What you will learn.

Property development and digital marketing are two entirely separate job types. One deals with bricks and mortar, while the other deals in the online space – but as you know, housing development is a competitive market!

To reach the top of the ladder in the property and building industry, you need to brush up on your digital marketing skills and strategy by adapting them to suit the homebuyer journey. This involves promoting your business and services online through owned, earned, and paid media: it’s a far cry from choosing carpet samples and arranging roof repairs, but it is an incredibly important aspect of any successful business in the 21st century.

In this article, we’ll be sharing the three key aspects of digital marketing for property developers. From here, you will be able to understand exactly what it is you need to do to ensure your business shows up online and generates conversions.

The 3 Steps of Digital Marketing for Property Developers

As a property developer, you can increase leads and sales through your digital marketing efforts. Investing in your digital marketing will make sure people will see you, get to know your business and think of you when they’re planning to purchase a property. In turn, this will help boost your leads and conversions.

The three key aspects of digital marketing that you need to focus on are:

Owned media
Earned media
Paid media

Together, these three elements can contribute towards a powerful marketing strategy for your property development business.

Not sure what these are?

Owned media is anything you own and have control over: your newsletter, your social media pages, a blog on your website and so on.

Earned media is when somebody else mentions you, whether that’s in an article or on social media – you have earned this ‘promo’ because of the efforts you put into your owned media and paid media strategies. Reviews count too, so just by offering an excellent service you are likely to get some earned media.

Finally, paid media is, in short, marketing that you pay for: TV ads, radio jingles, social media promotion, pay-per-click advertising, and more.

Keep reading to discover how you can build online success in three steps with owned, earned, and paid media.

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1. Build Trust and Expertise with Owned Media

The first element of digital marketing that you should focus on is owned media.

Content created for owned media can come in many forms including infographics, case studies, videos, and how-to articles. Your email marketing campaigns and organic social media posts are also classed as forms of owned media.

By investing time into creating quality content for owned media you can create natural, long-lasting relationships with people looking to buy property now and in the future.

The content you create for your owned media should be focused on increasing your SEO performance. By focusing on SEO, you will increase the ability for your site to show up in search results – target your key audience, and drive organic traffic over to your site!

This owned media content also needs to target your audience at each point of the homebuyer journey: making users aware of your brand, supporting them with their intent to buy and as they make a purchase, and being around afterward too.

By examining customer pain points, you can create content that resonates with your audience and provides them with something they need depending on which stage of the homebuyer journey they are in.

For example, a homebuyer’s pain point could be that they don’t understand the ‘hidden costs’ associated with buying a house. You could help them resolve this issue by creating on-site content, such as an informative blog post, on this topic. By doing so, you will build trust by providing your website visitors with valuable content.

By taking an SEO-focused approach to this content, you also have the opportunity to improve your position in search results. This will increase traffic to your website and help further demonstrate your authority and expertise in the property niche.

When focusing on owned media, be sure to develop a data-led SEO strategy so that you can have confidence that you are creating high-value content that drives more traffic to your website and converts website visitors into customers.

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2. Develop a Competitive Advantage with Earned Media

After you have developed a plan for owned media, you then need to showcase your competitive advantage through earned media.

Earned media shows that you have built a reputation beyond your own words. Examples of earned media include publicity from other websites and media outlets, reviews, and social media mentions. These elements of earned media can be a powerful tool for developing a competitive advantage in the property development space.

Positive reviews and ratings come from your hard work and the excellent service you offer. Collating these for other potential customers to see – both on your site and on Google My Business, will allow potential future customers to see your value and expertise. In turn, this builds trust and can turn potential customers into leads.

Along with online reviews, earned media also comes in the form of your business or website being mentioned on other websites and online media outlets. Online coverage from other websites, and even on other social media pages, is beneficial for building your authority and making sure your company stands out against the competition.

There are several ways to acquire valuable links and mentions from earned media sources. Here at Common Ground, our SEO experts will create a targeted strategy to build relevant links that make a positive impact and stand the test of time.

Earned media can also be beneficial for your organic search performance. External link-building is a crucial component in helping your website rank higher, especially when it comes from an authoritative and relevant page. Meanwhile, positive Google Reviews are another strong SEO ranking signal to search engines by communicating the trustworthiness and authority of your business.

3. Secure Leads with Paid Media

Last but not least, paid media is another essential element of digital marketing for property developers.

By incorporating paid media into your wider marketing strategy, you can increase your visibility and, in turn, increase the number of leads and conversions for your property development business.

Paid media, such as Google Ads or paid social media campaigns, will ensure your business reaches further than you can with owned media and earned media alone. By getting your business seen by more of the right people, paid media can also help you secure a higher number of relevant, quality leads.

Investing in paid media is key to ensuring your property development services are seen by your ideal audience. When setting up paid search campaigns, you can target various demographics, choose location-specific keywords and implement other strategies to ensure your paid advertising harnesses the best possible results for your business.

Common Ground can help property developers like you when it comes to paid media and, in particular, PPC advertising. With creative campaigns and long-term projects, you can generate qualified leads from your paid media activity.

Digital Marketing for Property Developers: Closing Thoughts

As you can see, digital marketing should be an important part of your business strategy as a property developer.

With so much of the business world making an undeniable shift to the online sphere, actively showing up online is now a necessity when running any type of business.

By focusing on your marketing strategy for owned, earned, and paid media, you will be able to develop high-quality content that targets customers at specific points in the homebuyer journey. In return, you will reap the rewards of increased online visibility, leads, and conversions.

If you’re ready to learn how Common Ground can support your property development company with building a performance-focused marketing strategy, contact us today for a free digital consultation.

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