Every year, 36 million people relocate. For real estate professionals, this presents an ongoing opportunity to help families find their next home. Moving is a critical time in a person’s life and can often be a costly endeavor as well. Our research shows that new movers spend about $9,000 on average per move.
In many cases, hidden beneath the consumer purchase behavior and spending habits, you’ll identify a potential buyer who may be ready to buy a home. Without the proper data, however, it can be tricky to anticipate a person’s desire to buy a home in real time — unless they reach out to you directly.
Inbound leads are always beneficial, but high-performing real estate agents do not solely rely on inbounds. Instead, they use data to attract their buyers and meet them where they are in their purchase journey. To demystify how real estate professionals can best leverage data, here are the top data-driven tactics that Realtors are using to level up their customer acquisition efforts and close business.
Use data to build buyer personas
High-performing agents have buyer personas built out, and they know how to best serve their current and prospective buyers now and in the future.
A 2022 report from the National Association of Realtors revealed that 95% of buyers use the Internet to search for a home. Additionally, 87% of all buyers purchased their homes through an agent in 2022.
It’s clear that all buyers are online but still need an agent to support their home search — but your competitors know this, too. So, the real question is, how do high-performing agents stand out and outshine their competitors without overspending on marketing?
They do it by utilizing two tactics: segmentation and personalization.
When building your marketing strategy, determine what makes each buyer persona unique. Identify the different segments for each persona, and from there, tailor your delivery and
message accordingly. Data points such as ZIP code, age, income, and marital status all play a pivotal role in how to segment your buyer personas.
The messaging can — and should — change per segment. For example, a retired couple may be eager to hear about properties located in a neighborhood with a higher median age range, while a younger couple with young kids may prefer a home in close proximity to a school. By understanding your buyer personas with intelligent data, you can tailor your marketing and message accordingly.
Avoid “spray and pray” marketing and blanket messaging at all costs. A more targeted approach allows you to focus your efforts on high-quality buyers, and it can prove to be cost-effective as well. Blanket marketing can be quite expensive and reap a very low ROI. With targeted outreach, your budget can be used for engaging, high-quality prospective buyers, which can decrease your overall marketing spend.
Leverage life-event data and automation
We often see major life events as the primary reason for buying a home. High-performing agents keep tabs on their customers by putting in place trigger-based marketing campaigns derived from life event data insights. Realtors should work to determine the life event data points that matter most.
The following data points typically serve as a strong indicator of an intent to purchase a home:
● The birth or adoption of a child
● Marriage or partnership
● Retirement
● New job
Data matching is another tactic that real estate professionals should consider when building their marketing campaigns. This tactic allows you to merge online and offline data to paint a fuller picture of your buyer.
For example, you may have a lead list with 400 people located in a specific ZIP code. With data matching, you now know more about those 400 people and their individual consumer behaviors. This insight allows you to differentiate warm leads from hot leads and how to approach each segment effectively. It is critical for lead generation and increased conversion rates.
All agents know that timing is the key to closing business, and with these insights and trigger-
based marketing tactics, you’ll know when the customer will be in the market for a new home
in real-time.
With these insights, agents can feel empowered to build an intelligent multichannel marketing strategy. You want to be the first person in their inbox or mailbox to ensure you’re top of mind.
High-performing agents do not rely on digital marketing as a standalone strategy but are instead tapping all channels to ensure that they’re always where their customers are.
As the housing market fluctuates and buyer behavior shifts, high-performing agents are poised to outshine their competition with data as the guiding force. Our research shows that over the last two years, we averaged about 1.8 million new movers per month. Seasonal variation occurs with about 2 million per month in the summer months and 1.7 million in the winter months.
The market outlook is promising for Realtors, even as interest rates rise. However, real estate professionals that lean on data to inform how they engage buyers — and when — will be poised to outperform the agents that are reluctant to reassess their outdated strategies.
Lindsey Kaiser is chief product officer at Speedeon.