Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty in Seattle is known as a cutting-edge real estate firm with some ‘rock star’ marketing campaigns. Here, RISMedia interviews Andrea Savage, VP of Marketing, on the success their marketing approach has brought to the company.
Dean Jones, CEO/Owner
Stacy Jones, VP/Owner
Andrea Savage, VP, Marketing
Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty
Region served: Seattle and “Around the Sound,” including Lake Washington, Puget Sound and Bainbridge Island
Number of offices: 4
Number of agents: 130
www.rsir.com
Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty is known as the cutting-edge real estate firm in Seattle, and your leader, Dean Jones, calls you, Andrea, a rock star, crediting you and your marketing team with much of the firm’s success. Talk about your approach.
Andrea Savage: I’m constantly trying to stay ahead of the trends. In the area of social media, we’ve been very successful using Instagram. As soon as we heard that the platform was allowing 60-second videos, we jumped on it. We now make 60-second videos of all of our properties, in addition to producing a series of agent films—not just an agent speaking to a camera either, but what the business means to them, and where their passion lies. While it’s very important that we sell homes and use social media to do this, we also feel that it’s important to connect in this more personal way. And, of course, we use social media to let people know about our brand. As a Sotheby’s brokerage, we have incredible international exposure and have been picked up everywhere from The Wall Street Journal to The New York Times.
Describe some of your most successful ad campaigns.
AS: We’re home to Google and Amazon, with many millennials working in the area. Many of them—who have seen their parents go through the housing crisis—rent rather than buy. And they’re spending huge amounts of money renting. So we did a campaign geared toward millennials called, “No place like own.” We actually got a cycle saloon and went up and down the Amazon campus handing out flyers. We had to get their attention, and this did!
How do you differentiate your office from others in the industry?
AS: Through Sotheby’s, we have affiliates all over the world, and I talk to them on a weekly basis in order to discover what’s effective in their markets. This allows us to be disruptors in the Seattle marketplace by incorporating what’s working in London, Maui and the British Virgin Islands. We’re not looking out our back door at what other local agents are doing and trying to catch up, but rather, we’re setting the trends. Take our flex-space offices as one example. Our agents spend far less time in the office today since they’re so mobile, so our offices double up as event spaces. In Kirkland, we have a wine-tasting space in front of our office. Another office opening this summer will be half farm-to-table restaurant space.
What are you working on going forward?
AS: “Flopens” will be big in our future. These are open houses that we do by boat, taking up to 10 people to listings that are situated on the water. A lot of waterfront homes in the Washington area don’t have curb appeal if you arrive from the back driveway, but seen from the water, they’re stunning.
In just a few words, what’s the secret to your success?
AS: I work for big visionaries. I may dream up different approaches, but at the end of the day, Dean and Stacy are the ones who say, “Yes. Go with it.”
For more information, visit http://www.rsir.com/.
