Photo by Carol Highsmith
If market leadership is your quest, as a luxury real estate marketing professional, your goal is to be the first luxury real estate agent to come to mind in your marketplace. You actually want to become a celebrity in your local area. Think of a famous living, modern, avant garde, architect. Who comes to mind, first? Chances are, if you are interested in modern architecture, you answer will be Frank Gehry. Now, he is an outstanding example of a one man brand.
The picture above is Disney Hall, in downtown Los Angeles. It illustrates the innovative brand of architecture which characterizes a Frank Gehry building. Like Gehry and his work, your personal brand, your unique way of doing business has to have a look, an experience that is unmistakably yours.
If you want an avant-garde building and you can pay the price, Frank Gehry is the go-to architect. His buildings are always distinctive, the stand-outs in the skyline. They make a statement. They become landmarks. He experiments with all types of building materials and he strives to make the impossible possible. This is his brand, his niche, and his legacy.
Marketing is a deliberate strategy in which the unique signal of a brand, which summarizes the entire experience of interacting with a person, product or service, is broadcast to the precise audience who is a match to that brand or signal. Without a well defined brand and the awareness of the target audience who is looking for that brand, signals will get crossed.
In the absence of a clearly articulated signal, marketing is reduced to generalities and can be a waste of time, energy and money for you and your potential clients. It is the like asking someone for a referral for an architect without stating what style you prefer. If done right marketing presorts the potential audience. Those looking for a traditional style would simply not be interested in Gehry. And, Gehry (or his organization), doesn’t have the time to field inquiries made by those seeking a conservative look.
Take note of the market leaders in other professions like Frank Gehry, to get clues for your own luxury real estate marketing practice. Clearly define your market niche (avant garde architecture) and your unique brand of doing business. Send out a clear signal to your specific target market and you will see for yourself that marketing completely factors out sales in the equation of acquiring new clients, because they will be pre-sold!
This is part of an ongoing series about Luxury Real Estate Marketing . Get Fluent. Get Affluent! Subscribe to The Language of Luxury by Email or RSS Feed. Comments? Please use form in left column.