Content Marketing vs Email vs Social Media
Altogether, applied correctly, adopting these three professionally in a marketing drive for your business could really see you raking in results that have a long term increase of interest and customers for your business.
Each undoubtedly must be adopted in any marketing plans you have set for your business, the results that each, or a combination of, will give can mean the difference between succeeding and failing. Dismiss them at your peril I would say, though even more of a warning as I do suspect that many readers will already be using them, use them incorrectly and not to their maximum then you could pay for it!
For the last few years I would say that Content Marketing, Email marketing and Social Media have been my three biggest tools in building brands online, building revenue and also building my own profile by online networking and face to face networking. All three are a lot more than just what their names suggest:
- Content Marketing: Not just simply blog writing, but really must cover the likes of images, videos, eBook, Podcasts and much more than would quantify as content.
- Email: We are not just talking about remembering to send someone a reply email now and again, we are speaking of building email databases that are correctly set in to lists to enable target emailing, using email softwares to automate mail outs, using correctly branding emails, attracting new emails via capture forms, newsletters and more.
- Social Media: Yes, I am sure you are all on Twitter and Facebook in Estate Agency, but what about exploring the other channels out there, do you update daily, have you created hashtags, have you created pages for your business, groups for relevant keywords, live streamed video content etc.
Content marketing is a flooded market place already, whatever you are searching for online you will find from eBooks to videos, what ever keyword in any language you will find that someone is already blogging, videoing, photographing about it. So how do you pick a subject to concentrate on and make an impression?
What I suggest is be very specific, this will eliminate a lot of the competition. Not only specific, but narrow the search down also by keeping it local so that when it comes to gaining traffic from natural searches online, you are more likely to be found. An example of how to start with a major keyword and squeeze it down to a more easy to find keyword:
(An Estate Agency selling high valued homes in Essex) Property – UK Property – Property for sale in Essex – Prestigious Homes in Essex.
Email marketing is still seen today as the best way to gain new business, it achieves the best results for ROI, gets the best open rates and achieves the most repeated and new orders etc
“For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI.” – Campaign Monitor
“56% of companies currently use an email marketing provider and are 75% or more likely to be purchasers of marketing automation software over the next year.” – VentureBeat
What makes email marketing even more likely to succeed for your business is how neat your lists are and how you send your emails. Having myself built email databases of 10,000’s of active subscribers, the best ways to build your email lists include:
- Have a capture form on your website that allows people to sign up and choose which sector they are in, ie consumer, estate agent, service provider, Age Group 18-30, Male / Female etc. This will then enable you to build lists of emails to send emails that are more suited to the content you are sending them.
- Use a software that easily manages your lists of emails and send out emails that have set templates with content relevant to the lists you are targeting.
- Use Email signatures / branding so that when you send personal emails out you are sending an email that is branded with your company details and links rather than just sending a blank email or one with just a basic signature at the bottom.
Social Media needs no introduction, but most certainly does need a refresher course for many of it’s users from time to time. The pace at which this type of marketing is running at is incredible as more and more people and businesses start to use it and more and more people accessing social media via mobile appliances – Social Media really is something that we carry around with us more or less 27/7 as many readers I am sure can admit to sleeping with their mobile phone, hopefully on silent, on their bedside cabinet or even between their sheets once in a while as you fall asleep looking at your screen etc.
So, what can we make sure we are doing in order to benefit more from social media? Make sure that you see the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn as more than just having an account and sending updates… You must learn to engage, educate and entertain in a two way relationship, both sharing great content regularly your side and commenting on and liking content shared by others – quite literally the basic of business networking and what the likes of BNI Business Networking have grown the foundations of the business networking groups over the years on.
Be sure to think outside the box, remember to share unique content that is yours such as photos and blogs, create yourself pages and groups so to grow your own audiences on top of just having your basic accounts, study what is trending, create hashtags, run competitions, share customer feedback, share business successes and much more.
What exactly is an online estate agency these days? Well that is any estate agency in my view, high street or not, that grasps what online marketing is all about and uses the likes of social media to it’s full potential in order to attract local audiences.
The great thing about Content Marketing, Email and Social Media is that they can all blend in to one way of working, one train of thought and process and especially with today’s softwares and automation systems, they can all bounce off from each other. Your one goal from all of this should importantly be to get your audience to a capture point which could be your website, your listings on Rightmove, your Amazon page etc.
So, to get people to your ‘capture point‘, let us say in this instance your own website, you need to have great content such as blogs, images and videos which should be then shared on to your social media channels to increase viewers and readership over to your website. Once on your website you should have capture forms to increase your emails which should allow new registrations/subscribers to not only enter their names and emails, but also select industry they are in or other details such as gender, age etc. Build your target email databases then you can apply your professionally made emails to market to them with that once again drives readers to a capture point which should this time be to the products / services you are selling as you should now have a motivated target audience to sell to.
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