July 2020 - PrimeGate Digital

How to Generate Leads for a Real Estate Agency in Nigeria

Generate Leads For Real Estate in Nigeria

If you’re a real estate agent in Nigeria who wants to generate leads for your business, then you must have discovered that you must reinvest your earned commissions into marketing. However, having no strategy with this, your success is more likely to be limited.

The real estate industry is fiercely competitive. Whether you’re a seasoned real estate professional or just a beginner, this competition is really tough. With thousands of real estate agents in Lagos alone, that’s a lot of competition!

This article is meant to help any real estate agent in Nigeria to generate leads online – no matter what your experience is with Digital Marketing.

Therefore, no matter how difficult it seems to succeed as a real estate agent in Nigeria, we advise you not to give up! Stick with us as we share real estate marketing strategies that you need to dominate the market.

Real Estate Digital Marketing Challenges in Nigeria

When you think about digital marketing, the real estate industry presents its own unique challenges. Perhaps, when compared to similar industries, it appears even more competitive, time demanding, and highly localized.

As a matter of fact, it’s surefire that you’ll be competing with the same agents in the same communities. And your competitors are also trying to leverage on the new wave of digital marketing.

Your digital marketing strategy must grab potential clients’ attention, and that’s the goal of this post.

How To Generate Leads For Real Estate Agency in Nigeria

So how do you grab prospective customers attention?

Have a professional website.
Find out the best strategy to reach your potential buyers in your area.
Send them to your website as capture them as lead with a lead magnet
Nurture these lead in your funnel and keep following up with them.
…profit!

If you understand these key elements and how to implement them, then your success as a real estate agent is guaranteed.

Stick with us as we take a deeper dive into the points step by step.

Read: How To Target Wealth Individuals with Facebook Advertising

Why Generate Leads For Real Estate Online?

You might not at this point realize the benefits of marketing online.

“Does it really worth the effort and investment to learn all these opportunities that the digital asset presents to your business?“

The answer is an emphatic yes!

Here are the three main benefits that online marketing offers your business.

Build Your Personal Brand

No matter what industry you operate, your personal brand is something that goes with you always, for better or for worse. However, if you can horn your personal brand in real estate, then great possibilities await you.

Acquire New Customers

Perhaps you might be asking “don’t real estate agencies traditionally market their business offline using channels like, words of mouth, networking events, and workshops?”

Definitely yes, that’s the traditional approach. But there’s a better strategy to acquire leads for real estate?

Reaching out to potential clients online first is highly effective. A recent statistic by Content Preferences Survey shows that 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content on a product or service before engaging a sales representative.

Does this indicate that potential clients don’t want to engage a real estate agent? Not exactly. Buyers have become more informed. Hence, they have to do more research on their own first before talking to a real estate agent.

Kindly note that this has nothing to do with you – it’s just the way things are. This is, after all, the information age and need for instant gratification.

Engage With Existing Clients

Existing customers are easier to sell than new customers. In fact, you’re 60-70% more likely to sell to an existing client, compared to the 5-20% likelihood of selling to a new client.

How about reaching out to that home buyer you sold that property to months ago?

You are probably leaving a lot on the table when you are not building a relationship with your existing customer. Keeping up with your existing clients is just as important as sourcing for new clients.

Report by National Association of Realtors (NAR), shows that over 64% of an agent’s business comes from their circle of influence.

Hence, the importance of networking on social media is vital for real estate agents. The social media platforms avail you the opportunity to easily stay in touch with your clients. This keeps your brand at top of mind while increasing your chances of getting recommendation whenever they’re ready to buy or sell their home.

Digital The Future Of Real Estate Marketing

Still not convinced about the opportunities that digital marketing presents to your business? Or you would like to ignore it altogether, then consider this: none of us can ignore the new normal, the world of digital. Digital technologies are revolutionizing the world, inclusive of real estate marketing.

In fact, a recent survey revealed that 92% of home buyers leverage on the internet in their property search process.

Have I Got The Requirements To Succeed In Online Marketing?

Hopefully, you’ve decided to take this path. Here are three(3) key elements you need to succeed:

The right strategy – investing in the relevant tools
Basic marketing knowledge
Perseverance

Having the above, you’ll certainly be able to generate leads for your real estate agency, with a good return on investment.

Point number 3 is up to you – but we can always help if you can’t implement everything all by yourself.

As for strategic approach and marketing skill, keep reading and you’ll discover hidden secrets to your path of success.

Real Estate Digital Marketing Channels

Content Marketing

Content is king and prospective home buyers want to be informed more than ever.

Prospective buyers are constantly researching information on…

how to do it (how to buy a house in Lagos)
where to buy one (where to buy a house in Lagos, Nigeria)
who’s the best agent/lender/agency near me, etc.

Also, most buyers and sellers are consistently searching for trusted big real estate websites to find properties. If you want to outsmart your competition, then you need great content.

In short, become the real estate provider figure in your area.

How can you achieve this?

Simple – horn your personal brand as an expert in the industry

Start by creating quality content that potential home buyers or sellers are looking for. But what defines quality content?

Relevance to the target audience defines high-value content. The key is knowing who your target audience is, then create content that solves their pain point.

For instance, if you attract web visitors who searched for the keyword “how to buy a house in Lagos, Nigeria,” and you were able to answer that question thoroughly, they will not just perceive your content as valuable but also, they will trust your brand and see you as credible.

Here are a few different ways that you can distribute valuable content across the internet.

Create an easy to navigate neighbourhood pages and simple guides targeting specific and relevant keywords in your city.
Set up blogs and podcasts,
Create infographics.
Host webinars and training
All the above be discoverable on Google by anyone searching for information related to housing.

Read: Best Social Media Marketing Tools For Every Online Marketer

Social Media Marketing

Having a social media presence is a free way to increase brand awareness. And this occurs via “social selling.”

Social selling is the interaction that happens between the realtor and the prospective buyers on social media. This is an extremely effective form of selling.

According to a 2015 report by Feedback Systems, 61% of organizations that engaged in social selling saw an increase in revenue growth compared to 41% of organizations that did not use this as part of their sales strategy.

Besides engaging with potential home buyers, real estate agents can also employ new and effective social media strategy. This includes tactics like 360-degree images, online video series, and even panoramic images of the properties.

Another benefit of leveraging on social media for real estate is that you stand the opportunity of having your followers refer their friends and family to your business. This may sound quite a traditional tactics but yes, it is still effective.

The referral marketing approach is one of the most reliable strategies in generating leads for real estate industry. Besides being free, doing so will not only generate more leads but can also increase your social media fan base.

Consider our reaching out to us today for real estate social media marketing services help you with all the strategy you need to hit the ground running.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO helps your real estate website discoverable on search engine by prospective clients. It’s an interesting aspect of online marketing and you should begin by reading the benefits of SEO to Businesses. It is important to know that getting search traffic volume isn’t as vital as getting relevant local traffic for realtors.

Driving relevant, local traffic will help scale your personal branding as the neighbourhood expert in your industry. With local traffic, your realtors are more likely to generate potential clients.

Important SEO factors to consider when generating leads for real estate?

CTR: a high website click-through rate shows that your content is engaging and relevant to your audience. You can check your CTR in Google Search Console and also in Google Analytics. It’s also the best way to understand audience behaviour on your website.
Engagement: driving more engagement with your target existing/prospective clients will generate more referral business to you.
Social Proof: this helps you build website online authority as well as help you rank higher in search engines. This can be in the form of reviews and social share. Branding and listing alone won’t be enough. Social proof is also necessary to build credibility.

And when most people hear of search engine, what comes to mind?

Google. Of course.

However, SEO doesn’t just apply to Google search engine. There’s also Yahoo, Baidu, Bing, Yandex, and many others. Google records 92.06% of all online searches, but also ensure that your website is optimized for other big search engines like Bing and Yahoo.

Is your real estate website discoverable on search engine and to your prospective customers? If “no” or “I don’t know” or even “maybe” then you should consider implementing real estate SEO services strategically generate leads and acquire more customers.

Website Design

Your website design is your first impression to your prospective customers. And it plays a vital role in turning those website visitors into leads.

As a best practice, it is recommended that for realtors who desire to generate quality leads for real estate online, it’s crucial to have a beautiful and professionally designed website. Your prospective clients want to have a feeling of the home they want to buy. Your website should be able to inspire those feelings.

Did you know that over 80% users access the internet through mobile devices?

Mobile is no more the future, but the present. A higher percentage of internet users now own a smartphone. This has revolutionized the business world.

Your website design must be well optimized and mobile-friendly. The following statistics will show this is not optional. According to NAR’s 2016 home buyers and sellers report, 72% of home buyers search for homes using their mobile devices.

If you want to experience top-notch professionally designed real estate website that is mobile friendly and able to generate quality leads, then hire the best website developers.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation helps drive engagement on your website/blog. You can install these automation tools on any section of your website.

Over 64% of businesses that incorporated marketing automation on their website reported positive results within six months.

A good example of a marketing automation tool is the message bot.

Here are a few things they can do:

Strike engagement with visitors once they land on your website
Able to send targeted messages to your segmented audience
Leverage on visitor’s browser history to send them targeted messages.

Read: How Businesses Can Increase Digital Marketing ROI

Paid Advertising

Paid search advertising or pay per click is a form of advertising that allows advertisers to show ads in search engine results.

It is probably not the cheapest option out there but offers real estate agents the opportunity to generate quality leads for real estate. It is also a good strategy to support your existing listings, which is is plus because brand visibility is extremely crucial in real estate marketing.

Paid advertisements can be categorized into two: social media ads and paid search ads.

As a rule of thumb, knowing your target audience is vital when it comes to a paid advertisement. With social media ads, you also need to understand the stage your target audience is in the buyer’s journey.

For example, most audiences on LinkedIn are young professionals who aspire to purchase a house soon. And on Instagram, most are also young but are more likely to be browsing homes for fun and in their early stages of buying a house

However, paid search is more cost-effective than print advertising – with the capacity to increase return on investment. The average conversion rate in AdWords across all industries is about 3.75%. The display network is around 0.77%. These are just statistics that generate great revenue.

Ensure you have a crystallized digital marketing strategy if you want to generate leads for your real estate in Nigeria using paid ads. Without this strategy, relying only on paid ads to acquire new clients will eat deep into your marketing budget pretty quickly.

Ready to Generate More Leads?

Digital Marketing is useful for real estate. However, understanding your target audience is key. Your first priority should be to create relevant content that your target audiences are happy to consume.

There is a wide range of strategies, tools and digital marketing tactics that real estate agencies in Nigeria can use to generate leads online.

No one strategy fits all. Hence, it’s a best practice to leverage multiple strategies and channels to improve your visibility odds. Always optimized strategies that resonate with your clients.

If you’re a realtor who’s getting to know about online marketing, then you’ll probably need support. Feel free to get in touch with us. We’ll be super excited to help you achieve your goals.

July 10, 2020 1 Comment

Digital Marketing

35 Benefits of SEO & Why Every Nigerian Business Needs SEO

SEO is crucial for better online searchability and visibility but provides greater real value than that. Here are 35 benefits of SEO to the Nigerian business and why every business needs SEO to take their brand to the next level.

Perhaps, many brands and businesses out there know (or think they know) that they need SEO for their digital assets, and the benefits they will get from that SEO strategy being implemented on their behalf.

SEO will certainly improve a website’s overall searchability and visibility performance, but what other real value does it offer businesses and brand? Why is SEO so important?

These 35 benefits of SEO to Nigerian business should offer deeper clarity, regardless of the industry or business size, as to why businesses need proper SEO to take their brand to the next level.

Benefits of SEO to the Nigerian Business

This comprehensive list of SEO benefits to the Nigerian business will blow your mind. You will be thankful you found this content.

Every business irrespective of the industry or size needs to invest in search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art of optimizing your business website to achieve maximum organic traffic from search engines. Currently, the top search engines are Google, Bing, YouTube, and Yahoo.

This blog is a clarion call to everyone that does not have an effective SEO strategy for their business. Not leveraging all of the below SEO benefits is a huge mistake you are making.

You are leaving a lot on the table every day your website is not optimized for search engine result pages.

Here’s why.

1. People are actively searching for your products or services every second

With over 2 billion people online and 93% of online activities starting from a search engine, there is no better place to position your brand for visibility. It will interest you to know that Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second, translating to 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year.

SEO has presented millions of opportunities for your business to be discoverable. Why this is important is because your customers are already using search engines daily to research and discover products and services.

2. SEO attracts quality traffic

Search engine traffic is the best traffic. Why? Because there is a higher intent as people are actively searching for the real-time problem your business solves. You can draw in “free” quality traffic to your business. You do not have to “invest” huge advertising budget to persuade people to buy. Search traffic is already interested in your offers. Hence, the SEO industry is worth over $65 billion and it’s projected to reach $80 billion.

3. SEO traffic has higher conversion possibilities

Studies have shown that SEO traffic is 8.5x more likely to be clicked than other sources of traffic. In fact, for most websites, search traffic has the best conversion rates. By strategically positioning business on search engine result pages, you are consciously positioning your business to win more conversions.

4. SEO increases business sales and leads

SEO is real. You can leverage it to increase your leads and sales with a viable product or service. In just 5 months, one small business generated $103,510.98 worth of SEO results.

However, SEO results don’t happen overnight. You need to focus on the best SEO strategy. Implementing a winning search engine optimized campaign, your business is a step closer to higher conversions.

5. SEO can decrease your cost per acquisition

As mentioned earlier, the benefit of SEO is that it is “free” traffic. It is a cost-effective way to acquire customers than advertising. The only costs SEO attracts are the costs to hire the best SEO company. Except you are website developer and understand how Google algorithm works, you will need an SEO firm or agency to help you rank in search and reap the benefits of SEO.

6. SEO does not require investing in paid advertising

If you have strong SEO standings, you don’t need to invest a huge budget in advertising. You can drive quality to your website without having to invest in pay per click. With an effective SEO strategy, your business can scale down advertising budget, and invest it in more in other aspects of the business.

7. Top SEO rankings provide 24/7 promotion 365 days

SEO is 24/7 in 365 days. It does not close for business even when the business has closed for the day. Yes, that’s one of the greatest benefits of effective SEO to the Nigerian business. Just as the ranking does not happen overnight, it does not also disappear overnight. You can skyrocket your website traffic all day, every day in the year. Once you are able to rank high in search engines, your business gets free promotions while you sleep.

8. SEO builds trust and credibility with audiences

People trust Google as a brand. They use it every day to discover and research products and services every day. By ranking high on search engine result pages, your business gains trust and credibility with your audience. In fact, statistics have shown that 37% of search engine clicks come from the first organic listing.

9. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy

If you have been following closely, you must have noticed that we have mentioned a couple of times in the blog that SEO does not happen overnight. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. It can take up to 6-12 months to start seeing optimal rankings. However, just as it takes time to go higher in the search rankings, it takes time also to drop down the rankings. Once you achieve the top positions, it’s difficult to move down. The consistent rise in SEO competition or update in Google algorithm is the reason this would change.

Read: How Businesses Can Measure And Improve Digital Marketing ROI

10. SEO makes your customers informed buyers

Over 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making a buying decision. This goes to show that your customers are already using search engines to research products and services. They trust their findings in making informed decisions on available options. High SEO rankings position your brand as an authority in the industry and allow you to educate potential customers on best offers. This indirectly builds trust and credibility, but most importantly guide them in making informed decisions.

11. SEO influences buyers purchasing decision

As mentioned earlier, SEO helps develop trust and credibility. Hence, SEO significantly influences buyers purchasing decisions. Use SEO to strategically improve your business conversions rate by shaping the purchasing decisions of potential customers on the web.

12. SEO enhances your brand awareness and equity

Besides conversion, SEO is a smart way to build your brand equity. That is to say, SEO will increase your visibility and help more people become aware of your brand. Top of the mind awareness is essential because not all your website visitors are ready to purchase now. However, by being aware of your products and services, they may return to purchase in future.

GET FREE SEO REPORT FOR YOUR WEBSITE

13. SEO increases customer attribution or “touches”

Attributions are the marketing touchpoint encounters by your customer in the journey to make a purchase. While your brand awareness is increasing, SEO will at the same time increase your customer attribution touchpoints. The more visible your brand is to your potential customers, the better your chances to win the purchase. Great SEO rankings will help you excellently skyrocket your attributions with potential buyers.

14. SEO receives 90% more clicks than PPC

SEO beat paid advertising. Studies have shown that organic SEO listings receive 90% more clicks than pay per click. People don’t like being sold to. Hence the reason why many search engine users tend to skip paid adverts. By investing in more in SEO, you will likely receive more traffic than the advertisers competing for the same keywords.

15. SEO can increase your website referrals

With strong SEO, you can dramatically increase your website referrals. These website referrals will be gained from search engines. Furthermore, your website visitors are likely to suggest your website to their friends and family. A solid SEO presence will literally you grow referrals!

16. SEO is measurable

With SEO, You can measure your conversions and the source of those conversions. Besides that, you can also measure the website ranking and organic traffic progress . Having the right tools (or an SEO Company), you will be able to track and measure most valuable keywords to your business based on search.

17. SEO drives offline sales

SEO is a major driver of offline sales. A recent study shows that 81% of consumers go online before visiting the store. Consumers have become more informed. Hence, they do their research online, before heading offline to make a purchase. SEO helps position your brand for this great opportunity.

Read: How Nigerian Businesses Can Boost Revenue With Social Media in 2020

18. SEO is more cost-effective than paid advertising

You might have heard this before and it’s a no-brainer. SEO is more cost-effective than any paid advertising for businesses. As a matter of fact, the average Cost Per Click(CPC) across industries is $2.32. Why spend a huge budget for a page to be visible on search engine result pages when you can strategically work your way to the top of organic deploying effective SEO?

Once you strong ranking at the top, you do not have to invest in pay per clicks from search engines. And your PPC budget can be channelled into other useful projects. Allow #1 SEO rankings drive more results for your business.

19. Your competitors are using SEO to grow

Stand out or stay irrelevant. Your customers start their buyers journey with a search. Your competitors are utilizing SEO to scale their business. 61% of marketers stated that optimizing their website for SEO is their top priority in a recent study.

Sooner or later, brands that fail to implement SEO may soon be out of business!

20. SEO can give smaller businesses an edge on larger companies

If you manage a small business, you may discover that it is difficult to outspend larger competitors in Google ads. However, having an effective SEO strategy maybe your chances to gain higher rankings in search. While larger brands depend on paid advertising, you can leverage a smart SEO strategy to grow your customers base.

21. SEO will help you gain market share

Being first is an ample opportunity to gain market share. When was the last time you scrolled to page 10 of Google? You can’t even recall. Statistic by Hubspot shows that 75% of users never scroll past Page 1 of search results. What that suggests is that your customers will never know about the hundreds of alternatives when you are the first. Except, they scroll to page 10 of search engine. However, that is impossible.

22. SEO will help you break into new markets

Once your business website is well optimized, your strategy can focus on your website targeting other keywords. The keywords research can focus on new products or services that your business could offer. SEO is the best bet to drive qualified traffic to your new offerings, helping you break into new markets.

23. SEO increases the value of your business

One of the benefits of SEO to the Nigerian business is that as your website ranking increases, the more valuable your business becomes. Buyers are becoming more informed and they tend to attribute value to strong SEO. This is so as SEO rankings is can be sustained over the years.

24. SEO integrates all of your online marketing activities

SEO is not stand-alone online marketing. Every other online marketing activities contributes positively to your SEO rankings. Activities such as Web design, social media marketing services, and online advertising influences SEO. Your SEO ranking is optimized once all contributing online activities are integrated.

25. SEO improves your overall marketing ROI

As stated above, an optimized integrated marketing approach will improve your SEO rankings. Beyond the influence it has on your SEO rankings, it also impacts your overall ROI from all your marketing activities. A recent study conducted shows that organic traffic amounts to more than 40% of business revenue. And also, over 18% of purchase made within that day comes from local searches has

26. SEO offers the best PR strategy

SEO makes PR worthwhile. It is the new ”PR” strategy. On e of the key elements to rank high in search engines is quality backlinks. Backlinks are links from web pages pointing to your website. The more quality backlinks you have, the more your website relevancy. And the more relevant your website is, the higher you rank in search engines. One of the best strategies for acquiring quality backlinks is to have quality content worth linking to. Also, you may require publicity to acquire it. The more publicity you have, the greater your chances of getting quality backlinks.

27. SEO will increase your social media fans

Your visitors want to know who are beyond your website. Hence, as they are researching your website, they are more likely to click your social media icons to follow you. SEO provides you with the opportunity to grow your social media followers. With an effective SEO campaign, you can generate thousands of website traffic. A percentage of this traffic will translate into followers.

28. SEO will increase your email newsletter subscribers

SEO offers you the opportunity to increase your email newsletter subscribers. The higher your rankings, the more subscribers you are likely to generate from the email newsletter signup form on your website. This is because you are pulling more traffic to your website, hence, more exposure. For optimal results, provide a lead magnet (FREE Offer) for every subscriber.

Read: How To Make N250,000 Monthly In Nigeria Working From Home

29. SEO will increase your blog traffic

As your domain authority rises with search engines, it will engineer few this about your website. Firstly, your blog’s individual ranking in the search engine will increase. Then, your blog contents are more likely to appear on Google. And lastly, you have greater chances of getting referral traffic from your website by promoting your blog on every page of your website.

30. SEO improves your website’s click-through-rate (CTR)

Click-through-rate is the total number of people who clicked on your website divided by the total number of people you reached. Ranking high in Google will improve your website’s click-through-rate. And, vice versa. The higher your click-through-rate, the more search engine recognizes your website as relevant. Therefore, higher CTR improves your SEO.

31. SEO improves your website’s time-on-site

Time-on-site is the duration your website visitors are spending on your website. The higher your CTR, the higher the chances that visitors will be staying on your website. The longer this duration, the more likely they are to purchase fro you. Importantly, it will improve your SEO rankings.

32. SEO is mobile

Mobile optimized marketing is the future of online marketing. Over 50% of all internet access comes from mobile. Taking the step to optimize your website for SEO, is a preparation for the next generation of marketing. Having a mobile-friendly website is a must. And, search engines will reward your website for being mobile-friendly.

33. SEO will help you stand out in a competitive market

Currently, the internet houses over 200 million active websites. By the time your finish the reading this blog post, thousands of others are being launched. The average individual will discover the full potentials of the internet. An effective SEO ranking will make you stand out from these millions of websites on the internet.

34. SEO is the smartest marketing investment you can make

Just as you see from the above points, the benefits of SEO to the Nigerian business are endless. As a business, SEO is the smartest marketing investment you can make today. It is a long-term business asset. With it, you can generate quality traffic and leads that translates into sales. You don’t need investment in advertising. Always remember that your customers are searching for your products and services right now. And, your competitors are investing in SEO already. SEO will boost your business growth geometrically.

35. SEO is Affordable

SEO is more affordable than advertising in driving conversion. And, the return is invaluable. Once your website ranks #1 on Google, your website will receive thousands of free traffic. Contact the Best SEO Agency is Nigeria help position your brand for success with effective SEO strategy.

Conclusion

Having a good product or service is of no good if people do not know about you or discover you online. Implementing an effective SEO strategy on a brand’s website and the digital asset will always be beneficial to that brand and its marketing efforts. The benefits of SEO to the Nigerian business are endless. Hence, businesses of all sizes need SEO to be able to grow exponentially in a competitive market.

Contact Us for SEO Services

One last thing to always remember. Handing a guitar to someone doesn’t guarantee that they’ll start playing melodious music. If you want melodious music, then hire a rock star. If you want to experience top-notch SEO, then hire SEO Rock Stars. Give them the budget they need to deliver great results that creates your blue ocean.

July 5, 2020 1 Comment