The blog is one of the best tools content marketers have at their disposal and one which works particularly well for estate agents. But no matter how carefully you craft your blog to make it lively, informative and relevant, it isn’t much use unless it reaches the right people.

If you’re not sure where to start with a promotional strategy for your blogs, here are five of our favourite techniques for pulling in the readers:

1. Facebook boosting

In our experience, boosting posts on Facebook is one of the best ways to get your blog seen by relevant readers for minimal outlay - as little as £25 per boost.

Perhaps you’re looking to target young families wishing to move up the housing ladder in time for their eldest to start school - in the hope that they’ll decide to sell with your agency. Your blogs might be about local primaries, how to navigate school applications or even child-friendly things to do in the area.

With Facebook you can post a link to your blog, then boost that post, selecting the desired demographic - in this case, ‘parents’ + ‘pre-schoolers’ or ‘early school age’. You can then select the precise geographic area where you are looking for more properties. If you're after vendors, you can also specify ‘homeowners’.

We would usually boost a post for a week and for a small investment of £30 you will likely reach around 1,500 people, giving your blog a far better chance of being noticed.

Remember that the level of reach still depends on how appealing the blog is to your target market, and how many people like and share it - so it needs to be well-written quality content.

2. Email marketing

An email newsletter is a great way of getting your blogs into the inboxes of your existing contacts and driving them back to your website. You can use your email newsletter to promote just one blog or a selection each month. Choose your most appealing images for the newsletter and write a short summary that piques people’s interest, without giving too much away.

Don’t send the same newsletter to everyone on your list. Again, think about targeting, and splitting your database so the right content is placed before landlords, homeowners, buyers, or tenants. For example, your buyers might receive posts on what to look for at a viewing along with your latest hot property lists.

It is essential to track clicks from your newsletter to your blogs to see which posts work and which don’t. You should also install remarketing cookies so you can retarget anyone who has visited your site.

3. Organic social media

Alongside your boosted Facebook posts, share your blogs on other social channels, including Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. This organic posting won’t reach as many people unless you really invest in growing your followers, but it will help raise your profile - for free.

With Facebook, posting to groups can have an impact in local areas - in some communities, almost everyone is part of their neighbourhood group and special interest ones, such as those aimed at parents, have strong appeal. Make sure that you keep your posts useful and informative - not a sales pitch - as groups are administrated and you could have your content declined.

 
4. SEO

For ‘evergreen’ blog articles that are not overly time-sensitive, search is a great way of bringing in readers. Optimise your content for a few key long-tail phrases with the aim of getting your blogs to rank on Google’s page one, driving traffic to your website. Continuing with our earlier example, well-optimised posts covering topics such as ‘best schools in your town’ will help attract parent vendors as they consider their move up the housing ladder.

5. Remarketing

Remarketing uses cookies to advertise to people who have previously visited your site, bringing them back for a second look. You can run a remarketing campaign on the Google Display Network, on Facebook and even on LinkedIn.

Your blogs can be remarketed to your visitors as successfully as property details can. For example, you could remarket an article about one of your new developments to buyers who have visited your site to search for a property or view details.

The key to all of this is knowing your audience and making sure your blog answers their questions in an informative and accurate way. But it’s also about understanding the channels that the audience is using so you can get your content seen. Equally important is testing – constantly evaluating what works and what doesn’t and honing your strategy accordingly.

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