Demons & True Marketing
In the advertising piece The Demon of Marketing that introduced UniversalMLS.com to the world, I stated that: “the Demon of Marketing is the personification of a concept demonstrating that within a marketplace the pool of sellers and buyers will gravitate toward the most beneficial services offered. Just as stockbrokers and travel agents received this rude awakening a few years ago and changed how we all buy stocks and arrange our travel, the The Demon of Marketing is now hovering over the real estate industry.”
Whether you believe the industry is changing very rapidly, or will gradually and incrementally adopt new technologies with brokers having little to worry about, your goal should be to truly understand the wants and needs of your market and how you will meet these needs better than the competition. So please explore with me now how you do this, and what true marketing is all about.
Understanding the Wants & Needs of the Market
You have two major tasks to complete before your can really understand the wants and needs of your market, and then determine how best to meet them. First, try to erase all that you know about real estate, the MLS, being a broker, and your concerns of being paid. In other words, be a typical home seller sitting in their kitchen trying to make sense of real estate and the internet, and weighing their options in light of everything the marketplace now offers. You’ve got to scrape your brain and think selfishly as a seller would. This is not a negative comment. Every one of us thinks “selfishly” and in our own best interest when making purchase decisions. This is good—it’s how free enterprise operates. Once you acknowledge this, you are in a better position to understand your market. Whew, that was the most difficult of the two tasks—done. Let’s jump to number two.
To understand how best to meet the wants and needs of the market, you have to define what they are. This is what true marketing is all about. Marketing is not the ads you see when watching the Super Bowl, junk mail relentlessly blasted at you, or a broker’s post card with their dog all done up for a glamour shot. Marketing, real marketing, is understanding what a tightly defined market truly wants and needs, figuring out how you will meet those needs better than your competition, and doing it at a profit.
So what does the typical seller really want? That’s very easy to define. They want their home sold quickly, for the price they know it’s worth, 24/7 full-service from a broker, no inconvenience of any kind, and to pay a $500 commission. Am I wrong? Honestly, I don’t think so. So that’s the first part of true marketing: understanding what your market wants. If you meet those needs right this minute, you will be inundated with business. However, let’s look at the rest of the definition of marketing, “…figuring out how you will meet those needs better than your competition, and do it at a profit”.
Creating a Profitable Market System
Can you create a system to exactly meet the market’s defined needs in enough volume to make a profit? If so, you are now rock’n. If not, you will need to adjust your system until an equilibrium is reached between what the market wants, and what you can do while making enough profit to stay in business. All the while, do not forget about the competition and what they are offering; your sellers certainly are not.
Whether the real estate industry changes in a flash, or incrementally adopts new technologies over time, you must remain focused on your market’s wants and needs, constantly monitor what the competition is offering whether it’s the newest tech option or just your regular brokers offering some new tools and services, and determine how you can meet the market’s need better than your competition.
The Selfish Watching Market
The market will perpetually be watching for the offerings that best meet their needs. They will selfishly and relentlessly gravitate toward what they perceive to be the best option for them. You have the choice to help create those options, or hang in there hoping you’ll be able to always make a living doing just what you have done for the last decade. So how did you buy your last airline ticket or hotel room?
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Our industry has done a poor job of actually soliciting and designing partnerships with consumers and our myriad local partners. REALonomics would advocate a 1 year study and analysis of consumer wants, needs and frustrations. Let’s ask them what they really think of our industry and how we can improve it to their satisfaction. Such an analysis would take a year or two and have to include at least 10,000 participants from every region and State in the USA, focus groups made up of those who have purchased or sold real estate in the last 5 years with statistical analytics by experts in the field. This would be a good way for NAR and local associations to spend our money and it would produce a consumer-driven profile model for delivery to broker/owners and agents that would blueprint a model to be followed. Let’s ask the consumer to partner with us.