How Real Estate Agents can Get Started with Gated Content

Written by Posted On Monday, 11 February 2019 05:22

Lead generation is a top content marketing priority for many real estate businesses. Using gated content is an increasingly popular way to capture information about prospects and generate inbound leads.

Gating content involves placing a piece of valuable content behind a lead capture form and requiring visitors to provide some personal information – such as an email address or phone number – to access the content.

For many real estate businesses, it can be difficult to decide whether or not they should gate their content. There are both advocates and critics of the lead generating technique. Some say gating content is one of the best ways to capture qualified leads, while others claim the practice can be a turn off or limit the overall reach of the content.

What it really comes down to are the goals of the real estate business. If the goal is to generate more qualified leads, then gating content has many advantages.

The benefits of gating content

For most people, buying or selling a home is a big decision. It requires extensive research and people often turn to the Internet for articles and guides on the right neighborhood, the right real estate agent, property pricing information, and ultimately, the right home.

Providing content that answers these queries is an excellent way realtors can get in front of potential leads entering the home buying or selling process. Gating this information and collecting details about potential leads then makes it easier for realtors to reach out them.

Another advantage of gating content is that it makes the content seem more valuable and exclusive. When visitors must exchange something for the content (i.e., their personal information), they expect it to be quality and provide value. Realtors that meet these expectations can appear more trustworthy and authoritative. Gathering personal information about the people who accessed this content can also help agents create more accurately-targeted marketing efforts in the future.

When (and where) to use gated content

Understanding what type of information people are looking for during the home buying or selling process can help real estate agents determine when to offer gated content.

It’s important to map out each stage of the buying or selling process and what type of content to offer at each stage. Content must align with the appropriate stage of the sales process in order to be effective. This allows agents to understand where potential leads are in the decision-making process and reach out with the appropriate approach.

Examples of gated content

There are lots of ways real estate businesses can use gated content to gather qualified leads. A few examples include downloadable guides, ebooks, or checklists on topics such as:

  • - Selling a home – How to stage a home for an open house, how to negotiate an offer, etc.

- Buying a home – Tips for relocating to a new city, neighborhood business, restaurant or recreational guides, neighborhood reports on schools, traffic, crime, etc.

- Owning a home – Tutorials, tips, and expert advice for home improvements, lawn care, home security, cleaning, etc.

This Hubspot flowchart offers more ideas on which type of content to gate.

Tools to use

The best way to provide gated content on a website is with a dedicated landing page. However, creating individual landing pages from scratch can be time-consuming and difficult for businesses without a technical background or team.

Fortunately, there are lots of easy-to-use landing page builders that can help real estate businesses get their gated content up and running in no time and monitor their efforts all in one place.

Leadpages – Leadpages is one of the most popular landing page builders. It offers a full range of features, templates, and a template marketplace where businesses can purchase high-quality templates from other marketers. Leadpages is very affordable for businesses just starting out with gating content. Monthly plans are available for $25 and up.

Instapages – Instapages is a powerful landing page builder that allows businesses to create new pages in minutes with eye-catching templates. A/B testing and real-time analytics make this a good option for monitoring gated content and making improvements based on the results. Pricing starts at $99 per month.

Mailchimp – In addition to its popular email marketing tools, Mailchimp also offers a basic landing page builder. There are no templates and customization options are limited; however, there is a free plan for those just starting out and options to connect Mailchimp landing pages to a website domain or other apps.

Promoting gated content

Creating a landing page for gated content is just the first step. It’s also crucial to have a plan to promote the content across other platforms to ensure maximum exposure. Realtors can share links to the gated content with their email newsletter subscribers and their social media followings. Just remember, some channels may be more effective than others, so test different distribution strategies and replicate the efforts that worked well. When executed correctly, gated content can be highly valuable for both real estate agents and those looking for quality information related to buying or selling property.

 

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Adrian Fisher

Adrian Fisher is the founder of PropertySimple, a social real estate platform. 

https://pro.propertysimple.com

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