Agents Need to Pitch More Than Their Listings
by Brandon Barker on Aug 03, 2011
At a recent Agent Reboot Conference in San Francisco, online marketing professional Brian Clark said that while agents may work hard to get potential customers to contact them, customers have no real interest in doing so. Rather, home buyers and sellers have a fairly one-track mind when it comes to their real estate path.
“Buyers want home listings; sellers want to know what their home is worth,” Clark said. “Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that people want to talk to you.”
So how do you stand out from the crowd? A simple strategy that is not-so simply executed. Clark said he believes that too many real estate agents make the mistake of talking about themselves instead of directly addressing and offering solutions to a prospect’s needs. This involves a content strategy.
According to Clark, a Realtor’s approach should be the following:
1. Who do I want to reach?
2. What do they want?
3. How do I get what I want by giving them what they want?
One way to do this, he argues, is to look at local media producers as the competition (as opposed to other agents), and generate local-level content and subsequently become an authority on a particular neighborhood or area. “People want content before they want a pitch. That’s the main underlying philosophy of Internet marketing,” he said.
Therefore your approach is to sell not just a house but a lifestyle, and provide content that no one else is providing on that neighborhood level. What makes the community you serve special and inviting? What’s happening down the street and around the corner. These stories can get passed around and shared and before you know it, a prospect is contacting you because the comfort level has already been established.
“The fact that people pass around content is the greatest word-of-mouth marketing ever,” Clark said.“You have to create (great) content, but you don’t have to pay money for them to share. If you think like a publisher or a media company first and your monetization strategy is in real estate … (that) could make you a fortune.”
Agents should provide content that no one else is providing at the neighborhood level, he said. “Lifestyle is what you build your content around. It’s the next phase of (a consumer’s) life — they’re not just buying a house.”
So how do you begin? Start a real estate blog. And generate unique content.
Source: Inman News
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