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Put your agent on the spot!

Ask Questions!

Many traditional real estate companies dictate the marketing plans for the homes they list at the corporate level, allowing for very little flexibility by the agent. This means that they market each and every property identically.

As a consumer, you may think that this is a good thing. Why should a $500,000 home receive more marketing effort than your $200,000 home? Let me explain why I believe each house is completely and totally unique and should be marketed accordingly.

Here are some examples of the different types of homes you might run across in the greater Chicagoland area:

A pricey urban loft
A suburban 4 bedroom, 2-1/2 bath home
A cabin in the woods with water rights
A condo located in an age restricted (55 & over) community

As you can see, each of these properties would, generally speaking, appeal to a distinctly different buyer. If the purpose of marketing is to target the potential buyer for the property, how can marketing each and every property the exact same way accomplish this?

In my opinion, it can't.

That's why I recommend that when you are interviewing prospective real estate agents you ask them what their company policy is in terms of marketing properties. Do they market each property the same way? Or is each agent empowered to design a marketing plan as individual and unique as your home? If so, exactly what does that marketing plan entail, and why?

Go ahead; put your prospective agent on the spot! Any good agent should be able to answer this question with a specific plan designed for your home.

Maximum targeted exposure = maximum results. Make sure you choose the right agent to list your home for sale!

If you are looking for a good real estate agent, give me a call. As a referral agent (I'm no longer involved in the day to day real estate business), I can help match you with the perfect agent to help you buy or sell your home.

Posted by Kelly Sibilsky on 01/14/2009 10:05 PM

Comments (50)

Marketing in the Home Selling Channel

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Originally posted at: lake zurich...and beyond: Put your agent on the spot!

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50 Comments on Put your agent on the spot!

JAN

Hi Kelly...Every agent in my office is responsible for their own marketing. I like that because we can personalize it for the type property we are listing and also for the type buyer clients we are hoping to attract.

I much prefer to pay for my marketing and to have control over what I do.

Kate

Kelly - you raised some excellent points. If you are target marketing, chances are greater you will miss the buyers you want. And clearly the more unique the stronger the need for a focus on teh right buyer pool. I suspect many folks fins it easier to take the low road and do it all the same way. Sellers need to understand WHAT is being done and WHY.

Jeff

Kelly -

Every client needs to be treated to top-level service, but the definition of that top service could vary depending on the type of property involved. Clients need to understand that!

But marketing should never be segmented on the basis of the estimated compensation to the agent.

Hey, Kelly - what's happening - change companies? Reply via private email, if you'd like.

DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO

You stated the need for a spescific marketing plan perfectly! Thanks for a great blog.

Tailoring our markeing to the specific property should not only deliver better results to the seller, but also help us control marketing costs. Unique homes deserve unique plans.

Kelly, our marketing plans offer what the company provides and what our local multi-list offers. Yet, each agent is empowered to tweak the marketing plan and individualize it for each unique roperty. Equivalent service does not necessarily mean the same service for each and every individual. We do have a compensation differential in place. Again, there are suggested services and products within x or y compensation levels. But individual REALTORs have flexibility in that area, too.

Good blog post! Many realtors think of themselves as simply listing or buying agents. While all of us where several hats, ultimately the successful Realtors are sales people first. This should not be taken in any negative connotation, which I know it is by some Agents.

As a Listing Agent, it is absolutely imperative to have a unique approach to individual properties. In my area of Sandpoint, Idaho, we also have a huge variety of properties: downtown historic homes, waterfront, large acreage rural, ranch property, ski property. Why would you use the same promotional venues or even talk to the same agents, when dealing with a 3 million waterfront home versus a rural parcel of land for $150,000.

Hi ,

Good thoughts. I agree you will market differently. Howver, I treat every client the same, whether they have a $100,000 property or a million dollar property...I am sure most realtors do..

Have a great day!

Cindy

Kelly: Great post here. Of course each different style of property will bring in different type buyers. As for marketing.. Each agent should have a marketing plan that will cover any type property listed. Every home owner deserves the same type treatment.

Hi Kelly! EXCELLENT post and congrats on that little gold star! I do not understand why some sellers go with an agent based on their friendship and DON'T research their marketing plan (or lack thereof!) at all!

Debe in Charlotte

Hi Kelly,

I have to respectfully and professionally disagree with you. As someone who has an extensive marketing, market research, and technology background, I speak from experience. There is no proven and verifiable to "target" market most any property. I have tracked all of my listings, where the buyers come from, and have canvassed and networked with agents locally and across the country. I've never met one (who is open and honest) that has ever been able to figure that out. Sure, you can always get "lucky" once in a blue moon, but that defeats the purpose of "target" marketing. First, you have to know where the target it. Moreover, there is no hard, 3rd-party verified, studies or data that have shown any effective target marketing program. I have worked for exceptionally large real estate companies that claim to do this, and it amounts little more than doing a just listed somewhere, and that somewhere is not scientific, nor even consistent.

Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinions, but if it were truly that easy to target your audience, there would be solid, published, best practices with data of how buyers find homes to back it up. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, and there aren't any studies that I have seen, and studies by definition, are risky propositions due to survey and research design variables of how to isolate the variables for consistency.

In short, it just doesn't work.

I can spend almost no hard dollars on traditional marketing and if a property is priced well and is in great condition (assuming there is demand), it will sell. How, the pervasiveness of the Internet, plain and simple.

The counterpoint is also true, I can spend 5K marketing a property for which there is either no demand, is over-priced, and/or the condition doesn't meet buyers expectations, and it won't sell.

Demand...condition...price...in that order.

imho...marketing is < 5% of the total pie, and is what 95% of agents exclusively focus on to win busienss, much to the dismay of this industry and it's reputation.

Don't get me wrong, I put my client's homes on the 1st page of google by blogging, podcasts, showcase listings on Realtor.com, exceptional digital photography and the like, but I put this in context for the seller.

You got that right! Each home has different qualities and features ...therefore, the marketing would differ (for me) Good one!

The concern would be cost over effort. If I impliment the same marketing costs involved in a $200k home to a $500k home, I will literally lose money. This is because $500k is our average and we put substantially monies in our maketing program that makes it cost prohibitive to do for a home in the $200's. EFFORT is a different story. There should never be a difference in effort..... Well done.

Kelly - excellent points! Each home is as individual as the agent marketing it hopefully is and deserves to be marketed as a distinct and unique property...not within a cookie cutter system.

Kelly, you bring up some excellent points. I have a standard marketing plan but some properties do not confirm to the one-size-fits-all marketing plan.

JAN

Asking an agent to market a home differntly depending on its listing price is sort of backwards. The job is the same regardless of price. If you are talking about unrealistic advertising costs to push an individual listing? Sure. Then I guess you could spend a million trying to show off a house. But for 99% of the actual situations you can put the same effort regardless of the price.

The most effecting marketing in todays market is internet marketing and you can do that more effective than any other way by and you can do it 100% free. So if you know how to market in todays market its not a question of cost, its a matter of knowing how to do it.

I definately taylor my marketing to the house. I agree with your post. I track what gets the most calls on each type of property and what neighborhoods seem to do the best with what. I do get in mind WHO the most likely buyers will be. I have found internet is one of the most likely ways that people find the house, but where on the internet really really varies. The most likey way however that we find a buyer of course is ANOTHER AGENT! I do alot of my marketing and networking with other agents. The other things that gets calls is the signs (and we all do that !)

I do find that if the demand for that type of property is there and I have it priced right for the current condition, marketing one way or another makes not that much difference, we get it sold. If not priced right in the first place all of the marketing in the world makes little or no difference. Marketing either way does get me new clients, just not neccessarily ones that buy that house. I do my best to just price right each time so I accomplish both.

I sort of agree with the person who said that it does not matter since price and condition rule, but only to a point. I think those are KEY first, but then from there tweaking the marketing can make a real difference. ( ie is the house near a military base, perhaps you should advertise in their classifieds) Is it a house that would appeal to investors? If so don't do lots of slick ads for it (they don't work!)

I have standard things I do for pretty much every house, and then each house also get's it's own special treatment.

Kelly, interesting debate. I was surprized that people disagreed with your post - but it just goes to show you... opinions are like bellybuttons -everyone has one...

Kelly,

Great post. While agents can debate among themselves whether you should have different marketing plans for different types of properties, I think the first question to ask when you "put your agent on the spot" is what the marketing plan is to begin with? There are actually a few real estate brokers in my area that do not even have a website!

Michelle

Kelly, you ask a very fair question. A homes value shouldn't necessarily dictate the amount spent of advertising. Each listing has its own unique marketing needs and in truth some are greater than others. For instance, in my area we have a lot of waterfront properties and they require a certain way of marketing because the clientele here virtually demands it. So I guess my point is that sometimes a seller will have more influence on how a home is marketed than another. Take care and happy blogging!

I do agree that each property has it's own uniqueness and needs individual marketing. I am a lakefront specialist and use Lakehouse.com for example. We have an obligation to finds ways to feature properties to enhance their qualitites.

I think the distinction here is not to confuse service with marketing. Our service..feedback on showings, progress reports etc.. should be the same regardless of the lsit price, but the marketing depends upn the property.

I try to treat every client the same...tops level service which in my opinionis priceless. The only thing that is harder is when you're dealing a with a foreclosure or a REO or short sale...it's hard to make it look good if it's distressed.

Kelly: You are right. Every property is unique. No two should be marketed alike. That being said, I am finding the best results, for all types of property, are when you reach the prospective buyer online. I have yet to get any call from a newspaper ad.

When I go on an appointment and reach the marketing section, I make sure I point out that the marketing plan has been individualized for this home. In my company we have control of our marketing endeavors which is the flexibility I point out to the prospective client is an advantage. Good reminder about different properties should have different levels of buyers.

@ EVERYONE -

As many have pointed out, let me just point out that we should not confuse SERVICE with MARKETING. :-) No matter what marketing plan you implement, EVERY client should be treated to the exact same first class service and transaction coordination efforts!

This is about making sure that you COVER ALL THE BASES in MARKETING...but that IN ADDITION you specificially target the most likely buyer of the property as well. In my experience, if you really pay attention to your market, you will see patterns develop that will help you figure out where your most likely buyer is coming from. This is a very important additional form of marketing that works.

For example, by and large the $200,000 buyers in Lake Zurich are first time home buyers - so it makes perfect sense to include apartment complexes within your marketing plan and to network with agents that specialize in assisting first time home buyers. Likewise, the buyers that move up and out of my neighborhood have - many times - moved across the street into a bigger and more expensive subdivision (allowing them to stay in the same school district and their kids can stay in close proximity to all of their friends). Any agent who gets a listing in that subdivision would be wise to market their listing to my subdivision in addition to their regular marketing efforts.

I could give many examples, but what is important is to know the community in which you sell so that you can make these determinations and do the very best job for your clients.

Thanks to all!

Hi Kelly, I'm sure most comments will support your premise that each home should have a focused marketing plan which emphasizes unique qualities. I guess I stop short of total support for the targeted marketing plans. Seems like most of them rely on an old formula applied to outdated direct mail programs.

@ BILL -

I've always believed that every form of marketing works - simply with different degrees of effectiveness. I never found newspaper advertising to be effective personally, but agents in other regions have reported much success (agents who work in a very small town, for example, may find that the local newspaper is still the most effective form of marketing). The same goes for open houses, direct mail and other forms of traditional marketing, as well as internet marketing. That's why it is so important to know what works in your area (or with specific types of potential buyers) and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

It is my opinion that the internet is the most effective place to market a property for sale, but even on the internet you can target your marketing efforts, particularly if you have a niche (specifically targeting first time home buyers, vacation home buyers, etc. by providing useful information that those particular buyers are looking for). In addition, not every buyer (at least not yet!) has access to the internet for their home search. There are still some that rely heavily on either their agent, or on traditional forms of marketing, such as flyers or open houses. Why not cover every base?

Interesting discussion. I try to market to a logical buyer in a specific price range. I might target Apartments that a townhome in the area would be a logical move. But who knows? I thought Chris's post was definiatly thought provoking.

I guess my point is I dont see any need to do anything different when you can do the best marketing on the internet and that is free. There is no better marketing than a well targeted blog post. It will show up in search results for someone who is looking for that specific thing. Its perfect and costs nothing.

Spending extra money on ineffective marketing techniques means you are trying to just appease the homeowner and havnt talked with them about what sorts of things work. Giant paper campaigns are pointless and ineffective.

Actually saying you will do specific marketing for a specific home is asking for a huge amount of trouble. For instance in your listing presentation if you said you would and then the house sells that day but you focused on saying how much marketing you would do to sell the house? Lets say they are paying a lot of money for the listing, it sort of makes you look like they paid you for absolutely nothing! This is only asking for trouble by approaching it like this. When I first started this was in the list of the big no no's!

It is a much better approach to say that 99% of the marketing was done before you even listed their house which is also true. The reason our company sells so many houses is that we have marketed our company so successfully before we even take a listing. The machine was built before that particular house was listed. When we take a listing it simply becomes part of that machine or system, whatever you want to call it.

Its fine to do additional marketing. I do for every listing. But saying you will do more because a house costs more is just asking for trouble.

@ SHANE -

This is about spending your marketing dollars in the most effective way for that particular property, no matter what the price. It has nothing to do with appeasing a seller. Agents should be focused on doing what is most effective, which is a win-win for both agent and seller.

I agree that blog posts are an excellent way to target your marketing with key words, etc. so that anyone who is searching on the internet can find the property. But let's not forget that not everyone (yet) uses the internet in their home search. But my post is not about debating the most effective forms of marketing or advertising.

By the way, I agree with you that a consumer may feel cheated if a home sells in only one day (think back to the boom days). The pictures weren't even taken! The virtual tour wasn't up! The house was put into the MLS and the sign placed in the yard and that was all it took! It wasn't even on the internet! This had almost nothing to do with a company's visibility in the marketplace or internet marketing strategy. Why wouldn't the consumer feel that the agent may have been overpaid? But that's an entirely different blog post. :-)

I guess I just didnt read your post the same way. I also have never worked for a corporate agency so I am not familar with that. We our an independent company and what I personally do is completely unique to our area.

Kelly this is exactly why I feel so strongly that RE/MAX is the best company out there. All the decision making is left with the agent and not done via a bureaucracy.

@ BILL - Agreed! :-)

The money is only part of the picture of the cost of marketing. There is time as well. I have a slate of things I do to market EVERY property, but I do spend more time and money on higher end listings. Materials need to be a cut above in order to stand out, and if I spent the coin on the entry level listings, I would have to charge more.

Good point and great post. Anytime an agent goes to make a listing presentation they should have already gone through the thought proess of how they would explain the marketing plan that they have already designed for that property.

Generally they do with the exception of glossy flyers vs. paper ads for $1M Plus properties. Great post and advice

I do the very best I can do for every single one of my clients. Some properties need more effort and more advertising than others (be it because of condition, location, or whatever). Some sell themselves with little to no effort; however, I never base my 'effort' or 'service' on whether it's a 200K home or a 1MM home. Sometimes you spend more on the lower end/priced ones and sometimes not; for different reasons, but we should all be able to tell our clients exactly what we are doing, or will be doing, to get that house sold, as fast as possible, for the most money possible.
What I do and how I do it, is up to me (not the company); and through discussion with the client, sometimes it may change, but it's certainly discussed with the client.

These are some good points. Even with a base marketing plan, things can be done to market each home a unique way.

Kelly, I do my own marketing and if it is unique I do something unique. Here is an example, I had a home on 10 Ac that allowed horses. I researched horse magazines and placed an ad in it. Why not? I don't usually do print ad's but I was trying to reach a person who wanted our school district but with room for horses. Now I would never advertise in that format again if I didn't have another farm.

I do VT's on all my listings from 60K to 1Ml and blog on all of them but I know what you are getting at.

I've worked for a large-scale, nationwide brokerage, a local, but large brokerage, and a small brokerage. You are correct that only the nationwide brokerage thought they knew it all, and made me feel like they were constantly looking over my shoulder and second-guessing my choices, while in fact, they knew nothing! They didn't have a clue about internet marketing, which for years, has really been all that mattered.

But I think Chris Olsen's comment is an excellent marketing strategy. I don't think I agree with the order, but I do agree with the 3 principles.

Kelly, this is such a great question for sellers to ask. We all have the "normal" things, but what are you going to do for my house? What's the target market? Who do you see as the buyer for this property and how are you going to go about finding them?

JAN

Kelly,

I love this question for a seller to ask! You are right on with this one. Thanks for the great post! We can turn it around and let them know up front before they get to ask this question.

Kelly, I also try to focus on a target market, in addition to my normal marketing efforts! Cold enough for you????

@ EVERYONE -

Such a great discussion, THANK YOU!

Proper price and preparation of the property is certainly key to success; but proper marketing is essential for optimum results. When you make the attempt to identify and target your potential buyer, you will achieve greater success.

Think about the ads you see on television...it is obvious that research has been done to target a specific audience, even within the larger overall audience of viewers. Try to identify who the target is for Pop Tarts, Special K, Swiffer or Chevy Trucks. It is no accident that you can quickly identify the target audience within the ads. Can you imagine if all of these products were marketed in exactly the same way to the same audience?

If target marketing is identified by the top dogs of advertising as essential to increase the likelihood of selling a product, why should it be any different if the product you are selling is a house?

Very good point Kelly - historical properties come to mind as a type of listing I would market much differnetly too. And, every agent has a different niche.

Totally agree with your take on this Kelly. Real estate marketing cannot be done effectively with a cookie cutter approach. There does need to be standardization of certain key components, but each property needs to be highlighted to portray it's own uniqueness. Good post!

JAN

Hi Kelly, you made some great points and there is striking differences in marketing options and plans..Congrats on the feature...well deserved.

JAN

What a lively discussion. Everyone has one; so here's my opinion. When I market a property I think about "brand marketing". Every house is unique in its own way so just like Coca Cola and Pepsico I attempt to brand it. You know, pick out the points to create product differentiation and focus on those items.

True price, location and condition drive the equation but these items are used to set the property apart from the others. Based on experience you SWAG the target market and communicate this to the client (seller) and based on their feedback modify the approach to satisfy the one(s) who will be paying your fee.

Just a thought...

JAN

DAVID: When I was an agent, I would have my sellers fill out an information sheet indicating what they loved about the house, why they purchased it, and what they thought the best features were. It is quite possible that what attracted them to the house would be the same thing that would attract the next buyer. I always made sure to highlight those particular features/benefits in my advertising. So, in my opinion, your approach is a very good one!

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