Three reasons why you should embrace omnichannel marketing

Let’s address the elephant in the room first - the property sector and how we market properties is changing.

Gone are the days where the only way to sell or let a home is in a high street branch with a sharp suit and tie to match. While this approach still has its place, there’s evidence to suggest that the new generation of property seekers increasingly prefer a more modern and interconnected marketing approach that suits their digital-first lifestyle.

What is omnichannel marketing and who uses it?

For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘omnichannel marketing’ refers to a seamless multichannel sales tactic that aims to create uniquely curated marketing experiences for each customer.

Omnichannel marketing is recognised as an integrated approach to marketing across various platforms, combining marketing, sales, and other divisions of a business to work in tandem with one another.

It’s not to be confused with multichannel marketing - which refers to a disconnected approach across various platforms. Omnichannel marketing seeks to fully integrate different company divisions to ensure that every division/team is working towards the same goal.

At nurturingAI, we have embraced the concept of omnichannel marketing that has been virtually ubiquitous within the eCommerce sector and applied it to the property market. As an agent using nurturingAI, you’ll be able to create fully integrated and unified marketing and sales campaigns that stretch across all platforms and channels, be it email, social, mobile or otherwise.

As mentioned above, omnichannel marketing is being used by some of the biggest brands across the globe, including the likes of Amazon, eBay, Nike and many others.

However, while omnichannel marketing might seem like a ‘cheat code’ designed to keep the major corporations on top, you don’t need the marketing budget of a globally renowned business to take advantage of omnichannel marketing. In fact, with nurturingAI you can do it for your agency, even if you’re a one-person operation!

Three reasons why agents should use omnichannel marketing

- Enhanced brand awareness

You don’t need us to tell you that the property industry is a highly competitive one. Anything that can make your stand out and give you a competitive edge is extremely welcome. Thankfully, omnichannel marketing can help you with that greatly.

One of the major benefits of omnichannel marketing is the extra brand visibility and awareness that it can generate. By continuously putting your brand in front of consumers, time and time again, across many different channels, you’re letting them know that you’re a serious player in the market.

In addition to the increased visibility, using multiple channels to target your customers will help you to identify which platforms a certain customer prefers, as well as the type of messaging that they are more receptive towards.

- Understand your customers better

There is strong evidence to suggest that companies and brands that adopt an omnichannel strategy approach can reap huge rewards.

If up until now you’ve only been marketing to customers via property portals or Facebook, now would be a good time to consider expanding your marketing horizons. Relaying the same, consistent marketing and promotional messages across as many channels/platforms as possible, directly leads to more prospects and leads choosing to use your services and selecting you as their preferred agent.

One key benefit of a consistent, multichannel marketing message is the ability to establish better and more fulfilling relationships with your customers. How is this achieved, you ask? Simple, by placing the customer at the centre of your marketing efforts.

By putting your customer at the front and centre of your marketing efforts, you can get to know their specific needs and wants better to ensure that you are providing them with the content and services that they actually need, not merely the properties/services that you want them to buy.

In the ever-changing landscape of modern digital marketing, knowing which channels and communications tools your customers prefer to engage with you can be a godsend. It might seem like a lot of groundwork (especially for a smaller agency), but knowing what channels your customers prefer can give you a decisive competitive edge that could prove vital in the highly competitive estate and letting agent market.

- Massively increase marketing efficiency

Another key benefit of adopting the omnichannel marketing approach is that it can make your marketing activity much more efficient.

By focusing on producing marketing content and collateral that can be easily repurposed across as many different channels and mediums as possible, you are getting the maximum reach and exposure for your brand and company, with the minimum possible effort and resources required on your part. Marketing can be streamlined and optimised.

These days, your prospects and leads like to engage with agents on a huge variety of channels, and in many different ways. We have reached the point where consumer preference for things like video content and innovative ways of communicating such as Facebook Messenger, have penetrated almost all industries and markets. The property industry is certainly now no exception to this rule.

So as an agent, you need to give your prospects and leads what they want, in the form that they desire it. Omnichannel focuses on ensuring that you do just that.

Efficiency gains also come in the form of better synergy between the various departments within your business. With everything better connected and integrated, everyone in your business is clearer on what specific marketing messages are being promoted at any given time. This helps to aid internal communication and understanding, which is another key benefit of the omnichannel methodology. 

- Better data collection and analysis

So I know we said that we’d limit this to three reasons, but consider this an obvious bonus - with an omnichannel marketing strategy in place, your agency will be able to achieve and own better data from your customers.

One of the biggest complaints that we have heard from many agents across EAT and other property sector sites is that property portals are only after your data. While we can’t speak for every property portal out there, we can say that data is indeed a valuable commodity and one that portals typically look to harness to further their own goals.

However, with nurturingAI and our smart-learning, omnichannel marketing platform, your data really is yours, and you’re free to use it in any way that you see fit.

There are some extremely powerful ways in which you can then use this extra data and insight. As a property agency, you’ll be able to collect and bring together customer data from disparate channels and systems including site cookies, social media, device IDs, mailing lists and more.

Efficiently utilising your data will enable you to understand your customers’ behaviour better. Which, in turn, means you can implement more effective marketing campaigns in the future. After all, great campaigns that lead to better engagement and conversion rates is what every agency wants, right?

Visit nurturingAI to discover how our machine-learning software can help your business to grow.

*Christopher May is Director of Residential People and nurturingAI