Learn how advertising really works (and why you need to have an always-on approach to succeed).

Let’s face it. Without advertising, you and your agency would be the best kept secret in real estate. And as a high performer, you’re driven to grow and secure as much market share as possible. 

 

But, it seems our industry has lost its way when it comes to advertising. Instead of building long lasting emotional images in our customers’ brains, we’ve been reduced to short term focused thinking with the only metric that matters being an immediate lead. 

 

That’s not how advertising works. In a recent talk by one of the world’s most respected advertising strategists and Head of Effectiveness at global agency adam&eveDDB, Les Binet, we are reminded of the importance of looking longer term. The biggest takeout? While advertising can increase sales, it’s major role is a defensive one. 

 

His key findings are summarised below:

 

 

Advertising increases/maintains sales and margins

by

Slightly increasing the chance that people will choose your brand

by

Making the brand easy to think and transact with

and

Creating positive feelings and associations

via

Broad reach ads that people find interesting & enjoyable

and

Targeted activation that they find relevant and useful.

 

 

What does this mean for you in terms of marketing your real estate business?

 

• The main role of advertising isn’t always to increase sales. Beyond the initial increase of leads (sales), it’s role is to maintain sales and protect market share. 

Advertising moves into a critical defence strategy. It’s not rocket science: if you’re not advertising and your competitors are, you will lose market share.

 

• Advertising can help defend prices.
  Brands that invest in great advertising are perceived higher than those that don’t. If they’ve seen your ads, they’ll have more trust in your brand, and you won’t have to discount.

• Advertising works by slightly increasing the chance people will choose your brand.
  It’s about gaining an edge and finding new customers, not converting loyal ones.

• Advertising goes beyond awareness. It should create mental availability. 

Your aim is to get as many people to think of your brand first when they are ready to sell, and make it as easy as possible for them to contact you (more on mental availability here).

 

• Advertising should create positive feelings towards your brand.

Your ads should connect with everyone in your target market (that is, all homeowners in your core suburbs). They should create emotional responses – humour, warmth, nostalgia, pride, real connection – in the viewer and go beyond lead tactics such as “What’s my home worth”, “Just listed” and “Just Sold”.

 

• Go broad with your ads. Targeting in-market people only won’t work long term. 

Very few people need to sell today, tomorrow, or this month. Advertising that targets all homeowners, whether they are looking to sell or not, works long term and short term.

 

1. Support brand building advertising with short term lead gen campaigns.
   Doing both lead gen and brand building ads is key to success (read more here). With a strong brand established, people ready to engage are more likely to choose you over your rivals. 

 

It’s often tempting to turn advertising on and off based on your current listings or settlement dates. And we’ve seen requests to pause ads because of people commenting “We see your ads everywhere”. 

 

Both are a bad idea. 

 

Your best bet to succeed is to lock in a monthly budget and have ads running consistently – with a mix of brand building, emotional ads and property and lead gen ads. 

 

By doing so, you will grow and then maintain sales by increasing the chances of your brand being the first to mind when someone considers selling… and we all know that being an attraction business is the holy grail.