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Digital Signage Resources for Real Estate | ScreenCloud

If you’re an estate agent looking for marketing inspiration, you’ve  probably already tried the usual tactics such as leafleting, local press  and adding your properties to online portals. And sure, they probably  work great for picking up leads and getting more business, but do they  really make your audience sit up and listen hard to what you have to  say?

Many estate agents have found success on the basis of being a  commodity. 10, perhaps 20, years ago there weren’t hundreds of estate  agents and they were all brick-and-mortar stores. Now you have online  estate agents, physical estate agents, apps, mobile viewing,  customer-to-customer direct sales, and many more verticals all vying for  attention. 

Al Ries, author of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, said that there are two ways to be first: being first to the market or being first in somebody’s mind.

In this article, we’ll show you 8 ways you can be first in the minds  of your potential customers, using marketing strategies you’ve never  tried before. 

1. Use iconography to share information 

Information is currency, yet many estate agents go down a route of  only offering limited information on each property. Listing websites are  easy to scan through quickly, but don’t always help the property to  stick in the mind of the user.

Introduce iconography to each listing that easily allows customers to identify the key benefits of each feature. Take this example  from Virgin Active’s gym class portal. The icons are used consistently  across each gym class, helping the customer to see at a glance what type  of activity is occurring, how long the class is, and even what they  might need to take with them. This type of imagery, used within an  estate agent website, would make scrolling through hundreds of houses  much easier and give customers ease of use in discerning what properties  were for them. 

2. Make use of Instagram’s multi-image feature

Use Instagram’s multi-image feature to share multiple images of one  property within the same post. With this feature, you can easily select  up to 10 images, videos or both and add them to a single post. This will  increase traction with your audience but won’t overwhelm their feed  with images. 

By collating so many images and videos in one post, you give more  information yet make it easy for customers to join the dots between  properties. Once posted, four blue dots will also appear alongside the  post, prompting the user to swipe through, thereby  increasing engagement. 

Uploading these images is as simple as uploading a single image;  simply select the small square icon in the right hand corner and then  select as many images (up to 10) from your camera roll as you want to  share.

Side note: we checked a lot of estate agent Instagram feeds while  writing this and not one, other than Airbnb, was using it. What an  opportunity to capitalize on the opportunity before everyone does! 

Video is another widely underutilized tool in estate agent marketing  strategies. Yet video is highly effective at capturing leads and  converting them. In fact, according to studies, 90% of companies that use video content have a chance of having an impact on audience decisions. 

Here’s a full guide we wrote on how to create video content that’s directly linked to organizational purpose. 

For a quick start, here are some ideas of how you could utilize video as a new marketing strategy:

Remember Cribs? That awesome (or perhaps not so awesome) reality TV  show where we got to spy on the houses of the rich and famous? It was  hugely successful for a reason - we love being nosy in other people’s  homes! Cribs-style videos are quick to make, can be distributed across  channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram easily, and will be  much more eye-catching than images alone.

Record a walk around, led by the property’s current owner. Most  properties are faceless. They don’t sell all of the things we look for  when we buy a home - the family feel, the memories made, or the space  for hosting. By involving the sellers, the journey becomes more personal  and, if they’re okay with it, could help sell the merits of a property  as a family home/studio/office/party space for you. 

Create a content theme each month (such as a “dream house”) and  create a short video allowing your audience exclusive access to look  inside. One of the reasons sites such as Pinterest are so popular is  because they give homeowners ideas. Your video marketing can easily do  the same - even if you only post once per month on a theme of your  choice!

4. Use digital signage for offline campaigns 

As well as making the most of your online channels, the hard truth is that 70% of estate agent interactions still happen on the street. 

One of the best ways to market what you’ve got going on inside, to  those walking past outside, is to create incredible estate agent window  displays using digital signage. 

Digital signage is a medium that naturally attracts attention. It’s also incredibly quick and easy to setup - all you need is a screen that’s connected to the Internet and a few apps from our App Store, and you can begin selling more houses! 

In this full guide, we give you ten different content mediums you can use for your digital signage, but here are a few key concepts: 

Social media: use your digital signage screens to display Twitter  feeds, Instagram channels and Facebook posts so that you double up on  the content you’re already creating.

RSS feed or website house listings: easily feature the properties  you have on offer by adding your website or RSS feed to the digital  screen. 

General interest: use your digital displays (particularly if  they’re customer-facing) to display news, weather, travel information  and more that may be of interest to your audience. 

Sponsorship: make additional revenue for your business by allowing  local services and businesses to sponsor your screen. With a zoned  screen effect, you can easily add all of the property information you  need, with a secondary advertisement along the side.

Digital signage is highly effective at attracting attention within a  physical space and will make you stand out on the street. Unlike printed  materials such as brochures and leaflets, digital signage can be  updated or changed whenever you like! This makes it an evergreen and  affordable marketing medium that will help you achieve your key business  goals.

How do your listings pages stand out from the competition? Truth is,  we’ve looked at a few of the so-called top sites, and their listings  pages are all pretty similar! What if there was more you could do to  stand out?

Think about the listings pages from the point of the customer.  They’re buying a new property, potentially in a new area, and making one  of the biggest decisions they might ever have to make.

If your listings page can make the process as easy as possible, they’ll be much more likely to want to do business with you. 

Asking the seller to describe the property in three words. This is  super simple, but helps to make the description human and more  personable. 

Can you integrate multimedia into your listing? Video tours,  360-images and iconography, as mentioned above, that key in the top  features are all helpful in making an immediate impression.

Think what types of details your customer is going to be  considering. Could you help them calculate their mortgage rate, contract  length or any other features that they need to consider?

6. Target micro audiences through content

Creating content around your real estate will provide multiple  benefits, including higher Google search engine results page ranking,  more social shares, a higher authority website, and longer time spent on  page. With the right content, you could even create brand advocates who  return to your site for years to come, and that places you front of  mind when looking to move again. 

Think about splitting your audience down into micro audiences. Then  think about the pain points for each micro audience. For example, you  might want to know:

Name or adjective that describes their journey: e.g., “first time buyer” or “second home mover.”

Demographic: typically what is their age, where do they work, do  they have a family? Their price bracket can also be placed here.

Story: are they just browsing for a deal or are they desperate to  find out more information about what they can borrow and why? The story  is the best way to nail the type of content you produce and ensure it  actually answers some of your audience’s questions.

To find out what type of content you could create for each audience,  google some of the questions you think your audience might have. This  could be relating to location, property type, pricing, legacy, etc. 

For example, if you have properties in Southern California, try  googling “what is southern california like.” Google’s auto search  feature will show you a list of related questions your target audience  has been asking. 

From this, you could produce content using differentiations of the same  question, knowing the search traffic and typical target audience it will  bring in.

7. Make a reason for customers to return 

You want customers to come to you when they want to buy or sell a  property, but what about building your brand up with them and the  community in the meantime? Think about all of the ways you could give  your customers a reason to return. Some ideas could be:

Why not turn an area of your estate agent's office into a coffee bar?  This provides additional branding (hello takeaway coffee cups), gives  your customers somewhere to relax, and provides an opportunity to build  relationships that outlast the sale of a house.

As well as using digital signage to sell more properties or enhance  internal communications, why not provide genuinely useful information to  customers? An app like TransitScreen  displays real-time departure times for all transit options near your  location, including bus, rail, subway, bikeshare, carshare and more.  This will get customers looking for the windows and using your  brick-and-mortar store as a place of interest.

After a customer has bought or sold with you, why not invite them in  for a glass of champagne and a secret gift or food hamper? This ensures  that once the stressful part of uprooting is over, you leave them with a  great taste in their mouth about the experience and the potential for  future recommendations of your company. 

Travel bloggers have huge influence with locals, who turn to them as  an authentic way in which to get more information on a specific house or  area. Why not raise the profile of your estate agents by creating a  blogger event to ramp up the organic coverage? Similarly, you could hold  a Q&A with a mortgage advisor for new buyers, or a panel talk on  the rent vs mortgage debate. 

Most social media sites are a highlight reel of a specific  idealization, whether that’s the perfect home, family life, job, travel  plan or experience. 

Use your social media feeds (or at least one of them) as a way to  provide aspirational insights that will show not what you have to offer,  but what you have to offer could become. 

An image of a house is great, but an image of a gym around the corner  from the house that’s going to keep your new customer fit is a much  higher incentive. Use meals from the local area, parks, greenery,  neighborly events, book clubs and more to really sell the bigger  picture. These types of updates will engage with your audience’s  visceral feeling of not just the property, but with your brand as well. 

If you’d like to get started on creating better digital signage content for your estate agent windows, start a 14-day free trial with ScreenCloud!

Marketing strategies for estate agents with ideas that help your brand to get noticed, sell more properties and achieve higher referrals online and offline.

New marketing strategies to help you stand out a mile from your competitors.

Many real estate agencies are still doing the hard graft of marketing  through static signs and paper printouts. This means a whole load of  exertion each time properties change hands, or prices, or even when the  season changes and the leaf-strewn lawn pics no longer work.

If you’re a real estate agency managing thousands of properties then  we’re here to guide you into the light. A light that looks a little like  a digital sign. No not those neon ones outside the takeaway joint, nor  the ‘For Sale’ signs stuck into lawns that may grate on your visceral  nerve. We’re talking about digital signs in the way of screens that  allow you to showcase rapidly-changing sophisticated digital content.  Whether that’s property adverts, area guides, wayfinding, social media  feeds, promotions or general news. 

Ready to give your signs (plus your office and marketing communications) a strategy upgrade? I thought you were. 

Digital signage in your real estate office

Digital signage in your real estate office and storefront as a  marketing tactic, has numerous benefits over traditional static paper  signs. 

Digital signs are as interchangeable as the weather! This means when a property’s off the market, it’s off your screens. 

With our digital signage software CMS at ScreenCloud, removing an  image of a property from your showreel of content is as easy as clicking  the little trash icon.

A digital sign setup in your firm’s office has no space or size  limit. It can act as a virtual directory of hundreds or even thousands,  of rapidly changing properties. This can be set up from your own  dashboard, a website, an image file, a video or even a presentation such  as Google Slides. 

2. Different content for different audiences

Real estate is all about location right? Well so should your digital signage be.

If you have offices in multiple locations, you’re going to have  clientele approaching from all different walks of life. Some may want a  two-bed apartment in Downtown, others a family home in the suburbs. 

The digital screens used in your shop windows are only as good as the  content they show. But you know your audience right? So depending on  your locations, your peak periods and your customer clientele,  you can  tailor your content. Using playlists and schedules to choose content  down to the minute it becomes relevant. 

Setting up a schedule in ScreenCloud is easy!

Have a cohort of customers who browse on their way to work? Perhaps  you make the image flow faster, so they can view more properties. At  10am maybe you have people on their way to the Yoga studio next door. So  you select family properties to advertize that include - yep you  guessed it - their very own yoga studio space. 

The more you optimize content based on who’s walking by and when, the  more appeal your business will have to it's customers. This is all  information you already know! So using it to do what not many other  agencies are doing, tailoring the digital content to individual  visitors, should be easy. 

Digital signage in your real estate building pulls together your  location-based marketing, your physical storefront and your digital  marketing too. Digital signage apps  allow you to create on-screen feeds of social media channels,  TripAdvisor area reviews, weather updates and even news headlines from  sources such as CNN, Sky News and the Financial Times. 

With Instagram, your realtors can snap and create images while  out-and-about, add them to your Instagram feed and hey look - it’s up on  the screen outside your offices. 

No need to update the screen or hit refresh - everything is done for you. 

When your customers are creating powerful user-generated-content for  your real estate company, from images of their property, to tweets and  customer testimonials, you need to display them for the world to see.  Digital signs in your shopfront are the easiest way to do that.

Digital signs allow you control over the content being displayed,  right down to individual screens within the same office. This makes them  ideal for both external and internal communications.

Communicating with internal staff can be done from anywhere, with  content that can be changed from your laptop regardless of whether  you’re near the screen or not.

You can also add different content for different locations  - if  you’re sponsoring a local event, or holding an open day why not use your  digital signs to tell everyone about it?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Say you own some commercial or  residential real estate, you want it to look as enticing as possible  right? Today’s property market is competitive. Many want their apartment  buildings to have the edge over their friend’s apartment buildings, or  their offices to look better than their competitor’s. Younger digital  natives are also beginning to join the group and you better believe  they’re going to expect digital.

To compete in today's market, traditional buildings need to adapt.  This is why digital signage is being employed to charge-up windows,  lobbies and reception areas of commercial and residential real estate.

Here are some of the ways they’re doing it:

One of the easiest ways to start your content flow (even when you don’t have any) is to share important information.

Maybe the weather (better take that umbrella guys!), stocks and  shares for those in the financial district, news feeds or even currency  updates.

Top tip: did you know we have apps to do all of those things in the ScreenCloud App Store? And every one of them is included in your monthly package.

2. Automated digital advertising processes

Large, high-resolution images and videos attract attention. According to studies, digital media in public venues reaches more customers than videos on the Internet or Facebook. More importantly, 8/10 customers have entered a store because of a digital sign catching their interest.

This is a powerful reason to use digital signage to setup automated  digital advertising systems that allow you to earn back, while relevant  ads reach your customers. 

In commercial real estate especially, directories and wayfinding can  be a key use of digital signage displays. Helping shoppers to find  stores, or tourists to view important information. A funny graphic like  this one below makes the area seem relatable and will likely get a few  laughs from your audience, when displayed digitally for all to see.

The best thing about digital signage in commercial and residential  real estate is that you only need to invest once. Set up your screens,  choose your content or your digital signage apps and that’s it. Your  content plays and you can adapt it and optimize (and you should too),  but with little else needed in the way of maintenance.

Meanwhile, your tenants get a rich, visual experience that connects  them back to your brand and the information they want to see, time and  time again. 

How to set up a digital signage display in your office lobby or reception

So once you have all of your content, you get the theory behind the  strategy and you’ve optimized each piece of content to within an inch of  its life how do you actually get set up? 

Let’s take you on a quick spin through the three principles of setting up an easy-to-use cloud based digital signage display.

You have a few options here. If you have an Android TV you can download the ScreenCloud app right from the off from the Android App Store. Or, you can take any regular TV screen and grab yourself an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K or a Chromecast with Google TV to connect and download your ScreenCloud app.

When choosing your hardware, it's important to consider how long you want to display your content. If you only plan to show your content for a few hours out of the day, the Fire TV Stick or Chromecast with Google TV should do just fine. But, if you want to use your devices for more than 8 hours or perhaps even 24 hours a day seven days a week - for example showing promotional content in a window display - you may want to purchase a more commercial grade device that can handle extensive use. 

Commercial grade devices like our Station P1 Pro device are built to run difficult content for extensive periods, and typically have metal casings to dissipate heat and have minimized security risk compared to your average consumer devices. 

Top tip: In real estate your digital signs are  likely going to be out there in your windows so you’re going to want a  slick finish. For that reason, perhaps go for the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K -  this sits neatly in the side of your screen so there are no wires or  leads on show. Watch this video to find out more:

How to connect Amazon Fire TV Stick with ScreenCloud Digital Signage

2. Digital signage software for real estate

Once you have your hardware setup, downloading your software is easy.  Head to one of the App Stores below and search ‘ScreenCloud’ - the rest  it up to you! 

3. Apps and choosing content for your digital signs

As mentioned earlier, ScreenCloud has two primary options for setting  up content. Firstly, you can use content you already have and love.  This could be videos, images, presentations and reports. 

ScreenCloud supports file types such as jpeg, gif and pngs as well as  Office and iWorks formats so you won’t need to do anything other than  click ‘upload’. 

Secondly, you can use one of the many apps we have available in the ScreenCloud App Store.  We already have social media feeds and dashboards, news, weather and  stocks apps, Google Slides, Microsoft Power Bi and more - and we’re  adding new ones all the time!

Many real estate agencies and individuals missed the online boat that  changed the way traditional agencies function forever. By adopting  digital signage, you may just captialize on the next ‘big’ thing to  disrupt your industry.

We’ll be ready and waiting to help when you do. Grab your free trial of digital signage software ScreenCloud at https://screen.cloud

How to use digital signage in real estate for shop windows, lobbies, receptions and commercial properties. To share content, ads, news and social media.

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