Marketing dominates the real estate brokerage process. It is used to promote companies, generate leads, sell homes and swap referrals. Marketing is also what most agents think they are doing when they put properties in newspapers, on postcards and even on the web. Yet this isn’t really marketing. And real estate professionals need to learn how to do marketing, at least better than advertising, especially online.

Marketing real estate is something completely different than advertising it.Especially when it’s online.

Marketing homes has little to do with the home’s specifications and more to do with the home’s opportunities. Almost every buyer will sacrifice some features in a property, as long as the overall opportunities matchtheir desires.

That’s the flaw with internet advertising in real estate. Everybody’s focused on marketing the specifications. The assumptionis thatthe house with a larger living room will outperform one with a smaller room. Yet nobody ever demonstrates people actually living in the living room. More ghastly are the homes advertised without furniture – as if the buyers are supposed to use their imagination. Marketing professionals know that a blank page – or just a product shot – is a very iffy strategy. Where real estate marketing has been reduced to advertising,then it all becomes a matter of whose stuff is bigger, better or snazzier. And that’s why most internet advertising is so dismally ineffective, because the consumer doesn’t buy stuff!

Decisions rarely about “stuff”
Homebuyers may need some “stuff” such as a certain number of bedrooms for their children or a certain city for the schools. But their decision to buy the home is rarely about the actual stuff. Instead, it’s almost always emotional – a response not to the stuff, but to the value they would gain if they lived in the home.

Make values searchable, not product
The real distinction between real estate advertising and marketing can be found on almost every broker’s website. If homes are considered commodities, then home specifications are used for search criteria. If, on the other hand, homes are considered opportunities to experience, then the site will feature tools to sort by lifestyle. The consumer’s values become searchable, not the product. When was the last time you saw a real estate site that could be focused by criteria like, I’m a new buyer, I’m a retiree, I’m a musician, I’m an equestrian, and so on?

Nope, it’s all just stuff. And as every experienced agent knows, consumers do not buy stuff; they buy emotionally. That means they buy values. Until brokers start marketing each home’s values online, they’ll be at the mercy of the competing inventory, whose stuff may be more competitive than their stuff.

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