Real Estate Digital Marketing Case Studies
Casa JL, Colombia, image courtesy of Cinco Solidos
Digital marketing is vital to success in the real estate world. Digital marketing helps real estate developers establish a brand, reach their target audience, generate qualified leads, and convert those leads into sales. To outpace their competitors, developers must implement a unique, precise, and clever digital marketing strategy.
These real estate digital marketing case studies will examine how three real estate companies successfully implemented digital marketing โ to substantial results.
The Importance of Case Studies in Real Estate Marketing
Case studies are incredibly valuable in demonstrating the effectiveness of marketing strategies. When a real-world example of a marketing campaign comes together, it represents more than just the final product or transaction. It stands for all the hard work, research, recognizing of obstacles, designing of solutions, and successful execution behind the scenes.
In addition to highlighting the right steps to take, a real estate marketing case study can also highlight how the real estate professionals who piloted successful campaigns understand digital marketing and the impact it could (and did) have on their businesses.
Below are the main reasons why case studies for real estate businesses matter when we go to create our own marketing campaigns.
Why Case Studies Matter for Real Estate Businesses
Not sure if these real estate case studies will matter? Here are the key takeaways why case studies can help you with your next project.
Measurable success: Case studies are the concrete examples we can look at to evaluate how goals become reality. By seeing what worked well, we have an idea of what to replicate for future success. This can refer to specific marketing materials that had a substantial impact or a new digital trend with compelling, data-backed results.
Lessons learned: Each case study offers insights into dealing with challenges when something suddenly goes wrong. We canโt prepare for everything, but knowing how other real estate professionals overcame issues can set us on the right track.
Improving skillsets: By reviewing case studies, real estate professionals can measure the processes and outcomes of other projects against their own performance and abilities. This may give insights into certain weaknesses and how to improve them, whether its negotiation strategy, market positioning, or executing the perfect digital advertisement campaign.
Illuminating industry knowledge: We canโt see our own blindspots. If we could, they wouldnโt be called โblindspots.โ If there is an industry trend we are unaware of, case studies can bring it to our attention and show us its effects in action. No matter how confident we are in our own industry knowledge, thereโs always room to read a case study to see if thereโs a blind spot we missed.
Pitching patterns: When you find yourself pitching a property or a certain aspect of its designโโlike its energy-efficiencyโโyou might find it could use some supporting evidence to back it up and drive home the point to potential clients. This is where case studies are a secret weapon. They can provide a variety of different scenarios of a certain detailโโlike energy-efficiencyโโand demonstrate why it's such a winner.
Networking opportunities: Reviewing the success of peers in your field via case studies is a great way to keep up with the professionals behind the most innovative projects. By keeping an eye on the leaders in your industry, you can position yourself for potential collaborations to elevate your own brand. Similarly, you can reach out to gain expertise from the people behind the case studies in your network.
The Best Digital Marketing Case Studies In Real Estate
Case Study 1: Itzโana Resort & Residences
Itzโana Resort and Residences posed a demanding digital marketing challenge as the most ambitious real estate project the country of Belize had ever seen.
In the following breakdown, we will go over the step-by-step process of their digital marketing strategies and how implementing them resulted in measurable success.
The Challenge
At Proven Partners, we faced the challenge of creating the Itzโana brand and bringing it to life through extensive concept development, and then following it all the way through into the successful marketing and ultimate sales of all residential units.
Specific objectives were:
Create a multi-layered brand personality highlighting sustainability, natural beauty, and luxury.
Grow international market awareness through top tier media coverage
Consistently create compelling content to grow our databases and keep leads engaged
Build a robust prospect pipeline and convert these qualified leads into successful sales
The Strategy
To achieve our objectives, we designed and built a series of distinct, compelling concepts:
Google Adwords and Social Ads campaigns were built to create awareness and engagement.
Email marketing campaign to maintain engagement featuring blogs, design inspiration, and real life stories from the peninsula.
Brought the un-built resort concept to life by building a pop-up in the sandy beach and showcasing local culinary talent.
Created extensive media coverage through carbon-neutral rebranding achieved by:
Partnering with an in-country forestry specialist to deliver carbon offsets and designing the units for maximum sustainability in real estate
Re-engineering one-bedroom lagoon cottages to incorporate solar panels and innovative energy management systems to minimize their carbon footprint
The Results
We successfully achieved our objectives โ growing international market awareness, generating high quality leads, and converting leads into successful sales. Tangible results included:
69 of 86 Luxury villas sold prior to soft opening
Price premium of 15-20% above other regional luxury product
Case Study 2: Kaโana Resort
The next real estate digital marketing case study is the Kaโana Resort. Opened just after the 2008 recession in Kaโana, a location that had no existing luxury supply, had to work hard to stand out and attract a loyal following. Now, Kaโana Resort has repeatedly won the World Travel Award for Best Boutique Resort in Mexico & Central America.
When we worked with Kaโana, we knew we were dealing with a unique brand that needed its own, mulit-faceted marketing approach. We decided to incorporate video marketing, email campaigns, and more, which not only showcases the versatility of digital marketing in real estate, but provided us with a wealth of opportunities to interface with new audiences.
The Challenge
Kaโana brings a layer of bespoke luxury to the culturally rich heritage and pristine jungles that surround it, but its isolation and lack of online presence posed a certain challenge. Our goal was to get the Kaโana brand out there on a variety of platforms without compromising its core identity, which is being the perfect intersection of style, culture, and adventure.
We tackled our challenge with these specific objectives:
Create a getaway that married boutique luxury with experiential adventure
Channel top-tier media coverage into digital campaigns to increase engagement with our market
Achieve Revenues per Room in excess of US$700 per day in a location that had no track record of attracting a high end clientele.
The Strategy
Our solutions successfully highlighted both the experiential opportunities and luxury accommodations, while giving back to local causes:
โStay 3 Nights, Get the 4th for $18โ promotion
The $18 cost represents a local childโs tuition for a year. The money was donated to local schools, and the package received extensive media coverage.
A one-of-a-kind luxury experience - glamping next to one of Belizeโs most pristine archeological sites โ resulted in an ADR of over $3,500 and secured coverage in the NY Times amongst other top media.
Private pool villas with butler services added a luxury element, achieving record levels of revenue.
The Results
Our work with Kaโana culminated in fantastic results, including:
23 International Hotel Awards
150,000,000+ Media impressions
ADR of US$343 against a national ADR of US$39
Case Study 3: Johari Beach Residences
Johari Beach Residences is located on a stunning site on the southern shores of Zanzibar. A remote location requires exceptional digital marketing to acquire international buyers.
Johari is a stand-out luxury real estate project which needed a certain digital marketing strategy to meet specific audience needs. In this case, establishing a brand identity of exclusivity, leveraging a variety of digital platforms to spread the word, and crafting careful brand positioning copy that framed their unique amenities and features as true differentiating factors.
The Challenge
Developing a digital marketing strategy was a challenge. The island had only recently opened up to international buyers, so there was very little historical data to work with.
Objectives included:
Establish brand identity as a private โ but not pretentious โ beachside community. Attract buyers at different price points.
Lead generation through social media, adwords, email marketing campaigns, and broker management.
Build comprehensive digital marketing assets pre-development โ renderings, image libraries, strong social content plan, floor plans, and more
Differentiate from other brands through unique features, amenities, and priorities.
The Strategy
Through solutions aimed at attracting a diverse range of buyers, we put Johari Beach Residences โon the map:โ
Changed from one unit type to five, allowing us to create a variety of property types at different price points for different buyer profiles.
Added central amenities such as a co-working space, a members lounge, and a gym to ensure buyers' needs would be fully taken care of. Added plunge pools to the villa product to enhance the appeal.
Recommended a series of additional owner amenities that would increase conversions and boost the owners ability to get ongoing revenue by filling the units post-delivery
The Results
The Johari Beach Residences campaign was a resounding success with the following key metrics resulting from our marketing efforts:
Strategic changes increased total development sales value by 42%.
Gained a social media following of 1,000 people within the first 30 days and an engagement rate of over 4.5 percent, placing it at the top among domestic competitors.
Increased the average price per square foot by 14%.
Common Digital Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Success
The case study examples for real estate marketingโItzโana Resort & Residences, Kaโana Resort, and Johari Beach Residencesโโeach highlight the power of digital strategies coming together for significant outcomes. Some of the recurring tools that work time and again include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, and social media content marketing.
These marketing tactics have proven particularly effective for real estate professionals because they have smart outreach features, the ability to measure results, and the long-term effects of building relationships with the target audience.
The following sections will break down each strategy in detail.
SEO for Real Estate
To put it simply, search engine optimization is all about improving your website (or property listing platform, or social media page) so it climbs the ranks in results on Google search, Zillow search, or Instagram search.
Better SEO means having better visibility when people search for the products, services, or niche real estate industry offerings you have available.
To improve your SEO, there are a few basic aspects to review.
First, your webpage loading times. A slow, clunky webpage with sluggish loading speeds or too many elements will lose favor in the eyes of search engines. Instead, opt for a sleek and light-weight design that can load rapidly on desktop or mobile devices.
Second, is mobile optimization. Making sure your webpages are formatted for easy navigation and readability on mobile scores big with search engines, especially as more people are choosing to look at properties from their smartphones.
Next, consider your target keywords. Keywords are the short phrases that help search engines identify what your website is all about. Optimizing for keywords means looking up what common search terms are coming up for your website, competitorโs sites, and your target audienceโs search patterns, then incorporating those keywords into the language on your website.
Some helpful online tools for SEO research, like measuring loading times and efficient keywords to use, include AHrefs and Moz. They also offer guides for more in-depth SEO improvement tips like enhancing your alt-text and meta descriptions to drive traffic.
PPC Campaigns
Pay-per-click campaigns are basically โpay-as-you-goโ plans, where you can post a digital ad on a search engine like Google, but only pay for the ad space if a user clicks on it.
This is a highly efficient way to digitally market your real estate company as it boosts your webpages to the top of search results, without charging your for searches that donโt convert to new visitors.
In the case of Itzโana Resort & Residences, we utilized Google AdWords and social media PPC ads to generate buzz and spread the word among our target audience.
We found PPC campaigns were particularly helpful as we could adjust the parameters of our target audience, then the advertising platforms would respond by using their advanced algorithms to match our adverts with the ideal individuals and search terms. This audience-selecting step, along with remarketing campaigns, made it more likely that those who saw the ads would end up clicking over to our webpage and converting into customers.
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms are a great way to find where your audience spends time looking at content and engaging with them there. This unlocks the ability for real estate professionals to interact directly with potential clients and showcase their properties from anywhere in the world.
Some of the top platforms for social media marketing include LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Each offers a set of pros and cons for sharing visual content, in-depth updates, and more to connect with your audience.
For example, Instagram is a great place to share daily updates, such as construction progress, via stories or video posts. On the other hand, LinkedIn is a better place to share a text-based update, like an article on why you chose certain design features or high-tech installations.
Our social media campaigns for Kanโana Resort and Johari Beach Residences leveraged the unique experiences each location had to offer, with the latter gaining over 1,000 followers in the first 30 days and an engagement rate of 4.5% (beating out local competitors).
These campaigns were transformative in getting our projectโs media coverage off the ground with a running start.
Contemporary Hotel in Paros, Greece & image courtesy of TWELVECONCEPT
How to Measure the Success of Your Digital Marketing Efforts
Implementing your digital marketing strategies is only half the battle. Real estate professionals must also learn how to measure the success of their campaigns so they can fine-tune for better outcomes.
In the following sections, weโll provide actionable tips on how to measure digital marketing success with the help of tools like Google Analytics, social media metrics, and conversion tracking.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Key performance indicators are the most important numbers to track to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. While the best metrics to follow will depend on the model of your business, the most commonly used KPIs among real estate professionals include:
Lead Generation - This is the amount of new inquires you get as result of your marketing campaigns.
Conversation Rates - This is the percentage of leads that end up becoming actual sales or new clients.
Website Traffic - The number of visitors that come to your website over a certain amount of time.
Engagement Rates - These are metrics such as:
Time spent on site
Pages per visit
Bounce rate
Taking specific actions, like downloading a file or subscribing to your newsletter
For example, when we worked with the Kaโana Resort, one KPI we tracked was the Average Daily Rate (ADR) of our clients. We noticed our ADR was $343, which is much higher than the national average of $39. This large figure indicates that Kaโanaโs guests are high-value, reflecting the success of our targeted marketing efforts.
Analytics Tools
To effectively track the KPIs that you find to be most indicative of marketing success, you should try using the following analytical tools:
Google Analytics - This platform offers detailed insights into your website traffic, including user behavior patterns and conversion pathways.
Social Media Analytics - Platforms like Facebook Insights or Instagram Analytics provide real estate market professionals with data on post engagement, follower growth, and demographic breakdowns of your audience.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems - More robust platforms like Salesforce or HubSpot allow real estate professionals to track each step of each potential customerโs journey, unlocking more detailed insights into how to improve your marketing tactics and sales funnel with precision.
Conversation Tracking - This tool can be found in many platforms including Google Ads and Facebook Pixel. Conversation tracking is a way to measure the effectiveness of PPC campaigns as they follow the paths of each person who clicks through as a result of the ad.
Our marketing efforts with Itzโana Resort & Residences included tracking our email marketing metrics on a digital platform that recorded data such as open rates and click-through rates. By keeping tabs on our audienceโs engagement, we could measure whether our messaging strategy was hitting the mark or needed more refinement.
Why Digital Marketing is Essential for Real Estate Growth
Digital marketing is invaluable for any real estate business. The success stories of Itzโana Resort & Residences, Kaโana Resort, and Johari Beach Residences demonstrate the impact of powerful digital marketing strategies highlighted like SEO, PPC campaigns, and social media marketing.
These case studies are encouraging and informative, enticing competitive real estate marketing professionals to develop similar tactics for their own business growth. With proper implementation and refinement, real estate professionals can enjoy the benefits of added visibility, an engaged target audience, and a bright future of business growth.
Although, creating an effective digital marketing strategy for real estate is not easy. From social media marketing to search engine optimization, every aspect of digital marketing must work together to achieve a desired outcome.
If you would like to integrate digital marketing into your campaigns, get a leg up on your competition, and see results similar to the ones featured in these case studies, Proven Partners Digital Marketing Services can help.
