The Most Powerful Marketing Mantra for 2010
Here’s the deal: Over the last 50 years, buying and selling a home has gotten complicated. There are so many bylaws and regulations–things you can say and you can’t…
It’s overwhelming just thinking about it. No wonder most people opt to have a real estate agent help them buy or sell.
But let me ask you a question: How often have you promoted the fact that you can make the buying and selling process easy? If you answer “Not much,” I think it’s about time to change your tune. Let me show you what I mean.
Here’s Bruce Horovitz from USA Today:
“If 2009’s hottest sales pitch was all about buying stuff on the cheap, 2010 marketing will increasingly stress less as more, as in fewer parts, additives, or ingredients.
“While the trend is taking hold in many product categories, including health and beauty items, nowhere is it more apparent than with things we eat and drink.”
Now, a simple food is hard to do. You can’t really make a mass-produced product like vegetable beef soup or macaroni and cheese taste as good as something that comes fresh from your kitchen.
So you work a little advertising magic. One way to do that is put forth in a book called Simplicity Marketing. Here’s Publisher’s Weekly comment:
In an age when Crest toothpaste comes in 45 varieties, consumers long for companies that make life easier by reducing choices, claim Cristol, a marketing consultant, and Sealey, a former global marketing director at Coca-Cola.
Playing off the four “P”s (product, price, promotion and placement) that many marketers use to hone their strategic thinking, Cristol and Sealey have come up with four “R”s.
The four Rs are Replace, Repackage, Reposition and Replenish. Let’s look how you could use this formula to craft your marketing message in 2010 to attract the prospect that’s interested in simplicity.
Replace is simply a short way of compressing two products into one. Think 2-and-1 shampoo and conditioner. In a real estate context this could mean offering to help people buy their next house while you sell their current one. I’ve seen agents drop their commission with the promise that their clients commit to letting the agent help find their next house.
Repackage could mean simply handling just one part of the transaction–like a discount shop.
Reposition just means promoting you yourself as standing for simplicity itself. Remember Honda’s slogan: “We make it simple”? You could do the same.
Replenish basically means you perform and provide the same high-level of service before, during and after a transaction. In addition, if you have a team, this means that they will provide the same level of service before, during and after a transaction as you would.
The bottom line is this: Promote the fact that the process of buying or selling a home with you will be simple, easy and carefree.
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