The Importance of Being Relevant in Real Estate Marketing

Being relevant in your real estate marketing means delivering the kind of information your customers want.  Sounds simple, right?  Really, it is. Yet so few people – from real estate agents and other entrepreneurs to medium-sized businesses all the way up to the Madison Avenue giants – don’t do it.

Lois Boyle, in The Theory of Relativity asks, “why have so many of today’s multichannel brands become arrogant in their marketing techniques, solely concentrating on what makes them special instead of on what their brand truly means to customers?”  Your guess is as good as mine. But in others’ failure to focus on what the client wants, you can find your opportunity to stand out – and win, in any market.
 
Two steps to being relevant in real estate marketing
 
Step 1: Get to know your prospective clients
The first step to being relevant in real estate marketing is to get to know your audience (your past, current and future clients). As Boyle writes, “it is arrogant to think you can sell anything without an intimate knowledge of who your customers are. This goes beyond just a demographic profile or a data dump of how customers responded to a marketing effort. Successful multichannel marketers get inside their customers’ heads and hearts, then deliver relevant offers, copy and images that speak to a relevant, higher order benefit.”
 
To get to know your prospective clients, start by making a list of their characteristics.  This should be a free-flowing brainstorm session; just list characteristics off the top of your head.  (For example: residential, sellers, short sales, Scottsdale, families, upper-middle income.)  Then from that list you’ll develop a more fleshed-out description of who your prospective clients are and what their hopes and dreams, pains and fears are.
 
Step 2: Talk about what your prospective clients care about
The second step to being relevant is to talk about the things your audience (your past, current, and future clients) cares about. Not what you care about. What they care about. I’m reminded of something my 10th grade English teacher once said (it’s stuck with me all these years!): “Before you go on a first date, find out what book the other person is reading. Then read it. Or else you won’t have anything interesting to talk about.”

Just as you want to be able to talk about what your date is interested in (because what if your date doesn’t find fly fishing as mesmerizing as you do?!) you need to talk to your prospective clients about things they care about.

How do you do that?  Your prospective clients care, predominantly, about their hopes and dreams, pains and fears.  If you can demonstrate that you understand those – and then that you can help your prospects realize their hopes and dreams and remove their pains and fears, well, then you’ve got the client.

To see a step-by-step walk through process of figuring out, and then highlighting, what your prospective clients care about – of being relevant – check out our e-book: 5 Letters That Can Change Your Life (Or At Least Your Business).