Is Your REI Business Prepared For Post Digital Marketing?
How is your real estate investment business preparing for the new era of post digital marketing?
Everything is cyclical. The economy, the real estate market, and marketing. Just as we’ve seen some of the biggest changes in the first two of these, another super cycle change is primed to happen in marketing.
For those that have been in the business long enough, we’ve seen the rise and fall of direct mail, outdoor advertising, cold calling, purchased internet leads, and email, and more recently PPC and social media.
More and more factors are building up to force a new change in marketing, and what works and doesn’t. Ensuring your business is ready, and ahead of the game is likely to make all of the difference in deal flow and cash flow, as well as who survives and grows, versus those that fold.
The End Of Digital Marketing
The trust is gone, and more limitations and rising costs are accelerating the demise of digital marketing as we’ve known it for the past decade.
We recently saw TikTok surpass Google and Facebook to become the most popular website in the world. We’ve seen major online companies that should have been poised to dominate after COVID end up losing 30% to 70% of their stock value, and running into serious issues. Those include companies like Zoom, Netflix, Upwork and Better (mortgage). In most cases they seem to be failing because they made disastrous short term decisions at the expense of their most loyal customers and their reputation.
Google is getting hit with more and more lawsuits and limitations. The latest accuse it of misleading users about the tracking that has been happening even when they thought they turned off location services. This will directly impact PPC advertising and SEO.
Real estate advertisers have also been driving themselves crazy and burning enormous amounts of money on junk. Including new grammar checking apps, SEO analyzers, and joining groups offering tons of self-sabotaging duplicate content, such as blogs and white papers.
This is on top of rising costs from bots, and scams, often initiated by advertising platforms like Facebook themselves.
Then there is spam, spam, spam. Now it is not only phone calls and social media like LinkedIn, but in text messages and ads too. Countless consumers have also been burned trying to buy things directly over social sites like Instagram, and may be vowing only to do business with local sellers they can see and hold accountable.
Post-Digital Marketing: What’s Next?
As consumers and businesses get burned out on digital marketing, grow tired of losing money and won’t even take a chance on it anymore, what’s next?
What marketing will work and be useful after the digital we’ve grown accustomed to? Especially if you are trying to buy, sell or rent real estate?
Half the country has already decided that they want to be free and return to normal activities. They aren’t interested in vax mandates, masks, or restrictions. So, outside of the Northeast and California, expect in person meetups, in person sales presentations, groups, and experiential marketing in the real world to make a huge comeback. More modern, boutique offices may also reappear with new innovative twists.
As more and more people migrate and move, signage may be more important as they explore new areas.
Those stuck at home in the most restrictive states, may see direct mail once again seeing great results.
These are all things that require marketing, just different types. It may be authentic and original mail, pitch decks to present on your device in person, what you wear, etc. The question is, are you investing in these materials and copywriters, strategists, part time, fractional or remote CMOs to help you win in this transition and new era?
