Recently, we spoke with our very own president of The Institute, Diane Hartley, to answer the three biggest questions on every luxury real estate agent’s mind when it comes to growing their luxury real estate practice:
1. How do I improve my marketing strategy?
2. How can I feel more prepared when I walk into a consultation?
3. How do I reach more prospects online and consistently nurture the ones that already follow me?
The beauty—and the challenge—of working with luxury real estate clients is that they are typically experienced buyers and sellers in the luxury market themselves, and your role becomes that of a trusted consultant and guide. Thriving in that role requires an excellent grasp on local and global market data and the ability to reach a wide audience of prospects to market listings.
When your daily to-do list includes running to and from appointments, networking, and possibly even managing a team of other agents, staying on top of market trends and online marketing can become an uphill battle. This can lead even the most seasoned luxury agents to underwhelming results, and for some, even burnout.
With a luxury real estate market that is in a constant flux, success is less about how to sell luxury listings based on a one-size-fits all plan or strategy, and more about leveraging your time and resources.
Our interview with Diane revealed a few key takeaways for any luxury real estate agent or Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist looking to get more mileage out of their time and effort.
1. Time-Block Your Social Media Marketing
Gone are the days when being “too busy” to post on your social media accounts was a valid argument for inconsistency. Nurturing your prospects online may not always have an immediate return, but the long-term benefits of regular posts on your social media platforms do pay off.
Having a consistent social media presence makes it easier to grow your email list, shows you exactly the kind of content your followers respond to so that you can adjust your marketing strategy and pitch, and slowly helps to build your credibility online so that you become a sought-after resource.
Granted, carving out even an hour every day for social media can be difficult when you’re coordinating open houses, meeting with vendors and putting out fires for your team. Luckily, there are plenty of options available to outsource or automate social media marketing so that being busy is no longer an excuse to ignore this integral new aspect of luxury real estate.
When you decide to earn your Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist designation, you get access to done-for-you social media marketing through The Institute’s partnership with RISMedia, which has created a platform for real estate professionals using their consumer-focused content and automatically publishes to social channels. Institute members receive an exclusive version of this platform that provides luxury-specific content. Since having a strategic digital marketing campaign is becoming increasingly vital, not just for listings, but also for personal branding and relationship nurturing, tools like ACESocial can be an important and time-saving part of your long-term marketing strategy.
2. Approach Every Consultation With Data
Whether you’ve been a Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist for years or you’ve just started your career in luxury real estate, walking into a consultation with a prospective client can stir up performance anxiety.
However, approaching those meetings equipped with indisputable market data and extensive knowledge about your client can establish immediate credibility. Since you’re likely dealing with an experienced buyer or seller, they won’t necessarily need to know how the process works, and they already know that they need a winning marketing strategy if they’re listing their home.
What they do need to know is the right strategy for them based on their current situation, goals and market conditions. This can take hours of research between online searches and making calls among your network, but having the right information sets you up for success before the meeting even begins.
When you partner with The Institute as a Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, we shortcut this process for you with our Online Wealth Lookup tool (OWL). This one-of-a-kind tool gives members free access to 100 individuals’ overview of assets, connections, physical and email addresses, bios and their Propensity to Give. It also comes with the ability to filter by listing categories to curate marketing pieces to selected lists for email campaigns. This gives agents a discreet, yet thorough look into prospects’ buying and selling potential, and puts them miles ahead of other agents who may take a blanket approach to a meeting with that same prospective client.
Regardless of how you obtain the information, having it handy during your meeting can be the difference between gaining a new client or losing one.
3. Improve Your Marketing Strategy With Done-For-You Reports
Once again, data is the key to capturing and sustaining the attention of luxury real estate clients. Affluent clientele often seek out a Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist for this reason alone—they come with the promise of in-depth market knowledge and experience, which they value.
One way to improve your marketing strategy is to send out luxury market reports to your sphere of influence whenever possible to keep them up to date and showcase yourself as a resource.
The Institute’s monthly North American Luxury Market Report can get you started with an overview of the North American market, but Institute members have exclusive access to city reports that provide an in-depth look at hyper-local details with full graphs, data and stats. Our member version is a downloadable, done-for-you marketing piece, and can be used to send to your network regularly to attract leads.
Otherwise, creating an organized, email-friendly presentation of the market data that you might normally bring to a client appointment is a great way to nurture your email list and establish yourself as a credible agent.
The Institute makes marketing easier. Every benefit that we offer our members is designed to save you time and effort so you can focus on what you do best. If you’re ready to scale your practice using some of our done-for-you marketing strategies, find out more about becoming a member.
