Digital marketing is a fascinating space in any industry - but digital marketing in real estate presents a unique set of challenges that require a fundamentally different approach.
You can (mostly) only sell your product once. Rarely does a person buy a home more than once in his lifetime. Implication: no recurring purchases, monthly ARPUs, and repeat buyers.
The product, once sold, is consumed for the majority of the customer’s lifetime. Implication: a home, once bought, takes the buyer off the market for all homes, for years, maybe decades to come.
The product is possibly the single largest purchase a customer ever makes in his lifetime.
The financial impact of this purchase is massive, affecting not only the buyer’s whole life, but also those of his family and subsequent generations. Implication: A bad decision can ruin you; a good one can set you up for life.
The emotional impact of the purchase is equally huge, tapping into social, psychological, and and personal aspects. Implication: concerns, hesitation, reasons for buying (or not) are never straightforward or overtly stated.
Everyone’s got an opinion; there is a vast network of influencers, advisors, and well-wishers, both informed and uninformed, neutral and biased. Implication: You need to market to much more than your buying audience.
At the same time, actual data and information is disorganized, hard to find and verify, confusing, opaque, unreliable, and requires a steep learning curve for the uninitiated. Implication: Content is hard to control and guide.
Dependencies are uncontrollable, widespread and diverse, and have a disproportionate impact on the value proposition - prevailing loan rates, regulations, taxation structure, (opportunity) cost of competing investments, surrounding environs and infrastructure, and the buyer’s own future plans. Implication: No one-size-fits-all offerings can be built. Every sale is a custom product.
The buying process is lengthy, complex, unfamiliar, and mentally and emotionally draining, stretching over weeks, months, possibly even years. Implication: attribution, conversion, and TATs are hard to pin down, and failures take a long time to be recognized.
Lastly - the product being sold, often doesn’t exist when bought! The buyer is buying a future dream that is, today, a giant hole in the ground and a promise. Implication: Trust, credibility, and faith in your brand will make or break you.
As a marketer, how do you even begin to address this?
Hard as it looks, there are approaches that can be taken.
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