Showing posts with label luxury real estate person and company branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luxury real estate person and company branding. Show all posts

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Luxury Real Estate Personal & Company Branding: Is it Time to Refresh Your Brand? Part 1

When is it time to refresh your brand? You definitely should re-think and refresh your branding at least every seven years. This applies to luxury real estate marketing agents and brokerage companies as well. Brands need to evolve and keep up with changes within their target market and also learn to reach new audiences. A good example of a complete brand makeover is Abercrombie & Fitch.

In the late 19th century Abercrombie & Fitch was a very high end sports outfitter to the rich and famous. If you were about to embark on an African safari and needed a pith helmet or an elephant gun A&F was the place to shop. Today, they sell mostly clothing to 18-22 year old consumers with over 300 locations in the US and abroad.

However, this was a brand that was literally resurrected from bankruptcy when, in 1977, Oshman’s Sporting Goods acquired the defunct firm’s name and mailing list Then, in 1987 The Limited, a clothing retailer, purchased the company because they spotted an underserved retail market niche that they could serve better than anyone else by refreshing the brand. That niche was “Preppies”.

Women's Wear Daily calls Abercrombie & Fitch clothing classically "neo-preppy", with an "edgy tone and imagery". A&F describes this market niche as an aspirational “Casual Luxury”.

In Part 2 of this series, we will discuss the 5 Ways to Refresh Your Luxury Real Estate Marketing Brand.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Marketing Luxury Real Estate: How to Profit from the New Economy of “Free”- Part 1

A WEALTH OF FREE APPS! Courtesy of Apple

Pundits are still sorting out the underlying causes of the Great Recession triggered by the 2007 housing bubble burst that led to a high rate of defaults on subprime mortgages. But, there is a less obvious economic megatrend that has been brewing for years now that can significantly impact your luxury real estate marketing practice. The new economy of “Free” is causing a major economic shift that will not go away even after we recover from the financial crisis. Riding this wave of change, rather than resisting it, can empower you to take over the market leadership position in your marketplace.

Today, consumers not only expect discounts, they are increasingly expecting to get things for “free”, such as free shipping, or free video phone calls via Skype. With free apps for your smart phone or your tablet computer do you really need to buy a separate hand-held GPS device or a dictation device? With free word processing, spreadsheets and collaboration software available in the “cloud” (hosted by a remote servers) that perform the most commonly used functions do you really need to buy the more elaborate software that resides on your computer?

If you were in the market to buy an iPad during the Holidays you may have been enticed to purchase it at Walmart vs. Verizon or our local Apple store because they offered a $50 gift certificate for other Walmart items with your iPad purchase. If you were waiting in the checkout line you may have scanned the bar code of an item in your shopping cart with your smart phone and found that it was in stock at another store nearby for considerably less.

To fully get the impact of this major economic shift watch how Google fares in its competition with Apple and others as it gives away the Android operating system (to manufacturers of tablet computers and smart phones) for free! Google has a bigger picture in mind and that is more market share for its core business, advertising, as they expand into mobile ads. It now makes good economic sense to give things away for free to capture a bigger piece of the pie.

Do not mistake this for the old story about fending off discounted real estate commissions by your competition or even feeling like you have to outspend your competition in marketing dollars to win luxury home listings. For luxury real estate marketing professionals, this is about mastering the use of social media (which is a free form of advertising if it is done right) and social networking both on the web and in your local community, for example. It is also about "thinking big"and providing extraordinary value for your clients, way beyond that which your competition provides. It requires a mindset of abundance not scarcity.

The merchants and service providers who understand and master the new economy of “Free” will be the big winners of 2011 and beyond. Will you be one of them? In Part 2 we will show you specific ways to profit from the new economy of “Free"in your luxury real estate marketing practice.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Strategy versus Tactics

If market leadership is your quest, as a luxury real estate marketing professional it is extremely important to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the overarching plan to out-think the top producing competitors in your marketplace or niche. Tactics are the specific methods you use to execute your strategy or to generate more business in general.

The primary purpose of a strategy is to win top-of-mind status in a category of business or a niche within the category. Studies show that consumers can only hold three companies, service professionals or products in their minds (on average) in any given category or sub-category. Therefore, the battle for mindshare and the resulting market share really only applies to those who desire to be one of the top three contenders in any given category. That is why marketing strategies are only for those who are interested in gaining or sustaining market leadership.

Tactics for generating more business without a strategy for securing market leadership in some category can only yield mediocre results. That is because the top three contenders are targeting the lion’s share of the business and winning over the mind’s of the consumers, while all others are fighting over the crumbs. In the unabashed pursuit of market leadership the stakes are always very high and so is the level of gamesmanship, the tactics required to conquer the category.

Facebook recently announced a messaging service combined with email that could rival Hotmail (Microsoft) and Gmail (Google). According to comScore, Microsoft is currently the largest provider, with 362 million unique email visitors in September, followed by Yahoo with 273 million. But Google's Gmail is growing fast, with 193 million unique visitors in September. When Facebook launches world-wide in the coming weeks, more than 500 million users of Facebook will have access to the new messaging service.

Facebook took a look at the category of web-based email and recognized an “unfair” competitive advantage. A strategy was born to compete with the top three contenders in the category and dismiss one from the top tier. They already have all or most of your contacts in their/your “address book”. Free email like these services represent both an opportunity to promote and grow the company leveraging viral marketing as you and your friends communicate with each other. It also represents a tremendous opportunity to generate advertising revenue. The stakes are extremely high.

Facebook also learned that the younger generation, in particular, does not have the patience for email and prefers instant messaging which represents two major strength of the company (younger users and IM). The platform will be primarily used for instant messaging.

If you do not want to settle for the battle of the crumbs, as a luxury real estate marketing professional, you must identify an uncontested market niche that you can dominate. Seek out opportunities that you can win, niches that you can serve better than any other competitor in your marketplace.

- WATCH VIDEOS-

Buzz-Worthy Luxury Real Estate Websites

Personal Branding Case Studies Company Branding Case Studies

About Language of Luxury

- JOIN THE LOL COMMUNTIY -

GET FLUENT. GET AFFLUENT!

Linked In, Facebook, Active Rain

Broker Agent Social, Proxio, Real Town, & Bigger Pockets