Luxury Real Estate Branding: Canned Content = Canned Brands

Are people following your luxury real estate marketing blog? Are they watching your videos? If you do it right, you can build an entire personal brand and a large audience around your blog and videos. However, if your content is canned, meaning unoriginal or generic, you will not stand out as a distinct brand nor will you be follow-worthy. Canned content equals canned brands.

Have you heard the expression “Content is King” in reference to the internet and social media in particular? Content refers to articles, web copy (text on web pages and blog posts), videos, podcasts and photos. When you distribute content on the internet and include a link to your blog and or website you are basically inviting readers and viewers to find out more about you and your business.

If your video, your blog post or your article is shared with others, who in turn share it with their friends, the exposure that your content receives can expand exponentially. This is what is meant by the term “viral” which comes from the concept that a virus can be spread in the same manner. It can be like word-of-mouth advertising on steroids!

The more places you distribute your content the more potential traffic you can generate. Click-throughs on your content can account for over 90% of your web traffic and completely dwarf click-throughs that come from Google or other search engines, even if you are naturally ranked at the top of the first page of search results. That is the power of content to drive web traffic and that is why ORIGINAL content is king.

If your content is boring, unoriginal or generic your chances of people clicking on your links diminishes accordingly. If you publish recycled, unoriginal material you simply will not be followed, which is the entire point of building an audience of subscribers. Recycling may be good for cans but not for blog posts.

Unoriginal or generic real estate information is a turn-off in luxury real estate in particular. Imagine a Rolls Royce blogger explaining to a potential customer that they are looking at a car with four doors instead of telling them where to find the door mounted umbrella. Generic luxury real estate blog content indicates that the blogger lacks imagination and therefore lacks the marketing savvy required to win listings or sell expensive homes.

Be original! Canned content equals canned personal brands.

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Luxury Real Estate Branding: Discover the Power of Your Personal Brand

The Oprah Effect-Part 1

Recently CNBC aired a show called the Oprah Effect. This 42 minute show illustrates the power of Oprah’s personal brand. If you go to Hulu.com you can watch the entire show on your IPhone, on your desktop, on your laptop, and soon on your tablet computer, anywhere, anytime. In fact, you can even watch it right here on our blog post. As a luxury real estate marketing professional seeking market leadership, now is the best time ever to build your own personal brand.

Oprah built her personal brand over 26 years. You can build yours in just 2 years if you are willing to seize the incredible opportunity of the new media of internet TV.

What is the catch? You need to have a unique voice and you need to create an extraordinary promise of value. You also must be what we call, “follow-worthy,” in order to build an audience and expand your sphere of influence. With the internet fragmenting the TV market into micro-niches, the goal is to find an uncontested market niche that you can dominate. And, you must be passionate about your niche.

Whenever Oprah likes a product she tells her viewers (44 million a week) about it, and usually interviews the entrepreneurs behind the product. Within minutes phones start ringing off the hook in those companies. Carol’s Daughter’s (mentioned in our previous post) beauty products went from a 2 million dollar company to a 20 million dollar company. You Take the Cake was on the verge of insolvency and now is a thriving concern selling cakes and shipping the batter of their famous key lime cake to the likes of Whole Foods grocery stores.

Oprah is passionate about what she likes and what she believes in. Find your passion and you will discover the power of your personal brand.

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Luxury Real Estate Web Design: Off with Your Head!

How would you feel if you went shopping on Rodeo Drive, Madison Avenue or in any other upscale shopping area, and the owner of the store you approached was sitting in the window, waving at you and begging you to come into the store to shop? Does the song title, “Walk on By” seem appropriate as an answer? As a luxury real estate marketing professionals, you must realize that your competitors’ website is just a click away.

This is the effect that luxury real estate websites have when the agent walks across the screen and starts pitching or even when a personal welcoming video starts playing automatically on their home page. Yes, it is cool that this new technology exists. But, the effect is not only tacky it annoys website visitors who are getting more and more internet savvy by the day. The likelihood of repeat visits is very slim.

Now, take this a step further. You walk into a luxury goods store where you just want to peruse the merchandise with no particular intent to buy. You are in a “just looking” mode. Get the idea that the manager of the store follows you around every step of the way peering over your shoulder. How soon would you be inclined to make a return visit?

This is what the effect of having your headshot on your home page now has on net savvy website visitors. We say, (to quote the queen in Alice & Wonderland) "Off with your head--your headshot, that is!"

Web visitors now want to be left alone in a self-service venue. If your website elegantly fills this need your chances of capturing the lead is significantly increased.

You have a nanosecond to make a first impression with your head shot or video. You want to make a lasting first impression. What if all of the salespeople in our luxury store stood like statues with their arms crossed smiling at you? Some photographer somewhere along the line came up with this pose, which is supposed to convey “professionalism” and it has been copied thousands of times by real estate agents all over the country. What do crossed arms mean to you with or without a smile?

The bottom line here is this:

1. Take your headshots and personal welcoming videos off your Home page and put them on your “About” page.
2. Nix the “walk-on” special effects. Think of those in their pajamas in the wee hours of the night who do not want to be startled and just want to search for their next home.
3. Relax those crossed arms. This body language does not communicate certainty. It indicates tension.

Remember: "Off with Your Head!"

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Luxury Real Estate Branding: Branding is Like the Wizard of Oz

The most common misconception that luxury real estate marketing professionals have about personal and company branding is that it is as simple as creating a new look. Given that the average age of most real estate websites is five years old (35 years old in internet years) , a new look can be helpful. But, your brand will not become your “silent salesperson” if it does not reflect your entire package--the soul of your brand.

To quickly grasp the vital importance of what we mean by the soul of your brand, consider the classic story of the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy wanted to get back home. The Scarecrow wanted brains. The Tin Man wanted a heart and the Cowardly Lion wanted courage.

Your personal or company brand must have brains. Your knowledge of your marketplace, your negotiating skills, and your educational background are all logical reasons to do business with you.

Your brand needs a heart. These are the emotional reasons to do business with you. What you stand for, what you value most, what you are passionate about: all of these things must be reflected in your brand.

Although, your superior marketing savvy must be reflected in your brand both intellectually and emotionally it is your courage to be different, to be distinct from your competition and to stand out from the crowd that is the soul of a market leader.

But, the most important aspect of your brand must be authenticity. That was Dorothy’s quest: to get back home. If you are not “at home” with yourself, if you are not totally comfortable within your brand because it does not reflect who you really are, you will not attract your ideal clients. Ideal clients are people like you who recognize that you are a match faster because you exposed and expressed your brain, your heart and your courage within your brand.

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Luxury Real Estate Branding: Empower Your Silent Salesperson

photo by Shawn Lipowski

Venus de Milo in the Louvre,aka Aphrodite de Milo

Considered One of the Finest Examples of Classic Greek Sculpture

How important is aesthetics in presenting your luxury real estate marketing services? The answer is: very important. In fact, aesthetics represents an entire branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste. The aesthetics of visual presentation can be your “silent salesperson” and play a much bigger part than you may realize in the success of your luxury real estate practice.

There is a whole psychology of color alone; certain colors evoke very predictable emotional responses and personal values judgments of sentiment and taste. That means you can connect with your target market on a deep emotional level by incorporating the right aesthetics in your personal or company brand. What are the right aesthetics? The right graphic images are those images that represent your authentic brand.

If you neglect this essential component of brand strategy you are missing an extraordinary opportunity and you are vulnerable to potential competition. We live in a new online world where you have a nano-second to make a strong first impression and engage your website visitors through the emotional connection of aesthetics.

Think of walking down Madison Avenue in New York or any major retail street in cosmopolitan cities that feature luxury stores. Window displays must grab the attention of potential customers or they just walk on by. Now, think of the speed at which a website visitor, with a single click of their mouse, can move on to your competitor’s site.

So much attention has been paid to driving traffic to your website. You may be spending considerable time and money to get potential buyers and seller there. But, are you engaging them with the power of aesthetics when they arrive?

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Luxury Real Estate Agent Personal Branding : Promote the Community & the Lifestyle More than You

Visit www.LivingInWineCountry.com

Personal branding for luxury real estate marketing professionals should center around the promotion of the community and the lifestyle of your marketplace more than you. If you are passionate about your marketplace you will sell yourself in the process. Here is a video that we produced with our partner, The Institute of Luxury Home Marketing that conveys this concept.

Check out the benefits of earning the prestigeous CLHMS designation offered by The Insttute for Luxury Home Marketing. Recognized as the mark of accomplishment in luxury markets around the world, the Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist designation assures affluent buyers and sellers that the agents who have earned it have the knowledge, experience, competence, and confidence they require.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing : Discovering Your Spots

We are often asked to describe the process of developing a personal or company brand for luxury real estate marketing professionals. Our very first step is what we call the discovery process. Our job is to transcend the layers of superficiality where it is next to impossible to detect distinctions between real estate agents and companies within the same marketplace. With a battery of very pointed questions and two-way communication we reach for and identify the authentic brand signal, the core identity.

The philosophy behind this quest is the notion that things cannot change their innate nature, NOR SHOULD THEY. Instead, one's innate nature (or the nature of your company) should be proudly amplified and expressed vividly so that those who value, and are thus attracted to this core identity can readily recognize that they have found their match.

Have you ever heard the proverb that a leopard cannot change its spots? Nor, can a leopard spotted moth be a butterfly. Some people look at this as a limitation. But, in fact, there are infinite ways to express your core identity.

Furthermore, there is no scarcity of potential clients who would be attracted to your authentic brand signal if you clearly bring it into focus, sharply differentiate it from your competition, and simply make it obvious. Those who seek the impossible task of trying to change their “spots” are trying to be all things to all people and will fail.

The art of branding is tuning into the deepest concerns of your target market and expressing your core identity as the solution to their problem, their challenge or their predicament in an inimitable way. This is a very creative process and we love doing it.

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