As we swing from a property market bounce back post-Brexit to another period of potential uncertainty, it’s a crucial time to ensure your website, and all other channels of customer communication are working for you.

Having an attractive, well-designed website as your ‘window to the world’ is essential, but an estate agent’s site needs more than glossy property images to keep clients engaged. When choosing an agent, clients look for three main qualities – trustworthiness, expertise and empathy. Buying, selling or renting a home is a significant life event: your website is often the first touch point for a potential client so it’s essential that these messages are ingrained in your brand.

Creating relationships

Building a long-term relationship between you and your clients is important. It can often take several months from an initial meeting to a vendor deciding to go to market. That’s where the content that appears on your website and in social posts becomes significant. And if you can be relevant in what you are sharing, you will have a much greater chance of creating an ongoing relationship.

Today’s buyers, sellers and investors are hungry for the latest data on everything from the local socio-economic mix to neighbourhood broadband speeds. Your clients will be making informed decisions based on the blogs, videos, newsletters, social media posts and marketing emails they receive from you. Presenting yourself as a reliable source of information, with access to the latest market insights, creates trust in your brand.

What could this look like on your website?

Many agents have basic local area guides on their website showcasing knowledge of the area they serve. However, does describing the best restaurants in town make any difference to a vendor who already knows the area? Does this type of local information make an agent stand out from the crowd? Wouldn’t they rather know whether it’s a good time to sell or let their property?

Successfully engage your customers by sharing relevant and useful information – give them what they don’t see elsewhere. Up-to-date insights on the local housing market, pricing trends and topical property insights – anything that will influence property decisions are key.

When we created Dataloft Inform, our online market insight platform, we had this ethos in mind. Inform contains in-depth market insights at local, regional and national level in the form of well designed charts, infographics, branded market reports, flyer and letters and market commentary.

Our subscribers use Dataloft Inform content in many ways on their websites, including:

• Automatically integrating local market insights to create more impactful local area guides

• Creating blogs using Dataloft Inform infographics and topical stories as content

• Using the offer of free local area market reports to capture email addresses (an effective alternative to free valuations)

• Using Dataloft Inform market report content as a starting point to record local market review videos

All of these help to provide longer dwell time, the chance to create long term conversations with vendors and landlords and the ability to be very relevant to a local audience.

To find out more email us at inform@dataloft.co.uk or visit our website informpropertyanalysis.com