What we learned about CRE marketers from the 2017 DNA of #CRE survey results

For the past three years, we’ve conducted the annual DNA of #CRE report with theBrokerList to find out what kinds of tools brokers are using to do their jobs and what makes them successful. This year, in addition to brokers, we decided to survey marketers with the DNA of #CRE: Marketer Edition survey.

Here are a couple of the key insights we gained about CRE marketing practices in 2017:

Many brokerages are blogging and creating original content, and even more plan to in 2018.

Of the marketers we surveyed, 56 percent said they hosted a company blog in 2017, and 23 percent plan to start one in 2018. Additionally, 70 percent told us their firm produced original content like white papers, infographics and reports in 2017, and 24 percent who did not yet said they plan to in 2018.

This indicates blogging and original content creation are gradually becoming more popular, and these marketing tactics are likely to be industry best practices by the end of 2018. This increase in the development of “thought leadership” content for brokerages is likely because, when done well, these tactics can both boost a firm’s overall website traffic through SEO and solidify their expertise in a niche industry.

Many marketers don’t assess their website and email marketing metrics.

Even though blogging has become more popular, many brokerages aren’t yet assessing the effect blogging has on their website metrics. Even though a primary benefit of blogging is improved website SEO, 24 percent of marketers didn’t know if there was any change in their brokerage website’s web traffic since they began blogging.

Similarly, even though just under 95 percent of respondents told us they used email marketing to promote listings, 17 percent of marketers did not know their average email open rate, and 22 percent did not know their average click through rate.

One key learning from our first DNA of #CRE: Marketer Edition survey is that, even though all marketers should take steps to benchmark the performance of their tactics, not all of them are doing so. To maximize ROI of tactics, every firm should pay careful attention to changes in industry standards to better understand how to make improvements and maximize their results.

Visit our website to access the full results of our first ever DNA of #CRE: Marketer Edition survey, including insights on:

• How many marketers are using 3D and drone videos to promote properties
• How many are still using “traditional” marketing tactics like direct mail
• How many marketers will be using digital advertising by the end of 2018
• How long marketers spend on data entry and broker management
• …and more