Real estate marketing at its creative best is getting to be as worrisome as creative accounting.
Just as a shoemaker can’t help but see the world as a place
inhabited by shoes carrying people around, a marketer can’t help but see the
world as collections of word clouds, conversations as communication, and
explanations as messaging. When real estate happens to be an area of curiosity,
one can’t help but wonder how real estate marketing could be improved for the well-informed
buyer by borrowing ideas from other industries.
Here are 7 suggestions for improving real estate marketing from the perspective of an informed buyer.
The only constant in the lifecycle of a property must be a real estate company – yours. Think that buyers are custodians of a property until they or their future generations sell it. Sales then become an outcome of long-term business development, not a one-time transaction.
The supplies must be better than samples. Wide-angle photography makes spaces look disappointingly smaller in real life. Add realism in listings and make the realtor’s brand authentic while attracting better quality leads.
Build domain expertise in real estate properties. Develop ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for your real estate listing. Build domain knowledge about a locality, and about specific properties, thus increasing the valuation of your real estate company.
Try account-based marketing. The real estate company’s true measure of success is in getting repeat clients and referral sales.
Gotcha pricing is short-sighted. Avoid opaque, gotcha pricing through methods such as splitting a landed property and listing the (now) less desirable property at a lower price while offering the adjacent land at a steep price.
Research like you are the buyer. Be forthcoming in listings with all the information that a savvy buyer can research and obtain on their own. Buyers will appreciate that you saved them precious time. It helps buyers build confidence in the listing and in a realtor’s credibility.
Redefine move-in condition. What you see must be what you can get. Provide the option to sell a home with the staged furnishings included.
These suggestions will not impact the budget of a realtor,
but they call for a shift in mindset. It is one of those things that money
can’t buy. It will encourage a real estate company to build, nurture and grow
client lists for account-based marketing, and be valued somewhat like a dental
practice or a primary care physician’s practice.
Account-based marketing will also fortify realtors against ‘For
Sale By Owner’ (FSBO) listings. Introduce to the industry the concept of a
third-party service which guarantees safe physical access into such FSBO properties.
Trust-as-a-service could be disruptive.
A traditional real estate agent’s matchmaker role brings the most critical piece in these high-value transactions – trust. Unreal marketing erodes that trust. Real estate professionals must adopt lessons in brand marketing from enterprise or industrial sales – not used car sales.
