Luxury Real Estate Blog

Story

The goal was to create a content marketing hub for a real estate company looking to increase their presence online in a crowded market. Articles would be the core of new social media campaigns, as agents were desperate for content to share. However, the in-house content team didn't have bandwidth to support them. Social media would play a key role as a marketing tool for agents, and promotion for the brokerage.

Problem

Guide the design of beautiful (and functional!) blog pages, based on wireframes, and market research of other blogs in and out of real estate. We wanted to promote real estate without being another aggregator of ads and listings. 

Build tools for fast and easy content creation, based on user interviews, feature/card sorting and prototypes with the content authors. It was important to understand their process, and give them tools that would let them work quickly.

Encourage social sharing, based on stakeholder interviews and storyboards to understand how an agent's use of the site could benefit them individually and the brokerage as a whole.  

Approach

I supported the content design process by providing wireframes of an image focused feed, a magazine style content page, and a simple list/Top 10 page. My research showed that competitors failed to deliver a high-end aesthetic. Technical issues were common, especially high load times. I also provided design samples and a thorough checklist of features to focus on.

I outlined content creation tools for Wordpress using custom post types and custom fields. The content authors told me stories were often repurposed from other collateral, so the less formatting needed within Wordpress the better. By creating custom fields, content could be copied and pasted with standardized styles applied automatically.

I identified design features and internal messaging to encourage social sharing by users, and by the real estate agents of the brokerage. Interviews showed agents were already eager for content and reluctant to share from 3rd parties. I created guidelines for internal messaging to address their needs with features of the site. Wireframes had prominent share buttons to encourage users to share. I also outlined specs for OpenGraph tags and images to ensure consistent appearance on social networks.

Results

The site had a tremendous first year, and was strongly embraced by agents and internal leadership. By addressing agents' needs directly I was able to increase adoption of the site, and increase loyalty by building tools based on their needs and input. Consumer readership created more impressions than any other web marketing program at the time, largely supported by agents choosing to share content. Thanks to customized tools and templates, authors easily produced a constant stream of fresh content - without the need of additional team members or contracted copywriters.