The real estate industry is changing. Yes, it takes quite the effort to move from tried-out traditional marketing to a new digital one. But, still, more and more real estate agencies start investing in online marketing strategies. It’s happening because they see that there is a new kind of buyer who is communicating and doing extensive research online before actually making their final purchase.

According to Real Estate in a Digital Age 2017 Report from the National Association of Realtors, 48% of all firms cited that keeping up with technology is one of the biggest challenges which is facing their firm in the next two years.

What’s more, the number of real estate agents grows every day, and the most advanced ones quickly take over the market. So, the main goals for real estate agents and marketers are to promote their projects effectively online, respond to queries faster, nurture their leads, and, ultimately, turn more contacts into listings and purchases.

So, today we've put together a list of useful tools to help you in your real estate marketing in 2018.

Showcasing property

Nowadays, buyers are not driving around looking for the neighborhood or house that they are dreaming about. Instead, they’re browsing the web.

Here’s where Zillow comes into place. Zillow is the real estate and rental marketplace that is dedicated to empowering consumers with data, inspiration, and knowledge about the houses, and connecting them with the best local professionals. So, you need to be there if you want to be discovered, because Zillow also offers the ability to advertise as an agent on their website.

Matterport is even more than real estate descriptions. It allows you to create virtual tours easily – from photos to floor plans in 3D and VR. This 3D media platform also helps navigate, modify, and share interactive 3D and virtual reality spaces for multiple industries.

Generating leads and communicating

CallAction is a marketing automation platform that can be used for your offline or online lead generation efforts, to respond to inquiries from the three primary forms of communication – phone calls, emails, and text messages. It allows you to easily capture, track, and respond to your clients for increased engagement and conversions.

With CallAction, you can create a local or toll-free phone number for each of your marketing channels, to automatically track every inbound call. It’s great for real estate farming when you specialize in a certain geographic area and want to become a local expert there.

Venngage is a free online graphic design tool with tons of real estate-specific templates--some are free, some require a small monthly fee to use. Create real estate infographics to take your blog and social media posts to the next level.

Or take advantage of their real estate brochure or flyer templates and use the drag and drop tool to quickly customize it. Swap in different photos or icons thanks to an in-editor library, add your brand colors with one click, change the text etc. No design experience required.

Follow Up Boss is a CRM that boasts leading systems and technology to help you to respond faster and nurture your leads, turning more contacts into listings.

It focuses on lead distribution, which makes the platform useful to real estate teams and brokerages. By using Follow Up Boss, you can manage email, lead auto-responders, and see social information all in one place. You can also develop and use email and contact templates and set goals and reminders.

Online scheduling is another great opportunity for every real estate agent and broker. It saves you from those tedious back-and-forth email conversations and directs your clients to your online calendar so that they know your time commitments and available time slots.

Plus, your appointment calendar can be a useful link to include on social media and email marketing, to move prospects along the sales process.



Working with documents

FlippingBook is a professional software for converting PDFs into online documents. It helps real estate agents create digital marketing brochures, proposals, and listings that are easy to share and open on any device, which gives them wider outreach on social media.

FlippingBook format is interactive: it allows you to use high-resolution images, videos, and links to additional resources. So, it can become a convenient way to showcase properties and work face to face with a client.

DocuSign allows you to handle the paperwork from anywhere. This makes it convenient to get signatures and manage your contracts from one location. By using DocuSign, you don’t have to worry about keeping your books organized and forgetting a signature. If you forget to get something signed, just send the contract off.

It’s also easy to embed electronic signing and payment requests into your existing website, portals, and applications. With DocuSign, you can automate and streamline nearly every agreement, and save time and money while staying secure and compliant.



Working with social media

There are many ways to spark up your real estate social marketing efforts. To keep track of all of your activities, you can use a social media management platform, like Sprout Social, to keep all your social media scheduling, engagement, and analytics in one manageable space.

Hootsuite allows you to save time and manage multiple social profiles in one place. When you post on Hootsuite, it will auto-post to all of your social profiles.

It also lets you find and filter social conversations by keyword, hashtag, and location in multiple languages to hear what people are saying about your brand, competitors, and industry.



Digital age brings new opportunities for real estate

The digital age makes us much more self-sufficient. The same goes for buying property: people start doing their own research, gather knowledge online, and then come to a real estate agent already equipped with information knowing what they want.

This changes your role as a real estate agent and means that you have to adjust your ways of marketing projects, finding new leads, and presenting your materials. The good news is that there are many easy-to-use tools that can help you on this road to digitizing your real estate marketing. So, go ahead and use these opportunities to grow your business in 2018.

Do you already use digital marketing tools for real estate in your everyday work? Do they help you to be more efficient and close more deals? Tell us in the comments below.