Digital real estate marketing terms you should know
While you’re an expert in the field of real estate, there may still be a few things you don’t know about digital real estate marketing. We’ve narrowed down some of the more common digital marketing terms you should know to help you succeed in your digital marketing campaigns.
Content marketing
Starting with a term that gets thrown around a lot – content marketing. Content marketing is a strategic approach to marketing your business online. It focuses on consistently creating and distributing high-quality and valuable content (think how-to videos, blogs, social media posts and infographics). This content is designed to attract and engage a specific target audience and convert them to paying clients.
Target audience
So, who exactly is your target audience? A target audience is the group of people you want to become future clients or customers. Your content marketing may be aimed at a number of target audiences. For example, you may target first home buyers in a specific region or maybe you want to target anyone who wants to sell their home at auction.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
With any marketing campaign, you run, whether online or in print, you want to measure its performance. In digital content marketing, we use KPIs to measure the performance of a particular strategy and evaluate its profitability. Let’s say you set your KPIs for your latest email newsletter at a 20 per cent open rate (meaning 20 per cent of people who receive the email open and read it). You’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your email newsletter by comparing its actual open rate performance to your KPI.
Open rate
Open rate is a term we use when talking about email marketing. Pretty self-explanatory, the open rate measures how many people opened and read the email newsletter you sent them. A higher open rate should be your goal in email marketing.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
That brings us to CTR. The CTR is the percentage of people who click on a particular link you send to them or share with them on your website or on social media. If you post a Facebook update with a link to your website, you’ll be able to measure the CTR by checking how many people clicked on the link. If 100 people saw the link you posted, but only ten people clicked on it, you have a CTR of 10 per cent. Obviously the higher CTR you have, the better.
Blog
A blog is a piece of high-quality content that is designed to educate, entertain and engage a specific target audience. What you’re currently reading is a blog. A blog serves to add value to your target audience, helping them understand something they hadn’t understood before reading your blog.
Content Management System (CMS)
When setting up your blog, you may come across the term CMS. CMS is the software on which a website or a blog is built. It is designed to help you manage your website and upload content.
Editorial calendar
When speaking to marketers about improving your flow of content, you may hear the term editorial calendar. The editorial calendar, or content calendar, is a schedule that you make to organise the creation and publication of your blog content to your website, social media channels and email. It’s designed to help you keep track of when to post content online.
Infographics
Infographics are a form of content that includes the use of visual images, such as charts or diagrams. These images are used to explain information or data to people who may not understand how something works. For example, an infographic of how to buy a house would visually explain the steps someone would need to take and in which order.
Website traffic
Like all digital content marketing campaigns, your website performance should also be measured regularly. Website traffic refers to the number of people visiting your website at any given time. Higher website traffic means more people are visiting your website. By measuring your website traffic, you can also determine how long people are spending on your website.
Call to Action (CTA)
All of the digital content you share should include a CTA which is an instruction designed to prompt someone to take a specific action. For example, at the end of your blog, you might include a CTA which directs readers to sign up to your email newsletter for more information. The CTA should be aligned with your long term digital content marketing goals, whether that’s increasing your email subscriptions or increasing traffic to your website.
Conversion rate
The conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete an action on your website, social media pages or email newsletter. For example, you might have a contact form on your website and anyone who visits your website is prompted to fill it in. Those who do submit the contact form are converted as they’ve taken the action you wanted them to. A higher conversion rate means more people are completing the action you want them too.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the practice of influencing a website’s visibility in a search engine’s results. By incorporating relevant keywords, publishing content to your website regularly and generating links to your website and content, you increase the likelihood of your website appearing in someone’s search results.
Keyword
A keyword is a specific word or phrase that someone types into a search engine to find the information they are looking for. For example, someone looking to purchase a brand new home in Sydney may search in Google for “new home Sydney.” That phrase would be the keyword you use on your website or in a blog so that it appears in the Google search results.
Landing page
A landing page is a website page that contains a form used to capture information and convert visitors into leads. Often the landing page will provide a valuable piece of content, such as a downloadable PDF guide to buying a house. In order to download this information, someone would need to provide their contact information in a form.
Now that you understand the basics of digital content marketing, it’s time to put your knowledge into practice and ramp up your digital marketing campaigns.
