The Traditional Elements of the Marketing Mix
When I first got my real estate license I assummed that my many years of marketing experience and the knowledge I had acquired renovating and flipping a couple of condos would be a good basis for my new career.
I was mistaken.
I didn’t fit the profile at all of what the industry considered a potentially successful agent. In fact, I wasn’t very successful. What the industry traditionally looks for are the gregarious type that is willing to network incessantly at the country club, church, kids’ school, etc. Many of the most successful agents religiously maintain contacts with past clients and prospects and love doing it. They are gregarious almost to a fault. A managing broker looked for people who could envision their faces on billboards and bus stop benches and relished being recognized in the supermarket as the local “top producer.”
Agents typically get two types of training.
Initially most of it is associated with obtaining and keeping a license. It is designed to keep them out of trouble and protect the consumer. It focuses on the legal concept of agency and using the appropriate forms.
The other training focus was on drumming up business. It relied on tried and true practices for farming neighborhoods and communicating with past clients and working your “sphere of influence” that included family and friends. Even things like print advertising and open houses which appear to be selling homes are really more useful for promoting the individual.
Which gets to the point.
How come there is so little training on selling homes? The simple answer is that it just wasn’t necessary. In a boom market with more buyers than sellers, everything sells eventually and more sophisticated marketing isn’t necessary.
But this isn’t a boom market anymore.
Sellers outnumber buyers by a wide margin. Maybe it’s time to consider whether the glad hander on the billboard has any marketing skills. Here are a few questions to ask any agent that you are considering to list your property whether it’s rental property in a declining neighborhood or a multi-million dollar estate.
1. What is your pricing philosophy and how do you determine the appropriate price at which to list a property? Paradoxically, luxury properties are the most difficult to price but the least elastic because they are usually unique.
2. What promotional activities do you propose and who do you target them for? Often overlooked in the promotional plan is the middleman, the buyers agents who can strongly influence what properties they will see and consider.
3. What is your marketing budget? You may be surprised that many agents won’t spend much more on a million dollar home than they will on the average listing that is around $200,000 in our community. Shortsighted? Maybe, but if they know the property could sit on the market for a while or not sell at all, this money comes right out of their lunch money.
4. What is the “unique selling proposition” that you would use to promote this property? This gets at their understanding of both the importance of the product in the real estate marketing mix and also what is promotable. The most promotable feature may have nothing to do with the house at all and more to do with the community.
I vividly remember reviewing a template in the first few weeks of my career for preparing a marketing plan for a prospective listing. It was comprised mostly of things like “place sign in yard,” “place directional signs at key intersections,” “take pictures,” “place in MLS,” “put flyers in info box,” “put lockbox on front door.” I wondered to myself if this was all there was to marketing a home. What I discovered was that that was all it took…then.
But this is now. The best agents still have to be able to establish rapport with potential clients but they are also going to have to demonstrate they can market homes.
