Look at every Estate & Letting Agency’s marketing (to attract landlords and vendors) and the school of marketing they belong to can be seen as clear as day
The first school of Estate & Letting Agent Marketing…..
Roll the clock back to the decade of 2000’s and if you wanted to attract landlords and vendors to your agency, all you needed to do was to get in front of landlords and vendors, and they would buy your agency services.
Simple. The agents that spent the most of brand awareness were the winners.
Provided landlords and vendors were willing to pay your fee, your agency was in business. These were the days where the ability to close were all it took to get an agency off the ground, because you could take landlord’s and vendor’s time and (attention) for granted.
Why? Because agents knew, grab a landlords’ and vendor’s attention …they would buy (ACTION) and it worked (in the 2000’s) … the issue is though, since the Credit Crunch (2009/10), as year has gone by, this technique has incrementally become less effective.
Then in 2007, Savills came along and invented the ‘second school’ of Estate & Letting Agency marketing.
They knew that whilst they could still grab landlord’s and vendor’s time with an advert, they could no longer take landlord’s and vendor’s ATTENTION for granted. They realised as an agent, they needed to earn the continued attention from the landlords and vendors before they could earn their money from the landlord and vendor.
They knew the second part of AIDA marketing formula (Attention > Interest > Desire > Action) was really important.
They realised that whilst every agent was trying to get every landlords and vendors attention, the world was becoming a noisy place. The human race were beginning to learn to ignore adverts in the later 2000’s, so to ensure they got their business, they thought grab the ATTENTION of landlords and vendors by being INTERESTING, the landlords and vendors DESIRED to use the agency (ACTION).
What did Savills talk about in their marketing that worked so well? Something of interest to the landlords and vendors. Note the marketing wasn’t how good their agency was, or what they sold or let, or a market share graph… only YOU are interested in those things. No – Savills were talking about what interested landlords and vendors – the property market
Yet even today, only 5% of agents are in this second school of marketing – and doing very well indeed
However, there is now a new ‘third school’ of estate & letting Agency marketing, that only 0.1% of agents are in
The attention of landlords and vendors can no longer be acquired with adverts, because no one is spending time watching adverts.
People in 2020 are all too busy in this constant 24-7 world, so time too now needs to be earned as well. If landlords and vendors have not first paid you with their attention, they won’t pay you their valuable time, and here is the sucker punch, if landlords and vendors aren’t paying with their time, they won’t pay you the pound notes in your fees
The agents who are pupils in the third school of Estate & Letting Agency marketing know this…
1. INITAILLY GET FOLLOWERS. ie landlords and vendors who are paying you attention (yet not yet time or pound notes)
2. Then convert those FOLLOWERS TO A COMMUNITY ie your community who pay you with their time
3. Then convert your COMMUNITY into fee paying Landlords and Vendors
Fakebook, Twatter and Linkydin are the social channels where you can earn their attention and interest through interesting, intriguing and valuable content, engagement or know-hows and your following will grow.
What is interesting, intriguing and valuable content? What is happening to the local property market in terms of house prices, rents and yields. What makes great BTL deals with every agent (not just your agency). The future of your local property market. Interviewing people from your town.. the list goes on (note nothing about you, your agency, your agency services, RM pie charts, what awards you have won etc etc)
Then invite your most enthusiastic followers to join your community of landlords and vendors, where they choose to invest more of their time with you as an agent - whether in a private Facebook group at a landlord event or even landlord forums based on your town.
Grab their attention, earn their time & your community of landlords and vendors will grow.
Then invite your most active community members to become your client landlords and vendors. If what you offer as an agent has been worth their time and attention, it’s far easier for them to pay you your 12% lettings management fee or 2% sales fee.
Too many Estate & Letting Agents today are still in the first school of marketing, which means pushing their name and services, yet most people don’t want to be pushed or sold to.
This is the future of Estate & Letting Agency marketing. You can either stay in the first school of marketing and keep the status quo and die slow death by a thousand cuts over the next decade or embrace the change and into the second, then third school of marketing …
I know change is scary… but the alternative is even worse
The issue is , 94.9% of UK Estate and Letting agents are still in the ‘first school of marketing’ for their agency services. Want to know if you are in the 94.9%? If your marketing talks about your agency, your services, bullet points on why people should pick your agency, brand awareness marketing, RM pie charts, pictures of your sold boards, landlords wanted, adverts pushing your services, adverts tell people how good your agency is etc etc.
There will be big winners and big losers in the agency world. Those that adopt the new ways and adapt to the change, you will have a highly positive and rosy futures, whilst those that don’t change will likely have a disappointingly negative futures for their agency.
The choice is yours