Property Marketing: Definition, Benefits & Strategies (2024)

In an industry where first impressions are crucial, the need for quality property marketing cannot be overstated.

From traditional methods like print and signage to modern digital strategies like social media, virtual tours, and online ads, the right approach can make all the difference.

This comprehensive guide will help you master the fundamentals of property marketing. With practical tips to grow your business, we provide you with everything you need to confidently connect with your target audience in a fast-paced real estate marketplace.

Property marketing directly influences a property’s visibility, appeal, and ability to attract potential buyers, tenants, or investors. In short, effective real estate marketing ensures a property stands out.

For businesses like conveyancers, property management companies, estate agents, and developers, property marketing plays a slightly different but equally critical role.

Instead of focusing on selling properties, your marketing efforts should be geared toward positioning your services as essential in the property sector.

• 92% of homebuyers begin searching for a property online, underscoring the necessity of a robust digital presence. (National Association of Realtors)
• 58% of all visits to real estate websites come from mobile devices (National Association of Realtors)
• 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience (UK Estate Agents – Digital Marketing Benchmark Report, Q1 2024)
• Social media remains a critical tool in property marketing, with 51% of real estate professionals using it for lead generation. (Fit Small Business)
• The global property market is expected to grow to $727.80 trillion by 2029 (Statista)

To help professionals navigate the ever-changing real estate marketing landscape, we’ve identified ten of the most effective property marketing strategies for 2024.

They are (in no particular order):

1. Search Engine Optimisation
2. PPC lead generation
3. Web design
4. Content marketing
5. High-converting landing pages (for PPC & email campaigns)
6. Email marketing
7. Paid social advertising
8. Video marketing
9. Remarketing ads (Google Display Network)
10. Google Maps ads

By optimising your website for search engines like Google and Bing, you help your listings and services show up higher in search results when people are looking for homes, offices, estate agents, or property services in your area.

With a strong SEO strategy that focuses on on-page optimisation, backlink generation and technical SEO, your brand can connect with users in the key moments that matter.

Benefits of SEO for property marketing include:

• Increased visibility: Higher rankings in search engine results mean your property listings/services are more likely to be seen by potential clients.
• Cost-effective real estate marketing: SEO generates organic traffic, reducing reliance on paid advertising and offering long-term value.
• Improved user experience: Optimising your site improves site speed, navigation, and mobile accessibility, leading to a better user experience and higher engagement.
• Targeted traffic: By optimising for specific keywords, you attract more qualified leads actively searching for the type of property or service you offer.
• Competitive advantage: Strong SEO can help you outrank competitors, positioning your properties and services as more visible and attractive in the marketplace.

By placing ads on platforms like Google and Bing, you can target specific keywords, demographics, and locations to stimulate lead generation and sales.

With PPC, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, making it a cost-efficient way to quickly reach active buyers or renters.

Benefits of PPC for property marketing include:

• Instant visibility: Your property ads appear at the top of search results, providing immediate exposure to potential buyers, tenants or clients.
• Highly targeted campaigns: PPC allows you to target specific audiences based on location, behaviour, and demographics, ensuring your ads reach the right prospects.
• Measurable results: With PPC, you can track every click, impression, and conversion, giving you clear insights into the effectiveness of your campaigns.
• Budget control: You set your ad spend and can adjust it in real time, ensuring you never exceed your marketing budget.
• Lead quality: PPC campaigns can be optimised to attract high-intent leads, improving the likelihood of conversions and reducing wasted spend.

Your website serves as the online hub for your brand, listings, and services, making the first impression on potential buyers, tenants, clients or investors.

By incorporating responsive design, straightforward navigation, and high-quality visuals, property professionals can provide an optimal user experience that drives conversions and sets them apart from the competition.

Benefits of quality web design for property marketing include:

• Enhanced user experience: A clean, intuitive website helps visitors quickly find what they’re looking for, improving engagement and reducing bounce rates.
• Mobile responsiveness: With most property searches happening on mobile devices, a responsive design ensures your site looks and functions well on all screen sizes.
• Improved credibility: A professional, modern website establishes trust and positions you as a credible and reliable real estate professional.
• Higher conversion rates: Strategic design elements like clear calls-to-action and easy-to-use contact forms encourage visitors to take the next step, whether inquiring about a property or scheduling a viewing.
• Showcasing properties effectively: High-quality visuals, virtual tours, and easy-to-navigate galleries enhance the presentation of your listings, helping properties stand out to potential buyers.

By creating and sharing valuable content such as blog posts, guides, videos, and market insights, you can attract a targeted audience of buyers, sellers, renters or clients, while positioning yourself as an expert in the field.

Benefits of content marketing for property marketing include:

• Increased website traffic: High-quality, relevant content improves SEO and attracts more visitors to your website through organic search.
• Builds trust and authority: Consistently delivering informative content helps establish you as an expert in the real estate industry, increasing client confidence.
• Engages your audience: Content such as property tips, market trends, and community insights keeps potential clients engaged and encourages them to return to your site regularly.
• Lead nurturing: By offering valuable resources like how-to guides or buying tips, you can nurture leads through each stage of their property journey, moving them closer to making a decision.
• Cost-effective marketing: Once created, content can continuously attract and engage potential clients without the ongoing cost of paid advertising, providing long-term value.

High-converting landing pages are designed and created with a single purpose: to turn visitors into leads or clients.

By focusing on clear messaging, compelling visuals, and a solid call to action, a well-optimised landing page ensures that the traffic driven by your PPC ads or email campaigns converts at a higher rate.

Benefits of high-converting landing pages for property marketing include:

• Targeted messaging: Tailored to match the intent of your PPC ads or email campaigns, landing pages speak directly to your audience’s needs and desires, increasing conversion rates.
• Focused user experience: With a singular call to action and no distractions, landing pages guide visitors toward the desired action, such as submitting an inquiry or booking a viewing.
• Improved lead quality: By using clear, relevant forms and CTAs, landing pages attract more qualified leads who are more likely to convert into clients.
• Higher conversion rates: A well-designed landing page is optimised for action, leading to more inquiries, sign-ups, or sales than a general webpage or homepage.
• Effective data collection: Landing pages help you collect valuable information from potential customers, allowing you to follow up with targeted, personalised communications.

Email campaigns allow property professionals to build strong relationships with their audience, provide timely updates, and drive engagement with property listings, market insights, and exclusive offers.

As such, a well-executed email marketing strategy increases conversions and fosters long-term loyalty.

Benefits of email marketing for property marketing include:

• Targeted communication: Segmented email lists allow you to send personalised messages to different audience groups, ensuring relevance and increasing engagement.
• Cost-effective marketing: Email campaigns offer a high return on investment, allowing you to reach a large audience at a relatively low cost compared to other channels used for digital marketing for real estate.
• Lead nurturing: Consistent email communication helps move leads through the sales funnel by providing valuable information, such as property tips, market reports, and updates on new listings.
• Increased engagement: Engaging content, like property alerts and exclusive offers, drives traffic back to your website and encourages further interaction with your brand.
• Measurable results: Email marketing provides clear metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, allowing you to track the effectiveness of your campaigns and refine your strategy accordingly.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube offer sophisticated real estate advertising options that allow you to showcase properties, promote services, and generate leads in a visually engaging and cost-effective manner.

Benefits of paid social advertising for property marketing include:

• Precise audience targeting: Social platforms offer advanced targeting tools that allow you to reach specific groups based on location, interests, and behaviour, ensuring your ads are seen by potential clients actively looking for properties or property-related services.
• Cost-effective lead generation: Paid social ads offer flexible budgeting options, allowing you to control your spend and generate leads without breaking the bank.
• Increased visibility and reach: By promoting your listings or services, you can quickly improve your visibility and reach a larger audience beyond your existing followers.
• Engaging ad formats: Paid social ads offer diverse formats, such as video, carousel ads, and stories, which are highly engaging and allow you to showcase properties or services in dynamic and creative ways.
• Measurable results: Social platforms provide robust analytics, helping you track ad performance, optimise campaigns, and measure the return on investment by analysing metrics like clicks, engagement, and conversions.

Video content offers a dynamic method for showcasing properties, providing virtual tours, sharing market updates, and building a personal connection with your audience.

Whether through platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook, video marketing helps property professionals create immersive experiences that captivate and engage viewers.

Benefits of video marketing for property marketing include:

• Enhanced property showcases: Videos allow for virtual tours and detailed property showcases, giving potential buyers a real sense of the space, layout, and atmosphere without needing to visit in person.
• Increased engagement: Video content is more engaging than text or static images, keeping viewers’ attention longer and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
• Improved SEO performance: Videos boost SEO by increasing dwell time on your website and improving rankings in search engines like Google, especially when hosted on YouTube.
• Broader reach: Video content is highly shareable across social media platforms, increasing your reach and visibility to potential buyers and renters.
• Stronger emotional connection: Video marketing helps create a personal connection with your audience. It allows you to convey stories, emotions, and the lifestyle that comes with a property, which can be a powerful selling point.

The Google Display Network is a powerful tool for property professionals aiming to re-engage visitors who have previously interacted with their website but have yet to convert.
These ads follow users across the web, encouraging them to return to your site and take the next step, whether scheduling a viewing or inquiring about a service.

Benefits of remarketing ads for property advertising include:

• Increased conversion rates: Remarketing ads target users who have already shown interest, making them more likely to return to your site and convert into leads or clients.
• Cost-effective advertising: Since you’re targeting a warm audience, remarketing ads often have a lower conversion cost than ads targeting cold audiences.
• Consistent brand exposure: Remarketing repeatedly displays your ads to potential buyers across the web, helping keep your properties and services top of mind and increasing the chances of future engagement.
• Custom targeting options: Remarketing allows you to tailor your ads based on user actions on your website, such as viewing specific properties or completing part of a contact form.
• Increased ROI: Remarketing campaigns tend to yield a higher return on investment by re-engaging visitors who are more likely to convert, reducing ad spend wastage and improving overall campaign effectiveness.

Advertising on Google Maps help property professionals attract local buyers, renters and clients by placing their business and property listings at the forefront of location-based searches.

These ads appear at the top of the Google Maps search results, significantly boosting your visibility when potential clients search for properties or real estate services in a specific area.

Benefits of Google Maps ads for property marketing include:

• Increased local visibility: As your business or listings appear at the top of Google Maps searches, you ensure high visibility for users looking for properties or services in your target area.
• Location-based targeting: Google Map ads help you connect with people searching for properties or real estate services in specific geographic locations, making it easier to reach a relevant audience.
• Enhanced engagement: With features like click-to-call, directions, and website links, Google Maps makes it easy for potential clients to take immediate action, driving more inquiries and visits to your properties.
• Cost-effective local advertising: These ads allow you to target users who are likely to convert because they are actively searching for properties or real estate services in your area, maximising your ad spend.
• Improved credibility: Appearing in local searches on Google Maps enhances your business’s credibility and trustworthiness, positioning you as a prominent local expert in the property market.

Traditional marketing methods such as door drops, direct mail, and glossy brochures remain highly effective tools for property professionals, especially when combined with a robust digital presence.

Tactile, high-quality materials like brochures can create a lasting impression, showcasing properties’ unique features in a visually appealing and personal way.

Door drops and printed marketing materials can target specific neighbourhoods, reaching potential clients who may not be actively searching online but are still interested in the local property market.

When these traditional approaches are supported by digital strategies such as email follow-ups, targeted ads, and a seamless online experience, they help create a multi-channel real estate marketing campaign that amplifies your reach and reinforces your brand’s presence.

Building a successful property marketing strategy requires a thoughtful blend of creativity, data-driven tactics, and channels.

Here are some top tips on how to build a comprehensive property marketing strategy that delivers measurable results.

One of the most critical steps in creating a property marketing strategy is defining your goals. Without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, marketing efforts can become unfocused and ineffective.

Start by asking yourself what the primary objective of your strategy is. Your goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with your business objectives.

Here are some key questions to help define your goals:

• Are you aiming to generate more leads?
• Do you want to increase property viewings?
• Is improving brand awareness your main focus?
• Are you looking to speed up the sales process?

Once you know your goals, you can tailor your strategy to achieve them.

A successful property marketing strategy requires a deep understanding of the ‘buyer journey.’ Simply put, you need to know what information potential buyers need and when they need it.

For example, consider using the following tactics at each stage of the process:

• Awareness: Share valuable content like educational blog posts on the local housing market, property advertorials in the local paper, infographics that break down the home-buying process, and short explainer videos highlighting different neighbourhoods or property types.
• Consideration: Provide resources such as case studies of successful home sales, webinars on market trends or how to prepare a home for sale, detailed guides on buying, selling, or renting a property, and video property tours.
• Decision: Create landing pages with promotions like free property valuations, client testimonials from satisfied buyers or sellers, and FAQs addressing common questions about working with an estate agent and navigating the transaction process.

Understanding your target audience is another critical step in developing an effective property marketing strategy.

Whether you’re targeting first-time homebuyers, seasoned investors, or renters, each audience segment has unique needs, preferences, and behaviours. Tailoring your messaging, visuals, and outreach efforts to meet these needs is essential.

To effectively understand and segment your target audience, consider the following factors:

• Demographics: Age, income level, family size, and location can all influence what your audience is looking for in a property.
• Motivations: First-time homebuyers may prioritise affordability and location, while investors might focus on ROI and market trends. Renters often look for convenience and lifestyle amenities.
• Pain points: What challenges do your potential clients face? For example, homebuyers might be concerned about mortgage rates, while investors may be worried about market volatility.
• Behavioural insights: How does your target audience engage with marketing content? Do they prefer videos, in-depth blog posts, or social media updates?

Once you clearly understand your audience, you can craft a marketing strategy that speaks directly to them. This involves:

• Tailoring your messaging: Customise your language and tone to resonate with your audience’s concerns and desires. For example, emphasise long-term value for investors and lifestyle benefits for renters.
• Customising visuals: Use imagery that reflects the preferences of your target audience, whether that’s luxury interiors for high-end buyers or community features for families.
• Creating targeted offers: Develop promotions or incentives that appeal to the distinct needs of each segment, such as offering property guides for first-time buyers or showcasing tax benefits for investors.

Once your audience and objectives are defined, you can choose the most appropriate channels to move you closer to your desired outcome. For example:

• Generating more high-quality leads: Focus on optimising landing pages with clear calls to action, ensuring they speak directly to your target audience’s needs. Pair this with PPC campaigns that target relevant demographics and behaviours, driving traffic from users most likely to convert into leads.
• Boosting brand awareness: Invest in content that resonates with your audience, such as engaging social media posts, videos, and blog articles. Combine this with local community engagement through sponsorships or events and traditional marketing methods like direct mail or glossy brochures.
• Speeding up the sales process: Leverage remarketing ads to reconnect with website visitors who still need to convert, and follow up with email campaigns to nurture leads. Additionally, estate agents could use immersive content like video tours to provide potential buyers with a comprehensive view of your properties, making it easier for them to make decisions faster.

Successful property marketing requires continuous optimisation and refinement to stay effective. To ensure ongoing success, follow these fundamental practices:

• Review performance data regularly: Monitor key metrics such as engagement rates, lead quality, and conversion rates across all campaigns. This data provides valuable insights into what’s working and where adjustments are needed.
• Be ready to pivot: If specific tactics aren’t delivering the desired results, be flexible and adjust your strategy.
• Stay updated with industry trends: Incorporate the latest tools and trends into your strategy to boost engagement.
• Explore new platforms: Look for emerging social media platforms and technologies that can provide fresh ways to reach your target audience. Being an early adopter can give you a competitive edge.
• Test and iterate: Experiment with different content formats, ad creatives, and marketing channels. A/B testing allows you to compare performance and continuously refine your approach for better results.

When planning your property marketing budget, it’s crucial to have a clear and strategic approach.

Simply spending more doesn’t guarantee results. You need to understand the factors driving success.

By identifying key metrics, you can allocate your budget more effectively and ensure that your marketing efforts generate the best possible return.

Here’s how to start:

What is your conversion rate?

Before deciding how much to spend on your property marketing, you must determine your conversion rate. The conversion rate is the percentage of leads that turn into clients.

To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of new clients by the total number of leads typically generated by your marketing campaigns, then multiply by 100. For example, if you get 50 leads and ten become clients, your conversion rate is 20%.

When devising your property marketing strategy, establish how many leads you want (too many can be as problematic as too few!).

If your goal is ten new clients and your conversion rate is 20%, you must generate 50 monthly leads to hit your target.

What is your cost-per-lead?

Once you’ve determined how many leads you need to generate, the next step is to calculate your cost-per-lead (CPL). This is the amount you need to spend on marketing to acquire each lead.

To calculate your CPL, divide the total amount spent on your marketing campaigns by the number of leads generated. For example, if you spend £1,000 on a campaign that brings in 50 leads, your cost-per-lead would be £20.

If your target is 50 leads per month and your CPL is £20, you need to budget £1,000 each month to generate the necessary leads. Monitoring this figure will help you optimise your campaigns and ensure a good return on investment for your marketing spend.

What is your Return on Investment (ROI)

While knowing your conversion rate and cost-per-lead is essential, your ROI is the real measure of success. ROI helps you understand how much revenue your marketing efforts are bringing in relative to what you’re spending.

To calculate your ROI, subtract your total marketing costs from the income generated by your new clients, then divide that number by your total marketing spend. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage.

For example, if you spend £1,000 on marketing and gain £5,000 in revenue from those clients, your ROI is 400%.

While many property professionals understand the importance of digital marketing, navigating the ever-changing landscape of online advertising, content creation, and SEO can be overwhelming.

Whether you handle your property marketing in-house or hire a specialist agency depends on the size of your business and the expertise available.

For smaller property businesses, hiring a marketing agency is a wise choice. Even if you have team members enthusiastic about marketing, finding the time to effectively promote your properties or services while managing client relationships and transactions can be challenging.

Even in larger companies with in-house marketing teams, capacity is often stretched thin, leaving critical tasks unfinished without outside support.

Working with our experienced property marketing agency will help you get the desired results without wasting your budget.

Whether you need to increase new enquiries, reduce lead costs, or discuss ways to improve your SEO results, our experienced team is here to help you grow.

If you’re ready to unlock your business growth, contact our specialist real estate marketing agency today. Book your free strategy session by calling 020 7205 2755 or simply complete the enquiry form on this page.