Automation has firmly planted its roots in modern-day marketing, with 77% of CMOs at top-performing companies citing Marketing Automation as a significant contributor to revenue growth.
But beyond increasing profits, the adaptability and range that Marketing Automation (MA) offers in terms of optimization are multifold:
- It streamlines many online marketing efforts and daily repetitive tasks, boosting productivity by 20% because it frees up overworked professionals and even entire teams to focus on more complex and interpersonal activities that center on business goals.
- 80% of companies saw an increase in lead generation/nurturing after adopting MA software because of its capabilities of establishing strong, steady interactions with qualified leads/customers
- Top-ranking MA techniques like email automation, profiling and targeting, and personalization through dynamic content greatly enrich customer insight. Professionals across multiple industries credit MA as helping them better monitor, measure and target client behavior and identify problem points.
- It offers an overall system of communications that is consistent with brand ethos and voice, which is even more advantageous when coupled with ability to scale across businesses of any size (with many moving parts). For example, one automated social media marketing campaign can be set up to send a prepared marketing asset to all or some contacts at a designated time.
While the benefits of marketing automation across industries are plenty, its adoption within the real estate sector is yet to be fully embraced.
Real estate’s unique needs and challenges
Real estate is an industry with unique needs and challenges. According to the National Association of Realtors, 41% of buyers choose an agent based on friends and family recommendations, and 68% choose the first agent they interview. Because those interpersonal relationships between agent and client are so crucial, agents have concerns leaving parts of that relationship up to a software. Because homebuying is also such a pivotal and emotional experience for clients, it is incumbent upon real estate professionals to nurture that purchase journey with even more sensitivity and customer insight than would be required in many other sectors.
Furthermore, there are other concerns agents have - not knowing which software would be a good fit for their business goals or customer profile. For example in the US, CRM systems not being adapted to accept MLS feeds. Safety and fears of cybercrimes even if end-of-sales funnel stage is reached; silos of sheer data that agents find difficult to analyze; and elongated transaction timelines to name but a few more.
The swiftness and ease of sites like Amazon and eBay have completely revolutionized the way consumers purchase commodities, but that level of convenience and click-happy tendencies has not quite translated to the experience of the homebuyer (yet) due to multiple factors that can come into play at any stage before point-of-sale: shift in priorities/needs, job loss, issues with home inspection, etc.
Nevertheless, in the last decade, tech has tackled similar concerns and overcome - in the travel industry (automation of booking, ticketing etc) and in financial services too, with the unstoppable rise of mobile payments and robo advice, (increased transparency challenging the dominance of banks).
Opportunity knocking for marketing automation in real estate
Marketing automation softwares specifically catered to real estate will not only help agents jazz up their landing pages or submit MLS entries in bulk, but do a lot more: open house lead generation and routing, syncing contacts cross-channel, opportunity tracking through the pipeline (like Contactually does), interactions with previous clients (FollowupBoss), automated property inspection, (Spectora), calendar availability notifications to visitors, etc.
When it comes to processes further down the pipeline, companies like LionDesk help with property plan templates, (track closings, listing presentations etc); while other services automate contracts being sent out, even dealing with signing, payment (e-signatures, e-notarization, cloud solutions etc), even ownership transfer.
Big data uncovered and empowering agents
While agencies collect endless amounts of data, emerging startups are finding ways to digitize and make sense of all that information to produce actionable intelligence that will help agents better serve their clients.
Going one step further, big data in real estate means working with machine learning and automating the analysis of vast amounts of data from multiple information sources that surpasses human capabilities. It employs a large number of parameters and basically offers insight on many more factors than a bedroom:bathroom ratio. It can reveal how many hours of sunlight a house gets in the winter, or how many schools there are in the vicinity etc - dramatically empowering agents in what they offer clients.
Agents who thrive in the new era that real estate is entering will be those who, from now, overcome fear of the unknown and instead are excited in familiarizing themselves with the upcoming solutions that these real estate-focused platforms are bringing to the forefront for the first time.
Find out how you can use Adfenix marketing automation technology to supercharge your on-page lead generation on your company website.
