The largest portion of home buyers are millennials and Generation “Y” ers.
But still, they only represent a little over thirty percent of the market. It’s a surprising trend since most millennials would rather be homeowners than renters.
Whatever the case, younger generations are hungry for new real estate and it’s up to you to feed them.
The secret lies in your real estate marketing strategy. And we can help.
With our targeting advice, you’ll be handing more shiny house keys over to millennials in no time!
1. Understand Their Situation
You can’t tailor your real estate marketing to millennials without understanding their situation.
If 80% of millennials do want to own a home, then why aren’t they going out and buying one?
The answer is simple: they can’t afford it.
Most millennials are either fresh out of college or only a few years into their careers. Add to that, most millennials face significant student debt on top of normal expenses like rent and car payments.
Most experts agree millennials would need at least a decade to save enough for a down payment on a home, meaning they likely won’t own their own home until their early thirties.
It’s a tough situation to be in, but it’s the reality. But it’s good news when it comes to real estate marketing. Reality makes great material for social media campaigns!
Understanding your market’s situation will help you write the best content to reach them.
2. Create Specific Goals
After putting yourself in a millennial’s shoes, set some real estate marketing goals; they’re a critical component of any advertising campaign.
When catering to millennials with social media marketing, keep your goals simple.
Your goal shouldn’t be to increase the number of young homebuyers in the coming year. Take it a few steps back.
For example, you may want to get more millennials to subscribe to your newsletter. You can use Facebook to meet this goal.
Launch a webinar series about millennial homeownership with the goal to have a specific number attend. Maybe you want to up your millennial following on Twitter.
Creating small goals will help you build a path toward the ultimate goal–getting more millennials into your office.
There’s nothing stopping you from starting out with that goal. Just make sure you create a series of actionable goals to get there–goals you can meet, measure, and plan for.
3. Brush Up On Your Social Media Profiles
You’ve already identified social media as the perfect channel to reach millennials.
It’s a solid choice, given that the majority of users across social media platforms are under the age of 36.
Social media channels give you the best chance for brand visibility. They also help you build a convincing real estate marketing campaign.
Make sure you create solid business profiles on social media before you launch your campaign. Millennials won’t want to follow a brand with an incomplete Facebook business profile.
Don’t just fill in all the blanks on your business profiles either. Aim for robust profiles loaded with information.
Include all contact information, website links, and business photos. Write a blurb about your company and make a few initial posts before you launch your campaign.
Don’t forget about Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, too.
Anyone should be able to get a complete understanding of what your business is about from your profile.
What’s more, they should see a social media presence. You need to have multiple posts, shares, and comments on your news feed.
Additionally, make sure you activate messaging through your social media profiles. That way, you can communicate in real time with your customers.
4. Partner With Key Brands
Before you even launch a specific campaign, explore partnerships with critical brands.
You don’t have to give your PR person a whole new agenda, although it could be a long-term plan.
Start researching brands millennials follow right now.
They can be anything from Nike to Starbucks. Choose brands that also relate in some way to real estate.
Then, go out and like, follow, and share posts by these companies. Give a reason when you share as to why you like these companies so much.
Here’s an example post:
“At Blue Skies Real Estate, we love helping people reach their dreams of homeownership and sustainability. That’s why we’re all about this company that outfits local homes with eco-friendly bamboo!”
Associating with brands millennials love will give you crucial brownie points. What’s more, it will show your own desire as a company to engage with the younger generation.
You may also want to partner with local companies via social media. Millennials love supporting local economies. They will always appreciate the shout-out to small businesses and startups.
Make sure you implement some solid local SEO, too. Local optimization can bring more local customers through your doors.
5. Use the Right Tech
Millennials are hungry for the latest and greatest technology. You need to feed this hunger with your real estate marketing.
For example, virtual reality is making a big splash these days. And guess what? Millennials are watching.
A lot of business owners are already finding ways to use virtual reality, in marketing and even day-to-day operations.
Create 3D virtual reality tours of properties you’ve listed on your website. Share these links on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Live video is also becoming a critical component of digital marketing everywhere. Create live streams of an open house and link them to social media.
You may even want to live stream a webinar about young generation homeownership. Perhaps you want to incorporate a video as your cover photo on Facebook.
Whatever you do, make sure you always share links across all your social media platforms.
6. Show You Care
Younger generations appreciate conversation. They appreciate brands that are honest, personable, and smart.
In your real estate marketing, show millennials you check all of these boxes and more. It’s easy to do with social media.
Start by listening to your audience. Give millennials a space to share their thoughts, ideas, and questions and make sure you respond to all of them.
This space can be a monthly webinar they join. It could be a forum developed through your website where they can ask real estate questions. Perhaps you send out surveys to newsletter subscribers and request feedback.
Showing millennials you want to start a conversation with them–rather than make a sales pitch–is critical to catching their attention.
If you create a webinar, tweet screenshots of the discussion. Post a screenshot of your online Q&A session to Instagram. You can easily post a customer survey on Facebook or LinkedIn.
You can knit all these ideas into a larger campaign. They also help build your social media presence, which you need to establish before you make targeted attempts at your audience.
7. Show That You’re A Resource
Millennials aren’t just about transparency and compassion. They also want to learn about topics relevant to them right now.
Present yourself as a resource through your real estate marketing. A great way to start is a blog.
Blogs give you a great chance to share your expertise in your voice. It also gives you the opportunity to write about things that concern your customers.
Millennials will be concerned about how they can afford a home. They’ll also be curious about when they can realistically purchase one. They may not know about mortgages. They may not know what options they have.
Address these subjects in your blog posts. Share these posts on your social media platforms. Encourage comments on these posts when you do share.
Here’s an example Facebook post:
“Are you a recent college grad tired of renting basement apartments? Homeownership doesn’t have to be a faraway dream. Learn more in this blog post about when you can actually own that home (it’s sooner than you think).”
It starts with a question to hook in the audience, then it addresses the topic they want to discuss, in this case, home ownership. Finally, it encourages the audience to keep reading with a call to action.
7. Produce the Right Content
In the world of real estate marketing, you’re always thinking about content.
In many cases, writing engaging content is easier said than done. But when it comes to reaching millennials, this concept is actually straightforward.
In general, millennials will share or re-tweet content they think is hilarious or intriguing.
If you’re still skeptical though, do a quick skim through your news feed right now. Pay attention to posts your younger friends or colleagues make. Note what they write in comments.
Use it as valuable information in your real estate marketing catered to millennials.
Younger generations respond best to humor. Launch a social media campaign that hinges on funny posts and images.
Facebook Live lets you talk in real time with your audiences. Engage millennials by uploading live videos. In these live videos, discuss homeownership or recent property listings.
Intrigue millennials by showing you can help them buy a home–now. You can do this through a blog post, a live video, webinar, or an infographic.
Above all, avoid sounding sales-y in your real estate marketing. Millennials are likely to skip over ads that are clearly ads.
They also won’t be interested in ads irrelevant to them.
8. Be Active
The key to a successful real estate marketing campaign is engagement.
You need to have all hands on deck throughout the entire campaign, ensuring you get the results you want.
The same is true for social media campaigns. No matter how you choose to reach millennials, in the end, you’ve got to stay active on social media.
You may have to hire someone for this specific purpose. Invite a social media guru onboard.
This way, someone is always making posts, liking and sharing other content, and responding to messages from customers.
You’ll also be able to encourage consistent social media reviews. They’ll help build your online reputation.
Millennials want to follow companies who care about the digital platforms people use.
They want to embrace brands that will respond to them through social media. They’re interested in companies that post about their donation to a recent charity.
Stay active and engaged on social media. This way, millennials can stay attentive and engaged with your real estate marketing.
Real Estate Marketing: Reaching Millennials with Social Media
Are you eager to reach more millennials with your real estate marketing? Then social media is an excellent place to start.
To draw younger audiences, start by establishing a solid social media presence. Round out all of those business profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Start posting relevant content before launching a specific campaign. Partner with key companies by sharing and liking their content.
Reach your millennial audience through popular technology like virtual reality and live streaming. Produce engaging, humorous, and intriguing content. And, above all, stay active!
At Real Estate 360, we are your resource for real estate marketing. We specialize in landing pages, 3D virtual tours, digital marketing, and more.
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