Digital Marketing strategy for real estate firms in West Africa.

In the last ten years, there has been a major shift in the real estate industry, many people live a busy life and are looking for ways to easily buy properties without having to do physical inspections and as a realtor, you may find yourself seeking ways to best promote/plan your business to deliver top-notch services to your clients

Every big brand or successful business jas a great business plan/strategy. As a newbie in the real estate world, you need a strategy or plan in order to thrive in this industry.

What must you do?

Define your brand

The main focus of real estate firms in West Africa should be on how to better solve the needs of accommodation in Africa. How to provide affordable housing, good water and good road connection and access to other basic amenities.
Also, focus on how to connect West Africans in the diaspora to legit, affordable and high-quality properties with a guarantee to the funds.

Define your goals:
To create a good strategy, you need to define your goal, knowing what your brand is all about is great but what is the goal exactly? If your firm is relatively new, one of your goal maybe how to create awareness, get customers and retain them. However, if it’s an existing brand, your goals may need to be specific and achievable as they will help you to plan and strategize appropriately.

Your goals may be long-term (6months upwards) or short-term (0 to 6momths) provided it’s attainable eventually.

Short Term goals:

1. To create a business website/portfolio
2. Create awareness for your business
3. Create an email campaign

Long term goals:

1. Create a social media marketing strategy by posting relevant content which may include:
   a. New and old listings
   b. Related blog posts if you have a blog
   c. success stories or testimonials from clients etc
2. Host events like webinars or live tours on your properties
3. Contract influencers and also create an avenue for West African or Africans in the diaspora to have virtual access to the properties
4. To be number one choice for anyone especial west Africans in Diaspora when it comes to real estate.

Note:Make sure that your goals are SMART
(specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely)

Define your audience:

Who is your audience, understanding your audience is vital in planning your digital marketing strategy in real estate? For many, defining the audience may be very difficult.

Everyone can’t be your audience, your audience needs to know where to find you, you need a user-friendly website, to optimize your website and Social media pages for easy reach, however, how do you define your target audience?

You can define your audience by creating a buyer persona:

1. Individuals interested in buying , renting or selling properties.
2. Persons or businesses seeking for properties for lease or office space for rent.

You can further narrow down your buyer persona to people based on;
location
age
income
family situation
education
occupation

Run a competitors analysis:

Using industry tools to analyze your competitors can be very helpful. You need to understand that just like you, so many others have followed the same step in planning their marketing strategy. If it’s an existing business they have probably done a good research, built a good website, optimized their SEO, contents as content is king.