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.

A Philadelphia Realtor's Brave New Brokerage Experiment

Earlier this week, I sent an announcement about this blog to about 1000 area Philadelphia Real Estate Professionals. Initially, when we began writing Sitegeist, my hope was that the local real estate community might -- well -- actually take an interest in us and began sending us news about local projects. For the most part, that hasn't happened. Yesterday, though, in response to my mass mailing, a local broker did get back to me with an interesting initiative he's started.

This blog is, among other things, supposed to address itself with the intersection between brands and buildings. Namely, we started writing it to focus on the marketing of real estate and how marketers try (or don't try) to set their projects apart from their competition. In his message to me yesterday, Philly-based broker/developer/designer, Steven Nebel, told me about his brokerage's new branded subdivision, the "Boutique Collection." You can check out their emerging site here.

I really like the fact that someone out there is thinking about brands in the residential market in Philadelphia. I think many of the points Steven raises, in the quote that follows, are right on the mark:

"The broader mission of the boutique collection is differentiation... My biggest issue with the brokerage community has always been its indifference. Most of the most successful people in the city rely upon social connections over understanding of the product and the market. In a changing cityscape, I think the time is right for a more informed brokerage.

Of the three initial members of the Boutique Collection team... all have substantial design and development backgrounds. In pooling our efforts on the listing side, we aim to be a valuable resource for builders and developers in helping them to create turn-key projects of the highest quality. We work with developers from identifying ground, to suggesting civil engineering moves, to helping with supply chain management, and providing interior design services. For buyers, we aim to provide a critical approach to buying premier properties. I very much believe that the real estate in Philadelphia will begin stratifying rapidly and that most brokers are completely unaware of shifting values...

Another exciting aspect of our group at the moment is our 'boot camp' program. We are currently working to identify great, but misunderstood projects currently languishing on the market and bringing them into the light, so to speak. Our first project is The Essex in Old City. In terms of the building itself, it's one of the best projects out there. Yet the presentation, marketing, and final touches were so mishandled that it languished on the market. We are working to accentuate the building's strengths, reposition its feel, and reintroduce it to the buying public in the coming month..."

I appreciate the fact the Steven is creating an entirely new brand devoted to the creation and marketing of "luxury" real estate. Of course, the devil is always in the details with these sorts of things and -- as the business matures -- I'm very curious to see how, precisely, this brand of luxury is defined. At any rate, though, it's refreshing to see the amount of thoughtfulness being offered here. We need more innovators like Steven in Philly.

Advertising online is a no-brainer. But what sites? That's tricky -- but a fun question to answer. Here are a few ideas.

(Note: Sitegeist has invited Rob Armstrong, owner of Matador Creative, to be a regular contributor to the blog. Rob does most of the writing at Splat Productions and, additionally, takes on clients of his own, under the Matador name.)

Not long ago, my friend David Hitt brought up an interesting aspect of online advertising. Specifically, just how does one determine where to do it? Once you’ve created banner ads, what websites should you post them on? Not being a media specialist, I can only hypothesize based on my experience as the guy who writes the ads that find their way into the daily papers, monthly glossies and yes, the Internet.

I won’t waste time discussing real estate sites. Nobody needs me to tell them to post ads on their local paper’s website, local Realtors’ websites and national sites like wallstreetjournal.com or REALTOR.com. And despite how unglamorous it is, the good ol’ MLS should be on a must-post list as well. Those are easy choices. It’s obvious they get scanned by people actively looking for homes—that is, when those people are actually making the effort to look.

Hit them when they're NOT really looking.

Homebuyers don’t just comb real estate sites all day looking at pictures of pretty condominiums. They’re real people with busy lives. They’re checking their bank balances, shopping on eBay, searching for the meaning of life on Google… People in homebuying mode will go a lot of places online. The trick is to figure out where. You have to start thinking like a grocer. It’s no accident they put the raisins in the same aisle as the oatmeal and the peanut butter with the jelly and bread.

One place to start might be sites about home-related stuff. Furniture, interior design and even home improvement websites. “Hey, why fix that roof again? Buy a new condo already!” Then there are the more esoteric choices. Think about music sites like rhapsody.com or the iTunes section of apple.com. I mean, why not listen to that new Alicia Keys mp3 file (or the latest from Paul McCartney for you Boomers) in the comfort of the living room in your brand new home? Liberty Mutual and Logitech were hitting customers there on my recent visit.

Think about what your prospects enjoy doing.

If you advertise where homebuyers are buying music, why not where they’re buying food—or at least getting recipes and tips on entertaining like marthastewart.com? By advertising on specialty sites, you can customize the message and make the connection between your new condo high-rise and, say, those freshly baked sticky buns from Williams-Sonoma—they’ll taste even more delicious in your new home’s designer kitchen.
More food for thought—newlyweds! They’re part of many developers’ target demographic. Young, and some not-so-young, professional couples seeking digs that suit their lifestyles. How interesting then that on theknot.com, a wedding planning site, I found a link to thenest.com, its sibling site all about setting up house together. And smack dab in the upper right, a prominently placed banner ad for the Dodge Journey crossover, PERFECT for small or growing families. Just like your new building in Center City.

Another way to show you “get” your target audience’s needs and interests—YouTube. One of the most popular sites on the Internet. Why not put your two-or-three-minute virtual tour or “commercial” on YouTube and send a link to your whole e-mail distribution list? Then link them from YouTube to your site. You could continue adding videos like footage of the building in progress there, or shorts on the neighborhood, the lifestyle… Most developers limit their distribution to the property’s website. The whole world could be seeing them! And you won’t spend one extra dime to do it.

Go green—if you’ve got the guts.

My last idea (for now) would be on a site related to environmentally conscious products and services, like green.msn.com. Chevrolet is doing it with their hybrid vehicles. You can do it, too—provided you are a genuinely green company building a genuinely green residential destination with earth-friendly products and building practices.

I’m working with such a client here in Naples, Florida. Still in the planning stages, São Grato promises to be a Brazilian-inspired mixed-use destination with eco-sensitive features in place. Beyond building materials and practices, the community will have recycling programs as well as incentives to donate towards rain forest conservation. Be warned—going the green route is like running for public office. Absolutely everything about your company will be scrutinized for its innate greenness, and if any fatal flaws are exposed, you’ll be vilified by the media and granola-crunching tree-huggers alike. This is not one for the faint of heart.

The best thing about advertising on the Internet is that you can change your mind on a whim, adapt your placement almost immediately and adjust your strategy based on the results you get in a very cost-effective way. So just do it—experiment. Put your property out there where few, if any, competitors are. You’ll be the sharpest developer on your block if you get it right.