“We want to be the company that writes it the best and makes it the most accessible,” adds Gardner-Phillips. “It always comes down to the content. We see who has already written about it and we write it better or take a different angle—otherwise we pick a new topic.”
Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate, located in Hockessin, Del., has similar ideals when it comes to leveraging content. The company offers a monthly digital eNewsletter called Home Matters, powered by RISMedia, that goes out to thousands of consumer registrants who sign up via the company’s or agents’ websites. A daily newsletter also goes out to agents, who can then share the information easily on social media. Also included as part of their partnership with RISMedia, this industry engagement tool helps keep agents up-to-date and allows the company to make announcements such as new agent hires, sales production achievements or positive survey reviews. Homeownership articles and videos are just some of the tools the company uses from RISMedia’s robust content library, which are always a major component of their mailings.
“Our agents leverage this information on their own without us having to do that for them. They enjoy the material we provide and find the content worthy,” says Donna Greenspan, senior vice president of Business Development and Corporate Strategy for Patterson-Schwartz.
RISMedia’s content library is only one part of its all-encompassing Content Solutions package. Companies looking for answers to their content sourcing and marketing needs can take advantage of the thousands of business development and consumer-facing articles and videos, while also implementing a resource center pop-up website, branded to the company and including links to listings, real estate news, videos, Q&As and more. In addition, the Home Matters newsletter provides agents with freshly updated stories from Content Solutions that trickle down to the customer base, facilitating agents’ jobs and helping cement relationships with current, past and new clients.
“We’ve had success with consumers in a few places. Not only do we push out that content to those who connect with us on our public site, we also develop semi-custom websites for our agents,” says Greenspan, noting that some agents struggle with where to find good content. “To make sure they have content refreshing regularly, we post content for them, very similar to what’s in our digital newsletter, with info that we pull from RISMedia. We give them the ability to post that info from their website onto their social applications. They can take that content and share it on another marketing channel and drive traffic back and forth throughout their channels. It’s completely automated so they don’t have to take their focus off of selling,” she says.
Curating content does indeed bog agents down. With a vast sea of sources on the Internet to choose from, many agents struggle to find the time to even begin a content search, let alone generate their own original information and blog posts. GARDNER, REALTORS® understands these time pressures and has also chosen to make RISMedia content available to their agents.
“We find it extremely effective, especially when RISMedia has tons and tons of topics that we can use, co-branded with our name,” says Gardner-Phillips. “While it’s healthy to have a good balance of your own content, content creation takes so much time, and RISMedia’s content has helped us build our content strategy.”
For internal content sharing, GARDNER, REALTORS® has also chosen to use RISMedia’s eNews platform to communicate with their REALTORS® and support team and share industry news and insights. The eNews includes the company’s logo, custom links, and personal message, along with the ability to include advertisements.
“It has transformed the way that we communicate with REALTORS®. It has given us a way to communicate with them once a day, with a customized, important message that we want the company to know about and all great real estate content below it,” says Gardner-Phillips. “People have responded well to it and our open rates continue to increase.”
While newsletters stand as a large part of both companies’ content sharing strategies, Facebook remains a hefty part of Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate’s social plan. While some agents and the company itself dabble on LinkedIn and Twitter, the company gives agents the ability to post to five different social platforms at any given time. They encourage their agents to share content from the company’s social media page if they’re not comfortable going off and finding their own.
“The relationship that RISMedia has offered us through the eNewsletter and content library has been extremely helpful,” says Greenspan. “If they can find and use something that’s going to solidify their credibility, we’re happy to see them do that.”
In a commodity-based industry such as real estate, keeping one’s name top-of-mind is crucial to one’s success, not only today, but in the future as well. Therefore, consistency should never be underestimated. If one’s content and social media game are indeed unwavering and memorable, buyers and sellers will view that agent as having the know-how, credibility and authority to get the job done.
For brokerages, having demonstrable systems in place for content sharing allows agents to foster a reputation as the local market expert in all their relationships with buyers and sellers. But before prospective buyers’ footsteps can echo throughout empty hallways and far before dotted lines are signed, a human connection must be forged. By consistently producing or sharing insightful, relevant content, brokers and agents can plant the seeds of trust, which will hopefully lead to conversation, a healthy rapport, and ultimately, a happy customer who’s willing to sing the praises of your services to friends and family.
That’s where the money is, and it all starts with an investment in content.
For more information about RISMedia’s Content Solutions, visit www.rismediacontentsolutions.com.
