person’s vision. According to a recent Forrester study, a one minute video can represent up to 1.8 million words. We buy with our eyes. Combine great content with great images to get the most out of the marketing strategy.
- Target Marketing – According to an NAHB study, over 90% of home purchases are influenced by women. Think about positioning your communication in a way that capitalizes on this finding.
There is also the unique proposition of building an application for your home real estate, and advertising your homes via an app. This can greatly improve customer reach and engagement. More information on this can be found at: https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/best-practices/application-development-tools/
It is important not to put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, diversify your efforts. Not all your marketing initiatives need to cost a lot of money. For example, yard signs are an immediate way to notify the neighbors along with drive by traffic. However, remember they may be researching the house on their mobile devices before they ever drive by the home.
Omar Tawakol, BlueKai’s former CEO states “Cross-linking everything across screens and devices is the biggest and most important trend this year” in a 2015 interview with eMarketer. This would allow for companies to target and track which device drives the most sales. Have you thought about what device drives the most sales for your business?
This post was contributed by Element-360, an Asheville based real estate internet marketing. They are a Google Certified Partner helping real estate developments generate leads online.
