Brokerages are harnessing the power of marketing operations to maximize profits and explore previously untapped areas to scale business. A well-oiled marketing operations team may take time to develop, but more and more businesses are understanding the benefits of being able to have a smooth running system that requires little human intervention and is enhanced by AI and smart machine learning (ML) tech. Here is a breakdown of just some of the many advantages that marketing operations bring to real estate.
1. Helps achieve revenue objectives
Marketing operations can impact revenue because of the sheer wealth of data being processed and turned into meaningful, actionable information. Agents and brokerages can leverage that information to generate higher-quality leads and acquire better reportage.
2. More transparent insights
By developing a comprehensive marketing operations strategy, businesses will be able to make better decisions that are backed by real-time and processed data, driving growth, cooperation and communication throughout entire teams.
3. Better management systems
In 2020, the marketing technology landscape grew by 13.6%, proving it to be a complex and growing market. This means not only are agents and real estate companies having to deal with more material and data that need to be managed, but new technologies are constantly being developed that can lead to confusion and inefficiency if mismanaged. A well-fitted marketing operations strategy means the right tech stack is being implemented from the start that drives efficiency right alongside innovation.
4. Enhanced CX
Nearly 81% of marketing is expected to be mostly based on CX, which is why more and more brokerages recognize that being able to deliver a stellar CX experience with personalized content is a strategy that is here to stay. Marketing operations (especially when coupled with the power of ML and AI tech) empower agents to make better customer behavior analysis and therefore better copy, better ads, and better data touchpoints.
5. Promotes reflection upon the future
Because everything can be monitored, assessed and reported on, marketing operations encourage management teams or agents to better appraise business performance, highlight strengths, identify weaknesses and areas of new opportunities in unprecedented ways.
6. Increases customer satisfaction
Not only is CX improved upon, but marketing operations allow an emphasis on personalization so that agents are able to target customers with greater accuracy and actually have more authentic connections with customers, leading to more referrals in the future. These data-driven capabilities allow agents to provide consistent customer experience one after another, rather than previous methods which relied on trial and error or predictions based on old data or industry assumptions.
7. Achieve impact and efficiency
A McKinsey report revealed that marketing operations provide a 15-25% improvement in overall marketing effectiveness, because (when the right technologies are chosen) it promotes better understanding of customer needs and interests, delivers superior experience, and use of best metrics to drive success.
8. Helps adoption of a data-first mentality
The ability to track and monitor performance and results is an important strategy to help companies adopt a data-first mentality. This, in turn, is an important step in adopting a digital-first approach to driving success, because it means not only reaching ideal targets faster and speaking their language, but it promotes better use of agent time, resources and budget. For example, agents can have detailed analytics regarding a certain campaign success which they can broach to the C-suite in order to win executive buy-in for more marketing spend, creating wins for the entire brand in the process.
9. Competitive advantage
Marketing operations allows agents to have a competitive edge because they are uniquely equipped with accurate, real-time and historical data and full metrics reportage that back business decisions and growth moves, and allow the launching of more sophisticated marketing programs. Not only that, only 44% of marketing departments actually currently measure the revenue they influence which means businesses that do leverage AI-powered analytics have a huge advantage to create insights-led campaigns, budget planning and ROI opportunities.
10. Promotes room to create and grow
Because AI and machine learning applications allow for automated real-time data and analysis to formulate vivid insights about customer preferences and demographics, agents and brokerages are actually able to have more time and space to brainstorm new creative campaign workflows with greater flexibility and a keen insight into the operations behind it.
A smooth-running marketing operations strategy will look different from business to business, but it does mean teams will have to be agile when it comes to brewing up the perfect mix of data, tech and creative enterprise. It will take all three elements to execute campaigns successfully and at scale, but with emerging technologies that directly address the modern needs of brokerages and digital agents, the changing landscape that marketing operations provide is promising. This enables agents to move further and further away from outdated methods using legacy systems and manual processes and instead allows them to focus on their most important task - generating personalized content to their target audiences at the right moments.
