How to become the Macca’s of real estate.

What you can learn from Elite Agent, Luke Humphrys & Marketing Professor, Byron Sharpe

If you watched this week’s Drive by Dan, you would have heard Luke Humphrys from Bayside Property Agents talking about being the Macca’s and Coca-Cola of his market.

Luke has had an exceptional year and built an attraction business based on owning his market and being the agency that’s first to mind in his market. He has built strong mental and physical availability (read on after the video to see what this means). 

Byron Sharpe, director at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia has published a tonne of research covering market share, brand equity, price promotions, and advertising – summarised in the book “How Brands Grow.” 

And both know consistency in budget and brand awareness tactics are what drives market share.  

Mental and Physical Availability 

 According to Prof. Sharpe, “The key marketing task is to make a brand easy to buy; this requires building mental and physical availability… that is, enhancing brand salience and gaining further distribution.” 

So what does that mean in plain English? 

Mental availability is the recall of your brand, delivered by consistency of advertising. “Distinctive, consistent icons and imagery build memory associations that allow a brand to be noticed and recalled in a range of buying situations… iPod’s white headphones (earbuds) are a distinctive asset; even by themselves in any ad they say ‘iPod’.” Other examples include the M&M characters, Nike’s swoosh, and Mastercard’s priceless.  

Physical availability means making a brand as easy to notice and buy as possible, for as many consumers as possible, across as wide a range of potential buying situations as possible. Essentially, making sure you’re available when someone needs you and being consistent in your communication with them. 

But to be honest, we like how simply Luke put it: 

“My whole thing is about Coca-Cola & McDonald’s. It’s your job as an agent to get yourself known as the Coca-Cola or McDonald’s.”  

And the best way to do that? Consistent brand awareness with letterbox drops in your area, local signage and leveraging targeted social media to reach as many eyeballs as possible in your target area(s), while maintaining brand consistency.