We live in an age of advertising overload.  Across every marketing channel . . . email, social media, web, traditional mail, print . . . clients and trade allies are saturated with promotional advertising, all vying for their attention.  And at some point, it just becomes background noise.

In real estate, the challenge, however, is beyond just capturing attention for getting your marketing message across.  The bigger challenge in real estate is establishing on-going, trusted relationships which generate a stream of referrals and ensure future repeat business.

This is where "content-driven" marketing shines.

WHAT IS CONTENT-DRIVEN MARKETING?

According to Bob Ruffolo, CEO of IMPACT, "Content-driven marketing is about valuable information.  It's the marketing of a business or brand through the sharing of educational or insightful information that will ultimately help target clients and customers to improve their lives."

With a content-driven marketing strategy, "instead of directly pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues" according to the Content Management Institute.

And as James O'Brien of Contently recently wrote on Mashable, "The idea central to content-driven marketing is that a brand must give something valuable to get something valuable in return." In other words, by providing on-going, helpful, relevant information to clients (value to them) they will return sales, referrals and repeat business (value to you).  So "Instead of being the 'commercial,' be the 'show.' Instead of being the banner ad, be the story."  

To be successful, content-driven marketing requires the continuous delivery of valuable content.

WHAT MAKES CONTENT-DRIVEN MARKETING SO POWERFUL?

Content-driven marketing is a form of marketing that does not involve direct sales. So how can this be effective for growing a business?

What makes this approach so powerful is that it builds trust and on-going rapport with the target audience.  And the short answer for why the dramatic growth in content-driven marketing, is that in our age of information overload, it works.  

Quoting again from the Content Management Institute "Providing relevant and valuable information is the difference between content-driven marketing and the other informational garbage you get from companies trying to sell you stuff. Companies send us information all the time – it’s just that most of the time it’s not very relevant or valuable. That’s what makes content-driven marketing so successful in today’s environment of thousands of marketing messages per person per day.  Our annual research shows the vast majority of marketers are now using content-driven marketing. In fact, it is used by many prominent organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and John Deere. It’s also utilized by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe. Why? Because it works."

Simply put, continually providing valuable information builds trust and keeps you top-of-mind. 

For the real estate business, establishing on-going, trusted relationships is key to generating referrals and repeat business.  And this is why at APPLICA our marketing automation tools enable our clients to provide personalized home care reminders & tips to their clients and prospects . . . to support on-going, valuable, relevant content-driven marketing.