Keeping the prospective client funnel full is a primary objective in real estate marketing. This is why podcast advertising has become a real estate marketer’s best friend.
Podcasts have massive reach, and high ad completion rates, plus a very healthy conversion rate. In fact, the industry category that includes Real Estate achieves a higher-than-average visitor conversion, at an average of 1.76% visitor conversion rate.
Podcasts are already heavy-weight lead-generating machines. But with exploding listenership, it’s become even more powerful.
This is a significant, easy-to-access opportunity for commercial and residential property managers, developers, and brokers. Used in multi-channel advertising strategies, podcasts will help drive interest in your properties, create trust and maximize your revenue potential.
Let’s dive in further, with 7 benefits of using podcast advertising for real estate.
PODCAST LISTENERSHIP
First and foremost, there are a lot of people listening. An estimated 383.7 million + listeners worldwide to be exact.
Listenership is expected to reach 424 million by the end of 2022. They are most popular in Scandinavia, North America, the UK, Australia, Japan, and Asia. But listener growth is particularly high in South America and China.
Podcast popularity has grown so much it now outranks social media, gaming and videos as the number one mobile activity.
With so many people listening, there is potential for massive ad reach.
PODCAST TARGETING CAPABILITIES
Targeting is one of the key reasons podcast ads are so effective. As a podcast ad network, we have listener insights to help identify the perfect match for your campaign. We hone in on who, where, when, and how customers are listening.
The best targeting tools for the real estate industry are location and context targeting. We generally recommend starting with financial and investment context targeting alongside your specific geographical location. But be sure to include other interests too.
PODCAST AD EFFECTIVENESS
As we said, more people are listening, and they are listening well.
Ad distraction and immunity is a battle we’ve all faced. With most digital media standing out is hard. Podcasts, however, don’t have such an issue. It’s a one-on-one experience, typically involving headphones, and ads are played at a very low frequency. This is why 98% of our podcast ads are heard all the way through. No skipping. You get up to 30-seconds of in-ear time with potential customers.
AFFLUENT PODCAST LISTENERS
What makes podcast advertising interesting for real estate is the affluent demographic of the listeners. Examples from various countries:
- In the US, Edison research shows the majority of regular podcast listeners have full-time jobs, have an income of 100k and above, and have a college degree or advanced degree.
- In the UK, Ofcom’s 2022 UK Podcast Survey discovered podcast listeners skewed ABC1 demographic.
- In China, the 2020 Chinese Podcasting Listeners and Consumption Survey found the majority of listeners come from top-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai…) and are highly educated (86% hold a bachelor’s degree or more).
- In the Middle East, our data shows the largest percentage of podcast listeners are in management roles or above.
These stats indicate podcast media mainly consists of people that have the power to make significant purchasing decisions.
PODCAST AD TRUST FACTOR
Trust is important in real estate. Buyers need to trust you. Luckily, the podcast environment delivers big on trust, because people trust what they hear. This is strikingly true when compared to other media formats. Research by Mindshare found trust for an advertised brand went down after the exposure to a video ad on social media but up when the brand was featured on podcasts. As a result of having higher trust than visuals, it can drive more conversions. The key is careful targeting and a creative ad that aligns with the interest of listeners.
AMPLIFICATION
A great real estate marketing campaign will include multiple channels. But, a lot of ads are easily ignored. Scrolling and ad clutter lead to high costs and low returns. Podcast ads address this issue. It amplifies your campaign so prospects take more notice. How? Its amplifying effect is a result of less ad clutter, very low ad-skipping, and high audience engagement. When you launch a campaign that closely links sound and visuals you could achieve 14% high memory encoding.
PODCAST RETARGETING
And finally, let’s talk about retargeting. Retargeting ads allow you to show targeted ads to people already exposed to your company. In this case, we can use tracking pixels, to send display ads to listeners that heard your ad. This will drive campaign performance way up.
THE BOTTOM LINE
It’s not enough to publish nice property pictures. You need to create a story, drive awareness, build trust, and above all – be noticed: all things achieved with podcast advertising! Chances are, your target customers are listening to podcasts. Reaching them is a matter of identifying their interests and targeting them. Placing your real-estate brand alongside podcasts is a fast track to awareness and consideration.
