When we sat down with The Weiniger Group’s Judy Weiniger for a one-on-one interview about real estate content marketing, one thing became immediately clear: Not only does she prioritize creating and sharing engaging content on her website, but, when it comes to her niche market and the audience she tries to reach, her focus is also entirely local.
Weiniger shared her insights on why it’s so imperative to focus on local content, the ins and outs of sharing content the “correct” way via email and on social media, and how to ensure every page and asset you produce is visually appealing and engaging to site visitors.
Showcasing Your Community with Local Content
Weiniger explained her philosophy on developing local real estate content and how she continues to connect with her audience by crafting interesting collateral that keeps them coming back to her site.
“I wanted to always lead with value and lead with trust,” said Weiniger. “A better way for me to do that was providing content that really mattered. Valuable content that people couldn’t find elsewhere. As a local expert in my community, I was the perfect person to be able to create it and then distribute it.”
Weiniger added how she always tries to put herself in the position of her potential buyers, considering what types of things they’d want to learn about the area before relocating.
“It’s kind of fun trying to figure out how to tell our story about our town in a way that made it real, transparent, interesting, and would be a magnet for people to check us out further,” she stated.
Deciding on a Niche Real Estate Market
As Weiniger explained, she chooses to focus her energy on the community where she lives because she’s best acquainted with it.
“The best advice I can give is start small,” Weiniger noted. “If you’re in a city, pick a neighborhood, pick a building. Pick anything that you can speak of from an expert point of view.”
In the beginning, Weiniger wanted to focus her efforts on people who were moving out of New York City and starting young families, looking for a backyard and a good community. People would ask her the best places to buy groceries, so she wrote a blog post about the most popular supermarkets around Warren, New Jersey, the market she serves.
“I felt like a lot of it had to do with learning the businesses,” Weiniger relayed. “I wanted to shine light on our community and also raise the local businesses up. Usually small business don’t understand technology or social media. That’s probably one of my most proud projects that I’ve done so far.”
Providing Endless Value to Your Prospects
Setting out to create content for your real estate website requires that you have a goal in mind of who you want to reach and what you want to say. As Weiniger says, agents need to realize they have a wealth of distinct expertise many non-Realtors simply don’t have. Thus, they’d be wise to share it online.
“There’s so many ways that you can provide value in areas that you’re an expert in,” Weiniger said, adding it’s not about being the solution for everyone, but instead “going in deep with things that matter to you.”
When something you’re passionate about becomes your focus, you’ll be able to find more ways to leverage that expertise for your potential clients and find more success overall.
“We have the opportunity to provide something that no one else can except those that know our towns, so it’s exactly the reason why you need to do it,” Weiniger said. “I think we all have to understand when we do video especially, people get to know us before they call us. I mean, wouldn’t it be wonderful to pick up the phone and have someone say, ‘I’d love to have you over because I’m ready to hire you to sell my home?’ Creating that trust factor before we even meet.”
Getting Started with Real Estate Content Marketing
Weiniger empathizes with people just beginning the process of creating content for their real estate sites and explained how to tackle the writer’s block people face.
“In the beginning I was confused too,” said Weiniger. “I didn’t really know where to start and what to write about. But start from the position of what your clients ask you every single day. What do they want to know? What do you hear over and over? I started with Q & A videos and Q & A blogs.”
Developing a Concrete Editorial Strategy
Perhaps the most actionable information Weiniger shared with us is her process for creating and sharing content with her audience on her site. She said she used to blog once a week, but after hiring a content marketing manager and getting the hang of producing and distributing content, she can produce three to four blog posts a week and regularly schedules high-quality pieces to publish.
“We have an open house post that goes out every Friday for the weekend, a weekender guide all about the community and all the things to do around the area for the weekend. Earlier in the week we post a community post of some sort, whether it’s repurposing a previous video or a blog post we’ve done about the local yoga studios or where to find the best sushi in town,” she said.
In terms of strategy, Weiniger explained they create a blog post, they blast it on Facebook, maybe imbed a video to increase views, and then blast the content to their email database. They also share on social media platforms like Google+, Linkedin, and Instagram.
“I’ve learned that the website has to be the hub,” Weiniger noted. “That’s where we want to drive everyone. You have to invest. So invest in a great site, invest in a photographer. Make sure your photographs are gorgeous. All of this content is hopefully reinforcing our brand. People can trust us, people know they’re going to get value with us. That we’re transparent. It all feeds on the aesthetics of beautiful marketing. So if our website is gorgeous, I think people can understand we do take a lot of care in presenting their home.”
Making the Most of Content by Repurposing
To make the most of her real estate marketing efforts, Weiniger creates what she calls “snippets,” 30-second videos of local outside areas.
“We created that local content and we wrote the blog post, and then used the data points on a really cool visual map,” Weiniger explained. “It also allows us to embed the videos right on the map, so it becomes incredibly dynamic and it hits everyone’s aesthetic. We’re trying to repurpose them and share on different social media platforms and see which will get the most engagement.”
For even more real estate content marketing insights, check out our entire webinar conversation with Judy Weiniger below:
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