As per the “Real Estate in a Digital Age Report” published by National Association of Realtor, 81% of Older Millennials, 80% of Younger Millennials and 78% of Generation X buyers found their property on a mobile device. Social media was cited as the best tool for generating top quality leads among realtors. As the above mentioned data depict, a significant majority of the real estate clients used internet to buy or sell a property.
This shows, how important are the digital platforms for the real estate industry, proving beneficial for both the buyers and sellers alike. The digital platforms, including a virtual office, offer easy and cheap access to a wide range of real estate business tools that empower owners and their realtors to carry out all types of business activities from any location that they prefer. The use of a virtual office approach is the best way to reduce the overhead budget in addition to giving a business the required credibility and prestige. However, it is very important to lay a correct foundation to guarantee the success of one’s real estate virtual office. Before starting to organize the virtual office, it is necessary to strategize and think how the business would operate on the market virtually in an efficient manner.
Therefore, the investors and shareholders must apply certain marketing and communication strategies in order to reap the benefits of virtual offices.
Making an Effective Marketing Strategy
Effective marketing is the spirit of every novice business. Without it, even a good start up would shrink with time due to the failure to attract potential buyers. Digital marketing via virtual platforms is more effective than simply printing out posters and hanging them on a wall for a street traffic to notice. Such a web-based marketing can be done by posting available properties on well-known real estate search engines. Further, to increase the credibility of your business and build clients’ trust, you will be needing a strong professional profile for your real estate business on the relevant social platforms. Such a comprehensive online presence will certainly direct more traffic to your online business.
Additionally, effective engagement with clients is vital for efficient marketing. It can be done through client relationship management and social media management tools. These tools collect and provide you important data about current customer preferences, and keep you in touch with the most relevant information at the right time.
Another effective way to engage with clients is conducting webinars. There are a number of webinar tools that are making the production and promotion of webinars easier and quicker. Due to its convenience, a large number of people around the world can attend the webinar online, providing a much broader outreach. Moreover, as the experts of business management say, satisfied clients are the free advertisers. Providing effective service will keep your business on the top of your past client’s mind when referring your business to someone else.
Providing Virtual Tours
Providing virtual tours works well to get the properties of a real estate business shortlisted by the clients. This is especially true for out-of-town clients who are more to rely on your virtual simulations. To make quality virtual tours, pictures and videos taken from the property can be edited using effective editing tools, and published for the clients to see. The format, load speed and quality of the virtual tour should be adjusted so that it can be easily accessed using a mobile phone, as most of the clients use their mobile phones to search for property.
Ensuring Virtual Presence—Setting up an Address
In order to earn customers’ confidence, every business startup, including real estate businesses, needs a virtual presence. The virtual office must be registered with a well-known address and must possess a virtual mailing address to help the clients to connect with the realtors and the owners. Such a mailing address would also be required if you want to register your business as an LLC. LLC registration is an important process of business registration as it protects personal assets of owners and shareholders from business liabilities in case of a legal proceeding.
Learn more about How To Register An LLC With A Virtual Address, here.
Additionally, your contact information including your mailing address should be available to potential clients everywhere, including your website and social media platforms.
Setting up a Business Website
Since your business exists in the virtual realm, you must think of setting up a website to represent it on a much wider scale. All the necessary tools ought to be incorporated to set up a good website. It need to be customized with a help of a hosting plan and a suitable theme. A strong property search website is necessary to provide prospective clients the best information about available property listings.
Employee Engagement and Training
Once all the necessary steps are taken, all you need is to motivate and train your coworkers and employees. For employee-engagement, scheduling meeting twice a week will keep you stay in touch with your coworkers and keep you updated about their progress and concerns. Moreover, providing online trainings and working upon skill-development is yet another important way to get most out of the talent pool in your virtual office.
Learn more on some of reliable online courses Free Online Real Estate Courses, here.
Setting up a virtual office only, without taking other necessary steps cannot make a significant impact for a real estate business, especially those in their nascent stage. With the above-mentioned techniques implemented, the virtual office of a real estate business can certainly be put to the best use to achieve quicker growth in less time.
