The Chief Marketing Officers of eXp Realty, Brown Harris Stevens, and CoStar Marketplace share why sales metrics aren’t resonating with today’s consumers and what agents can do instead.
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Over the past year, agency and brokerage leaders have been forced to adapt quickly as intensifying market headwinds and rising antitrust violations upend the industry. While brokerage firms have already shifted to fee-based messaging, three marketing leaders on stage at Inman Connect New York said leaders need to reinvent their marketing to focus on storytelling rather than metrics. He said there is.
Wendy Forsythe
“It used to be that for an agent to communicate a message, whatever the medium of that message, was to say something like, ‘I sold this house in 24 hours,’ or ‘I sold this house in two days.’ It was almost a badge of honor,” Wendy Forsyth, eXp’s chief marketing officer, told the Inman Connect crowd on Wednesday. “We used to promote messages like this because we were proud that they were somehow proof of how good we were at what we did. ”
Forsyth said messaging doesn’t work in today’s market, especially as consumers have become more sensitive to conversations about buyers and brokers’ fees and negotiating ability. Agents see these posts as proof of their expertise, but consumers are more likely to see them as a sign of being scammed.
“Consumers are going to look at this and say, ‘Why should I pay X amount of money when I’ve only done 24 hours worth of work?’ It’s a broken marketing strategy,” she added. Ta.
Forsythe said agents and brokers need to focus on telling a compelling story that explains how they can close deals quickly, instead of metrics and empty testimonials.
“The key is to rely on the storytelling expertise that it requires,” she said. “You could have the same result of selling a house in 24 hours, but you could do that because you had 10 years of contacts and 10 years of relationships.A buyer looking for a specific property. We network with other agents that we work with, so we have 10 potential buyers who might be interested in that particular property when it comes on the market.”
“[You can tell the story of] A problem arose at the last minute of a transaction, and I had to leave a soccer game or dinner with my family to call my loan officer to resolve the issue and close the transaction the next day.” she added. “These are the values we bring to a deal. Instead of taking shortcuts like, ‘Oh, I sold it in a day,’ or ‘I sold it in 24 hours,’ take advantage of that.” ”
Matthew Leone |Credit: BHS
In addition to switching to a story-based approach to marketing, marketing efforts need to focus on candidly educating consumers about market challenges and opportunities, says Brown Harris Stevens CMO Matthew Leone. He said there is.
“Educator[e] “At a time when there is so much uncertainty about where the market is right now, we need to reach out to consumers as often as possible,” he said. “It’s not about what you want them to hear; it’s about what they need to hear.”
“When you’re talking about your successes, you don’t pay attention to the awards, because the people who are watching, listening, and learning about it don’t care about that at all,” he says. added. “They care about what’s going on in their lives. ‘Where is the market now?’ What should I do with my home?” Should you buy, sell or lend? ” Tell them about it. ”
Leone has created Brown Harris Stevens’ latest pitchbook for agents on the importance of buy-side representation, and new tools and platforms to help agents quickly get the latest information to consumers. He said he is investing in.
“Through a great collaboration with a company called Open Reel, we have a remote content studio,” he said. “Email communication, social media communication, video communication. It’s really more education than entertainment right now.”
Chris Mumford |Credit: LinkedIn
CoStar Group Marketplaces CMO Chris Mumford echoed Forsyth and Leone’s insights, noting that strong personalities are also part of attracting and retaining long-term customers. Mumford, who came to CoStar from Geico six months ago, said consumers ultimately work with people and brands they love.
“Well, in my experience there are two ways.” [to differentiate your brand]. One is emotional. “One is very reasonable,” he said. “The most powerful [approach] I realized in my career that individuality is important. People buy from companies they like. So when you develop a brand, whether you’re a human being or you’re developing a brand for a product or a service, people want to know what that brand stands for, what the personality of that brand is, and You need to understand why the brand stands behind it. We’re open for business. ”
Mumford said the CoStar housing portal Homes.com has established a strong brand personality and leverages pain points that agents have had with other portal rivals to improve its value proposition: He said the company has successfully accomplished the challenge of strengthening its marketing platform, which allows it to be at the center of listings.
“They’ve done a great job emotionally of getting the brand out there and expressing their vision,” he said. “We still have work to do to educate and ensure people understand how they can harness the power of this product, which is evolving and getting smarter, better and more robust every day. There’s still a lot of work to be done there.”
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