Dominate with Multichannel Content Marketing for Real Estate

Multichannel Content Marketing is a powerful real estate marketing strategy to win listings and overwhelm the competition.

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Multichannel Content Marketing for Real Estate Agents

Executive Summary

It’s tough to get listings – in any market. Top agents have learned that there is no silver bullet. Instead of “get leads quick” schemes, they turn to multichannel content marketing. It’s a long-range approach for long-term success. Any agent who does it right (along with prospecting, public relations, and delivering top-notch service) can build an unstoppable lead generating machine.

Referrals Are King

Without a doubt, referrals are the easiest, cheapest, and best leads. Referrals are won by:

1. Getting clients the best possible deal in the least amount of time, with-out legal, finance, inspection, or negotiation problems
2. Staying in touch, even long after the sale. Agents who stay top of mind for years after closing will get referrals from past clients
3. Asking for referrals, every time and more than once
4. Rewarding the act of referring – not just when referrals become clients

Why do you want referrals? Because more wealth is created or lost through word of mouth than any other single business action known. – Jay Abraham

Multichannel content marketing is built to generate leads from both within and beyond an agent’s sphere. By it’s “value-forward” nature, it’s particularly powerful for generating referrals. Agents regularly touching their networks with great content stay fresh in the minds of past clients, because their messages are interesting, frequent, and arriving through multiple channels.

Marketing Makes a Kingdom

Referrals are king, but it’s marketing that builds an empire. New agents need to first build a critical mass before referrals start rolling in, and successful agents at some point plateau if relying solely on referrals (especially without mechanisms in play keeping them top of mind with past clients). A solid and consistent marketing plan is the key to breaking in as well as breaking through. In this guide, we discuss how agents can dominate their markets using local content and marketing integration.

We’ve studied how modern prospects consume information and examined the effectiveness of multiple marketing channels. We surveyed thousands of active agents, looked at what makes our own marketing products perform, and asked agents at the top of the industry what’s working for them. We hope you make great use of our research and the insights we’ve gained from marketing many thousands of top agents over the years.

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I. WHAT IS MULTICHANNEL CONTENT MARKETING?

While it’s crucial that real estate agents know the best ways to connect with their clients, this is often the greatest challenge many of them face.

The modern home seller (and buyer) is fast and unpredictable — and rapidly expanding channels like social media are changing how agents’ prospects get their information (CNBC, 2016). As a result, even established brands and agencies are shifting their strategies and redefining their terms of “success.” Even though there’s a lot for diligent marketers to keep up with, these changing habits present an opportunity for reaching more prospects in more ways than ever before. Best of all, contrary to popular belief, it’s easy to do.

Unlike mega-brands, real estate agents only need to master a handful of channels, interlace them, and keep local content flowing through. Agents can leverage a myriad of technologies and services developed to make multichannel content marketing easy – from writing to marketing automation to mailing and more.

Real estate agents are able to engage with consumers by providing them with information they want to consume. A staggering number of prospects can be reached by tapping into the various forms of social media, online publishing platforms, email campaigns, and direct mail channels.

MULTICHANNEL CONTENT MARKETING educates and informs prospects across multiple, integrated channels

By publishing local, real-estate related content across a few core channels in a coordinated and organized fashion, an agent can accomplish many goals. Augmenting an effective online presence with content-forward direct mail has helped real estate agents connect with their audience and achieve a greater ROI, pushing them to the top of the industry.

In this guide, we’ll explore how.

II. CONTENT: THE LIFEBLOOD OF MULTICHANNEL CONTENT MARKETING

Choosing the correct channels is paramount to success, and equally important is an agent’s choice of messaging. What should Realtors tell prospects through blogging, direct mail, social media, and email marketing? (The use of these channels are covered in detail in the next section).

Consider that a prospect’s decision to hire an agent begins with “awareness,” before they are even planning to sell. Most homeowners in a given month aren’t actively seeking an agent, so promotional marketing won’t apply. Content about the housing market and community will. By engaging with listing prospects early in the buying “funnel,” agents can establish a connection with homeowners long before it’s time to list.

CONTENT BUILDS TRUST

Most people probably wouldn’t buy insurance from an agent who hawked his goods like a street merchant, nor would they buy a used car from a dealer they knew little about. Trust is earned by showing rather than telling, and local content can show prospects how well an agent knows the market. The following research underscores the importance of content in marketing:

• 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content. (Demand Metric)
• 64% of people say that their experience is more important than price when deciding who to work with. (Gartner)
• 70% of consumers say content marketing makes them feel closer to the company who provides it. (Roper Public Affairs)
• Interesting content is one of the main reasons people follow brands on social media. (Demand Metric)

CONTENT GENERATES LEADS

In addition to building trust and loyalty, there’s an increasing amount of data pointing to content marketing as great way to generate leads:

• Content marketing generates three times more leads per dollar and costs 31-41% less than paid search. (Kapost/Eloqua)
• Website conversion rate (website visitors who fill out a form) is nearly six times higher for content marketers (2.9% vs. 0.5%). (Aberdeen Group)

III. THE “BIG 3” MARKETING PILLARS FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS

To think, plan for, and execute an effective multichannel content marketing campaign, it’s important to understand how the individual channels function on their own. What multichannel marketing looks like, and exactly how many channels it covers will always vary greatly by company and industry. In this guide, we’ll examine what we call the “Big 3” real estate marketing pillars. These channels are the most critical for multi-channel marketing success.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Creating business pages/profiles with the top social media sites, and using them to post content and connect with prospects

EMAIL: Building a list of past clients and new prospects, emailing informative content regularly, and using automation/drips to further engage subscribers

DIRECT MAIL: Carving out a “listing farm” and mailing publications or newsletters with local content at least quarterly (in addition to postcards and other mail)

Keep in mind, these channels do not replace prospecting efforts. To succeed, many agents also knock on doors, sponsor local events, and pick up the phone. Marketing should be done concurrently with in-person and telephone prospecting, with a sales conversion process for incoming leads.

In 2016, email, social media, and direct mail ranked as the top three channels for ROI. – DMA 2016 Report

The “Big 3” are ideal platforms for agents because they meet today’s home-owners wherever they are, and however they prefer to communicate. They are also perfectly suited for publishing content. Distributing relevant articles and videos through email, direct mail, and social media will generate direct leads as well as boost SEO, which in turn generates even more leads.

Direct mail and digital is the most successful combo in driving customer acquisition. -DMN (Direct Marketing News)

We’ll discuss the positive impact content and the “Big 3” have on SEO, then explore each of the three suggested channels in depth.

BOOSTING SEO WITH CONTENT AND THE “BIG 3”

According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2013 research, content creation ranks as the single most effective SEO (or search engine optimization) technique. Simply put, SEO means how likely a website is to appear at the top of search results.

Pushing out local real estate content across multiple channels (using a multichannel content marketing strategy) will naturally improve an agent’s online search ranking. When Realtors regularly post original content on their blogs (and drive traffic to their posts with direct mail, social media, and email), their websites begin to show up higher on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. If one of two competing agents’ websites has tons of local articles, search engines will consider it more relevant to real estate queries.

The Content Marketing Institute, an organization dedicated to researching, reporting, and educating businesses about content marketing, writes:

Consistent, regular, predictable updates go a long way toward convincing search engines that your content is fresh, relevant, and timely for today’s user. Google’s “freshness score” reflects timely and updated content – you want your freshness score to stay high.

If agents want to supercharge SEO, they can use the pre-coded “header” formats to break up text, and include important keywords like “real estate agent” and “MyTown housing market” in titles, subtitles, headings, and paragraphs. WordPress and most websites and blogs make SEO easy, and will often prompt bloggers to create tags and to categorize articles. There are infinite resources online about optimizing content for better search ranking.

This presents an opportunity; many real estate agents will find that their competitors are not taking the time to publish local articles on a consistent basis. Businesses used to be able to pump up SEO with keyword and backlink schemes, but now search engines favor content above all else.

The bottom line: even without fiddling with keywords and formats, agents will see an improvement to SEO simply by publishing consumer-relevant content every week or two. Recycled articles, fluffy blogs, and the generic “5 tips” won’t cut it. Relevant articles about community events and the housing market will. The topics above have been reported by real estate agents (Discover Publications clients) as getting high response rates.

A. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

A peek at the prestigious Cannes Lions advertising festival serves as a certain reminder of social media’s necessity: there’s hardly a TV ad, YouTube video, or virtual reality experience without a social component. It’s not hard to see why: 78% of all U.S. adults who are online use Facebook, and over half of all online adults use more than one of the five main social media platforms (Pew Research Center, 2016).

For a real estate agent looking to ensure their content gets consumed, a social media campaign has the potential to reach a vast number of customers and lead to direct engagement.

A solid real estate agent’s social media presence includes everything from aFacebook business page to Zillow profile. The best sites for publishing content are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (with YouTube as the ideal host for video content). These are among the most effective channels, according to 2016 data from the Content Marketing Association (pictured right). Instagram marketing mainly applies to retailers; it’s not an ideal channel for driving web traffic via articles and videos. While it’s great for promoting open houses and listings, agents shouldn’t expect the same results as retailers from Instagram.

Connecting with Prospects on Social Media

In addition to local content, agents should use social channels to post listings, testimonials, and updates. Inspiring comments and fun photos go a long way to “humanize” a business, such as holiday posts or goofy pictures of an office birthday party. Interacting with people who like or comment on posts is key, as well as responding quickly to any messages. Social media makes it possible to send personal messages to prospects who might otherwise be out of reach.

Content Marketing on Social Media

Content marketing shows prospects how well an agent knows the market – it builds their reputation as the local real estate expert. Agents should create and post articles and videos on subjects that speak to their expertise. The best topics will both resonate with the local market and build an “expert” reputation.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to unintentionally post content without the branding necessary to be remembered. When this happens, the market benefits from the agent’s content but the agent doesn’t benefit from potential visibility. Agents can avoid this and ensure their content remains associated with them by always posting it on their blog (instead of posting it directly on Facebook or Twitter in its raw form). Once a blog post has been created to host content, the blog link should be shared on social media with an enticing comment.

Blog posts can be shared on multiple social media sites simultaneously using tools like Hootsuite or marketing automation platforms like Act-On. These tools also make it easy to create and schedule a month’s posts in one sitting.

Incorporating Video

According to a 2015 Forrester study, video outperforms articles with clicks and time spent consuming the content. Even though video is more expensive and time intensive to create, it’s well worth producing at least one video per month. YouTube is a widely utilized host for online video, but agents should not simply share a YouTube link on social media. Instead, the YouTube embed code should be added to a blog post. Agents should write a short summary below the video (inside the blog) and share the blog post just as they would if it where an article. Successful content marketers capitalize on the branding and SEO benefits of sending viewers to their websites whenever possible.

Facebook Advertising

To expand the reach of social media content posts, Facebook advertising is an effective and low-cost solution. Facebook allows agents to target people based on income, interests, and location – which is perfect for geographic farming. “Boosting” community content posts is the best way to start – early on, the agent’s goal is to familiarize homeowners with their brand. Later, ads with compelling reasons to fill out a contact form – such as free home value report – can capture new leads. Many successful agents work with an expert when it comes to Facebook advertising, to ensure audiences are selected correctly and “Facebook Pixels” are installed on the appropriate web pages.

B. EMAIL MARKETING

A real estate agent looking to generate referrals by staying top of mind with past clients can send out a highly personalized, segment-specific email campaign at a very low cost. Email is an extremely effective channel – in fact, it ranked as the leading digital channel for ROI in 2016 (DMA, 2017).

In addition to taking the cake on digital marketing ROI, email campaigns can reach an incredible percentage of the population. According to Radicati’s 2016 Email Statistics report, over 3 million people will be using email by 2020. More-over, 88% of smart phone users are actively checking email on the go, meaning email campaigns will reach potential customers wherever they happen to be (Pew Research Center, 2015).

Email success starts with the right list

The success of an agent’s email marketing depends on the quality of their database. The ideal list should contain as many local homeowners as possible. It’s that simple; but not that easy.

PURCHASING OR RENTING A LIST

Purchased lists are risky and get about 1/5 the response rates (DMA 2016). They often contain “spam traps” (fake, harmful email addresses) and have a very high bounce rate. Bad addresses coupled with recipients quick to flag emails as spam will hurt “sender reputations,” scores which determines the deliverability of emails. A low score can get an agent blacklisted from major email providers – affecting their overall deliverability far into the future.

In addition to the risks that come with purchased lists, agents must consider that other businesses buy them too. People on purchased lists get a lot of unsolicited email, and may use filters or switch addresses. If buying a list is the only way an agent can get started (if their own list is tiny), they should do the following to minimize risk: have it professionally cleansed, include an opt-out link below each email, and follow CAN-SPAM to the letter.

BUILDING A LIST “ORGANICALLY”

The best list is built, not bought. An agent should start with past clients, friends, and partners and begin sending interesting content (and including
“share” links below each email). After proving their emails are worthwhile, agents can gain subscribers with a referral campaign. This is an email asking recipients to share an opt-in link with homeowners who would be benefited.

Agents can grow their lists using social media, blogging, and direct mail. On social media and direct mail, they can promote valuable resources which require prospects to enter an email address to access. On blogs, “subscribe” links below each post can pull in readers who may appreciate getting similar content by email. With these practices, in time an agent’s list will grow.

Generating leads with content emails

CONTENT

Content emails are about showing expertise instead of talking about it. They are meaningful updates that prospects are interested in consuming, but in doing so they are associating the sender with an expert who really knows the market. Agents getting results from content emails put time and effort into each email; they think: would I read this, or delete it?

To improve open rates, an attention-getting subject line is important. Some-times, the topic of the article or video is sufficiently interesting. Other times, agents get a better results by asking a question or telling prospects what they’ll learn. For example, “June 2017 Willisburg Housing Market Update,” is less interesting than “Learn what happened to home prices last month” or “How long will prices stay like this?” With the right software, agents can A/B test dif-ferent subject lines with a small group, and send the winner to everyone else.

BLOG FIRST

If the end goal is lead generation, then driving traffic from emails to the agent’s site should be the priority. Too many agents send full-length articles in the body of their emails, and miss out on the SEO, branding, and tracking made possible with a simple click-through link. Agents should host content on a blog, optimize it for SEO, and encourage recipients to click over to it with an image and a few enticing sentences.

CONSISTENCY

Consistency is key with all marketing, and this is especially true of content email marketing. Agents should pick a number between 2 and 6 that they can stick to, depending on their available budget and time.

LEAD NURTURING

Agents must remember: content marketing is about sending content, first and foremost. Promotional emails must be saved for the later stages in the “sales funnel” described earlier (unless a prospect requests more information).

Promotional emails showcasing an agent’s service – like a heartfelt testimonial followed by a bio and call to action – can be easily programmed into modern marketing/email automation systems. Good automation software “scores” leads based on behavior (opens, clicks, even website visits), allowing an agent to release sales emails only after a prospect reaches a high engagement score. The key is to make sure promotional emails are only sent to the right people, at the right time.

Using high quality software and nurturing leads first with content (then with promotional emails) can go a long way toward improving conversion rates.

C. DIRECT MAIL MARKETING

Direct mail has stood the test of time for a reason: physical mail is still relevant across many age demographics and research shows it’s often more resonant and impactful than digital forms of customer outreach.

As the volume of direct mail has declined over the decades, an opportunity has opened up for increased reader engagement as the clutter decreases. In a world so wired, a entire new vocabulary has emerged to describe phenomena like “technology fatigue.” More and more people are welcoming the simplicity, privacy, and tactility of print media. Direct mail has become a more focused experience that, when done right, can leave a lasting impact on customers.

Direct Mail is Effective

The DMA reports that direct mail response rates out-perform any form of digital marketing by more than 700%. In fact, direct mail response rates skyrocketed in 2016 to 5.3% from 3.7% in 2015. This means that in 2016, direct mail had it’s best year since 2003 (DMA 2016 Report). In addition:

• The DMA found that 80% of people open their mail right away (even mail that is obviously marketing related)
• Of thousands of adults surveyed by the DMA, 67% reported that they feel direct mail is more personal than email

Quite simply, people like getting mail. There is something satisfying about going to the mailbox and interacting with tangible mail. And it’s private; readers don’t worry about being tracked or interrupted by pop-ups.

MILLENIALS RESPOND TO DIRECT MAIL

Although Millennials are inseparable from their digital devices, 92% report that their purchasing decisions are influenced by direct mail. Compare that to 55% for social media, and 47% for ads on their smart phone (Advertising Influence on Millennials by Channel, Neilson). In 2017, the US Data Corporation reported that younger consumers surveyed (ages 21-35) prefer direct mail over digital advertising. Millenials respond to direct mail, perhaps because it stands out amidst constant social media ads and spam mail.

Geographic Farming

For newer agents, the concept of geographic farming may be unfamiliar. It starts with an agent mapping out a precise territory. The best territories have high turnover, low competition, easy-moving inventory, and a stable market. Of course, the best territories tend to have the most competition, and it may be worthwhile to sacrifice a little turnover in exchange for more room. The area is then nurtured just like a real farm, and throughout the process leads and listings are cultivated – and eventually, harvested. To be effective, each home in an agent’s territory should receive repeated marketing and prospecting touch points every month, year after year.

Types of Direct Mail (and When to Use Them)

PUBLICATIONS or NEWSLETTERS

These long-form mailers are the ideal tool for multichannel content marketing. They provide plenty of space for the local articles prospects want to read, while also leaving room for branding. In an interview with Discover Publications, Gary Keller of Keller Williams suggested agents mail publications at least quarterly. Our recent survey data backs up his advice: agents mailing custom publications to farms of 3,000+ homes report 150-400%+ ROI with consistent use (Discover 2017).

POSTCARDS

Postcards are perfect for recently listed/sold homes, a list of neighborhood sales, or even fridge-worthy content like recipes and event calendars. With content-rich publications or newsletters as the foundation of direct mail farming, postcards play an import supporting role. Often agents will send them between publications, ensuring their farms receive direct mail each month.

HOME VALUE REPORTS

As a prospecting tool, many agents send personalized reports to homeowners who fill out their online “home evaluation” tools. They get attention, especially when sent together with a serious of personal emails and a phone call.

GIFTS and LETTERS

Hand-written letters evoke a much more emotional response than emails, and are perfect to send before or after a listing appointment. After a closing, thank-you cards and gifts send clients off with a pleasant experience. Ongoing gifts make a huge impression and help generate referrals long after a sale.

Tracking Direct Mail

It’s easy to track direct mail today. To measure results and test campaigns, agents can create specific landing pages or re-direct URLs, as well as QR (quick response) codes and call tracking phone numbers. Monitoring website traffic before and after a mail drop is another easy way to gain insight.

IV. WHY JOIN UP SEVERAL CHANNELS?

Real estate agents who want to make a personal connection with their markets can reach for a social media or email campaign, but investing exclusively in online marketing eliminates the wide exposure and high engagement rate of direct mail. Similarly, a complete investment in physical mail excludes the deep targeting and personalization opportunity of email, as well as the possibilities of prospects sharing social media updates (and the residual business those referrals can create). On these pages, we’ll address why a multichannel content marketing strategy is effective, and in the next section we’ll show you how to build one.

THE CASE FOR MULTICHANNEL CONTENT MARKETING

In taking a multichannel content marketing approach to the social media, email, and direct mail methods outlined above, an agent deepens their personal brand recognition and gains the benefits of each channel. For example:

• A targeted Facebook campaign reaches customers living in nearby neighborhoods with easy-to-share updates
• An email marketing campaign (with built in lead nurture or drips) automatically keeps relevant content in front of prospects
• A direct mail campaign of publications and postcards can reach an entire market and leave a lasting impression

These campaigns, working in concert with one another, harness the benefits of all individual methods. A multichannel content marketing strategy that considers how a customer interacts with all of these channels isn’t just an aggregate of their own individual statistics, though. Take, for instance, the success of retailer Nordstrom, detailed in a report from Bluecore:

U.S. fashion giant Nordstrom has highlighted many of its channels by incorporating a variety of marketing strategies, such as direct mailings, physical product catalogues, social media content production and mobile app campaigns, amongst others. This directly contributed to a 45.8% increase in online sales… Many of these U.S. multichannel giants, including Nordstrom, have capitalized on current marketing trends by expanding online and social marketing efforts, yet haven’t neglected to continue marketing their brand through more traditional avenues as well. – Bluecore 2016

Nordstrom’s success here is twofold: the marketers adeptly access their customers across many channels, and they executed a strategy that took into account where and how their customers interacted with each of those channels. An agent can benefit by emulating this strategy; high end retailers share an almost identical demographic with agents target-ing listing prospects and qualified buyers.

Modern, thoughtful businesses cannot reach every customer via a single channel. Even those that make use of just a few channels need to implement a comprehensive strategy that considers how consumers interact with each one, so they can seamlessly connect with customers.

A look at the numbers shows that single-channel marketing loses big: a recent study from the Verde Group and the Wharton School found that only one out of three consumers are consistent “mono-channel” customers; meaning they report being influenced by more than just one channel. Most consumers gather information and make decisions in a variety of ways, and through multiple platforms both on and off-line.

Real estate agents who invest in the wrong marketing channel are bound to miss out on a huge population of potential customers, and even worse: they could be isolating their existing community by excluding their preferred communication channels.

THE OPPORTUNITY IN MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING

Multichannel content marketing is not a secret tactic. In a recent survey (above), an overwhelming 95% of marketers acknowledged the importance of multichannel marketing. Yet, only 15% reported marketing with coordinated campaigns across multiple channels.

With so few businesses tapping into the potential of multichannel content marketing, those that make the decision to implement it have a greater chance of breaking through the noise and engaging with consumers.

V. GOING FROM MULTIPLE CHANNELS TO MULTICHANNEL

First, let’s review the components of multichannel content marketing:

• A robust social media presence, including up-to-date Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zillow pages
• An email marketing system with automation features and a good, clean list
• A source or system for producing a steady stream of local content
• A well defined geographic farm receiving direct mail on a monthly basis(including publications or newsletters at least quarterly)

The content agents create will naturally weave the “Big 3” channels together; still, agents must work to tighten these concepts into a system. Multichannel content marketing is not “multiple channel marketing;” no agent will get much momentum by operating each channel as independent lead streams.

STEP ONE: CONSISTENT, AUTHENTIC BRANDING

Early on, agents should hire a professional graphic designer specializing in marketing. The logo, contact information, color scheme, and “style” of an agent should match – everywhere. This includes messaging, voice, and tone.

STEP TWO: AN AUTOMATED PROSPECT JOURNEY

Incoming leads from social media and web searches (SEO) go hand in hand with content marketing emails, which are all about nurturing leads. Agents should include lead capture forms (“contact us,” “subscribe,” etc) where appropriate in the body of blog posts, and always in a footer beneath each article. Many agents post a free home value report tool on social media and advertising it prominently on their websites and print publications. Anyone who fills out any of an agent’s online forms should get dumped into their database and receive the next scheduled content email. As leads continue to interact with emails, forms, and web pages, “cookies” (from marketing auto-mation programs) should be used to score their level of engagement. Using this data, the system can notify agents when leads are “sales ready.” The idea is to create a system that pulls in, nurtures, tracks, and communicates behavior about leads.

STEP THREE: A CROSS-PUBLISHING PLATFORM

Finally, it’s important that an agent use a tool or a marketing company which publishes across all their accounts, including their blog, seamlessly. This reduces redundancy, human error, and wasted time – but most importantly, cross-publishing improves tracking. Agents should be able to manage and measure their content marketing from one or two places, not ten.

VI. THE BIG PICTURE

A successful real estate agent’s overall “ecosystem” for getting and converting leads is bigger than multichannel content marketing. It’s also important to have systems and processes for:

1. Outstanding service (earning referrals)
2. Public relations and events
3. Aggressive prospecting
4. Qualifying and selling

How these concepts can work together to generate business is illustrated below.

Starting with a top-notch client experience and adding multi-channel content marketing, prospecting, and PR creates the ultimate lead machine. Once in place, domination becomes a matter of the size of an agent’s team and how much they are willing to spend on lead generating activities. Once the “machine” starts working and agents begin focusing on training and recruiting, the sky is the limit.

VII. CONCLUSION

The stories and statistics in this guide paint a clear picture: to build a dominant real estate business, agents must create marketing journeys that are multi-dimensional… just like the decision-making journeys of modern
prospects. In a recent study on multichannel marketing, Adobe writes:

Sooner or later, every marketing organization of significant size… will have to follow the lead of [companies] who take an integrated approach to all marketing. They recognize that their customers live in a multi-channel world and have invested accordingly. (Adobe, 2015)

Multichannel content marketing is much more than casting a wide net; it’s the art of considering all the parts of customers’ lives and how to thoughtfully integrate with them.

Many agents today know the importance of using newsletters and publications as the backbone of their direct mail strategy, and also understand the critical role of social media and email at every phase in the customer’s journey. But few take the time to produce meaningful content and to engineer a single marketing engine more powerful than the sum of its parts.

Real estate agents who choose to master, integrate, and publish worthwhile content across their core marketing channels are rising to the top; far above the noisy sales pitches rampant in real estate. They are dominating the industry by connecting (truly connecting) with a larger percentage of clients.

Ultimately, multichannel content marketing is about showing customers you care, and being available for them. Through direct mail, email, and social media, multi-channel marketing sends a message: “I’ll meet you where you are, wherever you are.”

VIII. ABOUT DISCOVER PUBS

Discover Publications was founded in 1993 in the beautiful suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. It’s mission: to help agents dominate their markets.

EASY MARKETING, EXCELLENT RESULTS

Discover is on a never-ending journey to develop, leverage, and provide the most effective marketing tools possible. Today, Discover offers a territory-exclusive multi-channel content marketing package for real estate agents. It’s a powerful, turn-key program, helping agents drastically increase lead flow without heavy lifting. Packages include:

• 12-page custom newspaper-style publications
• Matching postcards
• Custom designed blogs
• Custom content emails
• 10+ custom social media updates
• Monthly check-ins

Discover does all the writing, designing, printing, addressing, mailing, posting, blogging, emailing, and provides free ad sales assistance… so agents can focus on selling houses.

The momentum generated by a Discover marketing package is so powerful that agents report upwards of 400% ROI after as few as six publications. And they tell their friends: 88% of Discover’s business is generated by the referrals of the many Mega Agents, RE/MAX Platinums, top producers, and coaches using and getting results from Discover’s “done for you” program. Agents interested in marketing with Discover can learn more online or by calling 877-872-3080.

To all the real estate agents losing sleep and investing long hours growing their businesses, the family of dedicated marketers at Discover Publications wishes you abundant success, freedom, and joy! Happy Marketing!