Unconventional selling strategies for unconventional times...

I recently lead a round table discussion on viral marketing strategies and that brought to mind two recent, seemingly unorthodox real estate marketing tactics – ‘Buy One (House) Get One Free’ and ‘Up For Auction’… one more viral than the other, both likely promoted through traditional PR channels.

In San Diego, Michael Crews Development is offering to give away a row home valued at $400,000, if the buyer purchases one of their luxury estate homes, in nearby Escondido. "We thought, 'Why… (do these sorts of promotions)… just have to be on Pop Tarts and restaurants? Why not buy one home, get one free,'" Dawn Berry of Michael Crews Development told 10 News in San Diego.

Hmm…I immediately questioned the quality of the row home construction and the location. Why would a developer opt to market their luxury homes the same way they would market Pop Tarts? After scouring the web a bit, though, I was intrigued by the viral status the promotion had acquired.

A quick glance at some of the major new outlets – Reuters, Yahoo News, The Street, US News, MSNBC, and The Wall Street Journal Online – revealed that nearly every major news outlet had picked up the story of the developer’s wacky marketing ploy. Additionally, independent stories started to show up in my Google searches, as well as links to YouTube videos. Finally, bloggers – including this one – are commenting on the strategy and seeing it is a ‘sign of the times’ (or zeitgeist, if you will…)

To date, I believe only ONE individual has made an offer on a Royal View estate home, but the exposure has been impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Crews Development seeks to extend the offer beyond the original May 31st deadline. So, the ‘Buy One (House) Get One’ approach is not yet a case study in successful marketing strategy, but it certainly got a lot of publicity and achieved viral status. And, when the Southern California real estate market picks up again, the strategy may just achieve its original goal of closing more sales.

Locally, Westrum Development, in an attempt to gain traction for their stalled ‘Hilltop at Falls Ridge’ development in East Falls, Philadelphia, opted to auction their remaining 11 Phase I units. Many saw the ploy as a risky strategy or a sad commentary on market conditions. However, all 11 units sold and – at least for now -- their lender has been silenced. And, although the auction, which is more common than ‘Buy One (House) Get One’ didn’t reach online viral status, there were a number of local threads and articles pertaining to the event. Good old-fashioned word-of-mouth also helped, contributing to the sizeable turnout at the auction. On to Phase II!

A little Eye Candy...

Het Strijkijzer, the largest residential tower in Den Haag, Netherlands, stands 132m tall and has 41 floors. The building was awarded the 2007 Gold Emporis Skyscraper Award, with Emporis citing "its elegant reinterpretation of classic high-rise architecture, its contextual approach to a limited site, and its efficient program for accommodating new entrants to the housing market."[1]

We thought the building was beautiful, elegant and would lend itself to rendering. We've added it to our portfolio, which we're recently filling up with more urban imagery, as we expand our market reach into New York and Washington. And, speaking of the Big Apple, it was interesting for us to learn that a partial inspiration for the building was the Flatiron building in Manhattan.

-------------

References

1. ^ Emporis Award 2007. emporis.com. Emporis (February 2008). Retrieved on 2008-06-03.

Branding Alert: Your marketing does the walking, but does your sales team do the talking?

(Editor's note. Once again, we thank Rob Armstrong, from Matador Creative, for contributing this week's article...)

We all know how crucial establishing a consistent brand image is. And during the branding process, a great deal of research, strategic and creative resources are devoted to produce that identity. Then that all-powerful brand image is made public through a spectrum of communication channels—over the Web, through the mail, e-mail, and in magazines and newspapers. Sometimes, when it fits the budget and the target audience, it’s relayed via radio and television.

Despite how extensively these marketing vehicles can saturate your target buyers’ minds with meaningful, convincing messages, all of it can be undermined, undone and defeated by a small yet crucial faction beyond the influence of your marketing communications team. That renegade element, my friends, is your sales force. If prospects don’t get the same vibe from the salespeople that they do from the marketing, their belief in your brand promise may be irreparably shaken.

Take, for example, a destination property in Florida whose brand identity I helped to build as a writer and creative strategist. Its brand image evoked a British West Indies style ambiance. The main clubhouse featured the décor and architecture of a late 19th century English manor surrounded by swaying palms and pineapple trees. At its grand opening, calypso music played, cool tropical drinks flowed and an island-style barbecue had hungry prospects lined up at the door. About 1,200 qualified buyers eager to tour furnished model homes were snatching up brochures, maps and inventory listings over a single weekend. Yet the two-day event only produced a handful of reservations and even fewer sales. The culprit couldn’t be the marketing—it did its job remarkably well. It got more than a thousand qualified buyers to the property on one sunny Florida weekend. No… the blame for this debacle had to be elsewhere.

When I popped my head into the sales center, it didn’t feel very… cool, relaxed, British West Indies to me. “You want golf? We got golf.” boomed above the din of buyers. No dulcet, soothing voices discussing Hurdzan-Fry, the world-renowned designers of the golf course or any articulate mention of the developers’ efforts to recreate the ambiance of a turn-of-the-century island plantation. Of course not. All I heard was the coarse, throaty, staccato rattling of sales people who sounded more like they should be working the floor of the stock exchange. “Yeah we got golf. That’s in this neighborhood. We have another neighborhood with no golf.” My first instinct was to slap the salesperson and demand to know if she had even read the brochure I took great care to write. I didn’t.

I don’t know anyone who’d respond positively to the way the brand messages were communicated by the sales team. Had no one explained the brand strategy to them? Did they even know what they should emphasize about the property? Were they listening carefully to buyers, so that they could contribute valuable feedback to us, the marketing team, so that post-event ads could address any points of hesitation floating around out there?

Sadly, no. Lost opportunity big time. I don’t know how many sales are lost on a daily basis because the sales team is never indoctrinated in the brand. They should be selling with cult-like adherence to brand messages. If that takes brainwashing and reprogramming—so be it. The most bewildering part of the scenario I described was that everyone on the sales team was an employee of the development company—not a third-party realty agency. Yet they still were never held accountable for their lack of eloquence and brand awareness at a time when every sale was precious.

There is a definite dividing line between marketing and sales. Marketing drives leads. Sales closes sales. When voluminous leads don’t produce sales, poke your head in the sales center. You may find the reason as grating to your eardrums as I did.

Craig's Virtual List is an Actual Goldmine...

Ahhhhhh.... Craigslist. That crunchy granola commune-on-the-web. Source of slightly-used steal-of-a-deal large screen TVs, purebred puppies and new employees. One part yard sale, one part classified job site and one part hook-up site. I used to think of CL as embodying an updated zeitgeist from the sixties. Everything should be free and everyone should share. Then I stumbled across this headline from Inman News. "Craigslist Revenue May Reach $81 Million This Year."

Wow. Who knew? Turns out that those teeny-weeny $25 and $10 charges CL hits up its employee seekers and property sellers -- in just a few urban markets -- really add up. Imagine if they charged everyone everywhere ten bucks to post a job ad? They'd be rich, I tell ya, rich. Oh, I mean richer.

The article is here.

Reality Check 101: Mortgage Counseling in a Down Market

Now that the subprime mortgage crisis has left all of us in the industry with quite the morning after hangover, fellow blogger Helen A. at Bankaholic sent us this link intended for those finding themselves looking for property in this buyers' market. Helen reminds us that subprime lending was a historic exception in the history of residential lending and offers sound advice for buyers. Namely, she writes that buyers should have their finances in order and not buy more of a house than they can afford. By doing so, buyers can take advantage of the large inventory of price-depressed housing on the market now and benefit from what are still historically low interest rates. The entire article is here...

Dorothy, We're Not in Lower Manhattan Anymore

PhillySkyline.com ran a well-written story the other day about Philadelphia's proposed new addition to its skyline, the American Commerce Center. With a floor to top-of-spire height of 1500', the building would be significantly higher than its Center City brethren and bring a sense of renewed urban cache to our fair city. I'm not going to write at length, because the PhillySkyline article is thorough. I will however, note, visually, the project's uncanny resemblance to another noteworthy project originally slated to be built about 100 miles north of here...

The PhillySkyline article is here.

Commercials...on Google???

A while back, I read that Google would soon be offering advertisers an additional option: including a video (read: commercial) with their paid listing. Google's video ad program is now in effect, although from what I can tell on a very small scale. When I first heard about this advertising opportunity, I immediately thought, " commercials...on GOOGLE?" But let's face it, Google has "gone public" and now has to answer to its shareholders by offering additional services that result in income.

Some analysts claim that Google's income from paid advertisements has plateaued and has not reached the numbers that investors originally anticipated. In my opinion, the addition of video will help Google more than it will help the advertisers, if only for the sheer novelty of it. Technogeeks everywhere are now flocking to Google, searching for "smart phone" and watching the video, more to see how the program works, rather than to learn about what's new in Blackberryland.

Kudos, however, to Google for controlling the visual intrusiveness of the ads. To view a video ad, one must click on a plus-sign button that reads "watch video" or "view demonstration."

On the flipside, many of our clients who may already be paying for AdWords already have sales videos that may easily be manipulated for use in this advertising opportunity. If not, it's another reason to give Splat a call and get yourself a sexy marketing reel.

In semi-related news...it was once the trendy thing to create a MySpace page for your product/property. Then, as that became passé, businesses and developers began creating YouTube accounts, posting their videos and broadcast news clips. If you are considering this, but are unsure of the perks, YouTube, purchased by Google in 2006, is offering analytics similar to Google's html analytics. YouTube Insight, an add-on feature, allows account holders to view general statistics that you may not be able to gather if you post your videos elsewhere, depending on your host: how often videos are viewed in various geographic locations; which videos appear to be more popular; how visitors came to find your video.