Many real estate agents and investors I talk with throughout a typical week tell me that they only use one marketing campaign or strategy per listing. What that tells me is that they have not properly and thoroughly segmented their database(s). My marketing and coaching clients continue to benefit from a role, and challenge, I had more than 30 years ago. I learned early on how the same property can and should be marketed in more than one way and how it increases the chances for faster results.
During the early 90s, before the internet took hold, I was responsible for compiling and updating a series of open house lists every week. The “Open House Hotline” was a phone number to call as early as Wednesday evening (for the coming weekend) for people to select an area of interest. They would hear updated recorded descriptions of available properties which would be open for visitors. My responsibility, along with recording most of the announcements and making sure the address and price info were accurate, was to write reach description to make each property sound unique. There were instances of very similar and neighboring houses each being open. How do you describe the “same” property twice?
I needed to tackle the issue because of the times competing agents (who were our customers) had those similar properties. That challenge more than 35 years ago is what started me on the way to separate campaigns. The solution at that time was to have one house be “on a quiet street”, “in school district 32”, “close to the train station”, or have outstanding exterior amenities. The neighboring house would be described as having “an updated and bright kitchen”, “the master bath being adjacent to the master bedroom”, and other attractive interior features. By presenting what was essentially a combination of properties in different ways, it helped to bring people to the location for different reasons, but it was the same result.
A listing might also be a good investment as a potential short-term or long-term rental, but a family looking for where to live while their kids go to the local school is not interested in a rental investment. When you know what information to provide to appropriate segments within your database(s), you can hit them with what they want and need to know as a priority. There is also the matter of fitting almost every opportunity you have into a strategic plan for an “eventual” buyer. Real estate marketing campaigns and strategies can be made to easily operate over the course of months and years.
Only marketing a property or opportunity one way and to “everyone” is, to me, part of the reason that many properties stay on the market too long, to the disappointment of truly motivated sellers. The “secret sauce” for real estate agents and investors should be in the research and planning at all times. Let the others stay “top of mind” and see where that gets them. What you send to your potential buyers should be different from what you send to your potential sellers. Potential buyers in your database could be investors but could also be current homeowners thinking ahead to their next move. You need to know that, and understand what to send each category and when.
If “everyone” is in your one database and you send “top of mind” emails and posts every Tuesday at 10 AM, chances are you would be top of mind until as long as 10:10 AM on Tuesdays. Attracting interest from multiple segments comes from giving each one information pertinent to them.
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