Modern content strategies are simple in theory, but difficult to do in practice for most estate agencies. At least here in Marbella, Spain.
Key ingredient 1: Produce content your buyers (or collaborators) want, and
Key ingredient 2: ensure they see/consume it.
If you don’t have anything to say of value. Say nothing.
Otherwise, it’s just noise.
So if it’s this easy, why does it nearly always fall down?
Typically, either in the quality of the content or the lack of being able to get this content to the right people fails (or worse, getting it to them but then gating the content behind a form like it’s 2015… think the classic crappy e-book)
This isn’t lead generation, it’s demand generation.
The 2 common scenarios I’ve witnessed in the real estate sector here in Marbella over the years:
SCENARIO 1. The estate agent does his/her own content but doesn’t know how to produce it professionally, consistently, or know how to reach the target audience. The content doesn’t get consumed.
SCENARIO 2. The estate agent hires an outside marketing agency (I ran one for years) or expert that has nothing to say, but is great at producing the (mostly vanilla) content, and delivering it to intended audiences. The content gets seen, looks polished, but is not consumed because it’s soulless & boring.
Both fail because they are missing one of the 2 key ingredients.
The secret?
YOU be the originator of the content, YOU are the expert. ..and get a professional – whether in-house marketing person or 3rd party marketing agency or a mixture of both – to produce and distribute it.
So breaking it down:
1. Have you got something to say or contribute which delivers value? (if not, don’t bother).
2. Have you selected the best channels to reach your audience? Is it Instagram? Email? YouTube? Facebook? LinkedIn? Twitter (it ain’t)? Pinterest?
(hint: your audience IS present is in all channels to one degree or another, but time and money resources are limited, so pick the path of less resistance, seek professional help here).
3. Do you have the skillset to produce this content in practical terms so it represents the brand properly?
4. Do you have the skillset to deliver this content to the audiences via the selected channels?
5. Do you have the infrastructure to deliver this strategy consistently?
6. How are you going to measure success?
(hint, don’t obsess over attribution, and it’s NOT about clicks to your website, get over it).
In this video US based leading demand gen expert Chris Walker explains it beautifully: https://youtu.be/JCjvJb46FYg
His SIX steps to build a content strategy:
1. Assemble the 4 skill-sets needed
2. Formulate the strategy itself
3. Set up the process for consistency
4. Post-production framework
5. Distribution framework
6. Gather feedback, tweak, repeat
FINAL WORD; Have a chat with your current marketing agency, they can probably help you put the above in place. It’s not about changing agency or sacking your in-house team, it’s about having a modern strategy that makes sense.
