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Hyperlocal and the Real World: 5 Strategies to Dominate the National Portals

Last week we ended our blog on hyperlocal marketing with a shout out to our client who positions himself as a marketer of real estate instead of a broker. Let’s take this idea a step further…

PCMS often looks to other industries’ innovations to get real estate professionals thinking about how certain concepts can be applied to their own business. Starbucks is a particular favorite to glean ideas from.

Starbucks did not invent the coffee shop, but they built an experience around their coffee:

  • They want you to feel like their store is your second living room;
  • Do you ever say, “I want a small coffee?”… No, you say, “I want a Tall, Grande, or Venti.”;
  • Isn’t great that you can go relax, listen to music, use their Wifi, have meetings?

It’s a consistent, pleasing experience marketed around a $2 or $3 product.

What are you doing create a consistent, pleasing experience that proves you are the company/agent to do business with?

 

First of all, what is a marketer? A marketer is  “A person whose duties include the identification of the goods and services desired by a set of consumers, as well as the marketing of those goods and services on behalf of a company.”

Let’s break that down into some digestible parts as it pertains to our industry:

A person whose duties include the identification of goods and services desired by a set of consumers

  1. What are those goods and services? Is it just the home, or the neighborhood, or the local community and everything in it? Obviously, it’s all the above and needs to be delivered in a way that convinces consumers that you are the one that can deliver their dream home in the right neighborhood;
  2. How about the set of consumers? As you well know, real estate is not one size fits all. Because of that, as a marketer, you have to define what you are doing for each set of consumers, depending on whether they are first time homebuyers or investors. This requires different hyperlocal strategies to reach the consumer you are targeting.

Marketing of those goods and services on behalf of a company

  1. Your marketing on behalf of your clients. What are their expectations as buyers? As sellers?
  2. Furthermore, what are their expectations based on their demographic?

Hyperlocal marketing is the key to you being able to differentiate from the nationals and your local competitors that are stuck in the past.

 

It’s important to the health of your real estate website, and helps build your brand’s authority online to consumers. We established last week that: Hyperlocal = Helping consumers = Staying engaged = Building authority = Increased business.

But what if we take your hyperlocal strategies and integrate them into the offline world? What could hyperlocal, face-to-face outreach look like? Consider this…

What if you were the central resource to consumers regarding anything to do with their home for as long as they owned it?

 

  1. Imagine your office not as the traditional real estate office with a maze of cubicles,  agents, and desks. What if it was a laid back, cozy place to find out about home improvement tips, interior design ideas, neighborhood information, gardening seminars, etc.?
  1. Imagine a focus on community management.  Where at this improved, friendly, real estate office…agents weren’t front and center? What if you could provide a stress and pressure-free environment for consumers, where they can visit right off the street (or at your website) and feel comfortable investigating a wide variety of topics relevant to their home and neighborhood?
  1. What if consumers registered with your brokerage (maybe sponsored by an agent) for special offers? What if you could drive as many offline leads in this way as the online leads everyone is spending so much money on?
  1. Wouldn’t homeowners coming to your place on a regular basis be a much more valuable? Eventually they’ll sell their home, or have a friend or family member that needs an agent. If you’re their local go-to knowledgebase, you’ll be top-the-mind once they’re back in the market.
  1. What if you combined this amazing space with relevant and valuable information you sent them online on a regular basis?

Just think about how powerful that would be! A truly integrated hyperlocal approach, dedicated to assisting consumers in all stages of their homeownership would be a valuable generator for new leads, referrals and resales. All while meeting (and exceeding!) the growing client service expectations of modern consumers.

jose-perez-regards

This article reprinted with permission from PCMS Consulting. The original can be found here.