The chief marketing officers for eXp Realty, Brown Harris Stevens, and CoStar Marketplace share why sales metrics don’t resonate with today’s consumers and what agents can do instead.
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The past year has forced agents and brokerage leaders to quickly adapt as market headwinds intensify and antitrust challenges mount, turning the industry upside down. Brokerages have already switched up their messaging on commissions, but three marketing leaders onstage at Inman Connect New York said leaders need to upend their marketing to focus more on storytelling than metrics.
Wendy Forsythe
“In the past, it was almost a badge of honor for an agent to put out a message, whatever vehicle of that message, something along the lines of ‘I sold this house in 24 hours’ or ‘I sold this house in two days,’” eXp Chief Marketing Officer Wendy Forsythe told the Inman Connect crowd on Wednesday. “We would market messages like that with great pride of, somehow, this was a validator of how great we were at our jobs.”
Forsythe said that messaging doesn’t work in today’s market, especially as consumers become more attuned to the conversation about buyer-broker commissions and their ability to negotiate. While agents see those posts as validation of their expertise, consumers are more likely to view it as a sign they’re getting ripped off.
“To the consumer, they look at that and say, ‘Why did I pay X amount of dollars if you only did 24 hours’ worth of work?’ That’s a broken marketing strategy,” she added.
Instead of metrics and empty testimonials, Forsythe said agents and brokers need to focus on telling a compelling story that explains how they’re able to close a deal fast.
“What is important is leaning into that storytelling of the expertise it takes,” she said. “You may have the same results — that you sold the house in 24 hours — but you did that because you’ve got a decade of contacts and a decade of relationships. You have 10 buyers who might be interested in that particular property when it hits the market because you have built relationships with other agents who you network with who are working with buyers looking for a particular property.”
“[You can tell the story of] there was a problem at the last minute of the transaction and you left the soccer game or left dinner with your family to call the loan officer to fix that problem, to get it closed the next day,” she added. “Those are the values that we bring to the transaction. Use that instead of taking a shortcut of, ‘Oh, I sold it in a day’ or ‘I sold it in 24 hours.’”
Matthew Leone | Credit: BHS
In addition to switching to a story-based approach to marketing, Brown Harris Stevens CMO Matthew Leone said marketing efforts need to focus on candidly educating consumers about the challenges and opportunities in the market.
“Educat[e] the consumer as often as you can in this very uncertain time of where the market is now,” he said. “It’s not about what you want them to hear. It’s about what they should hear.”
“If you’re talking about your successes, you don’t have the eye on the prize because the people who are watching that, listening to it, learning, don’t really care about that,” he added. “They care about what’s going on in their lives. ‘Where is the market right now? What should I be doing with my home: buy, sell, rent?’ Talk to them about that.”
Leone said Brown Harris Stevens has created updated pitch books for agents on the importance of buy-side representation and has invested in new tools and platforms that help agents reach consumers quickly with the latest information.
“We have a remote content studio through an amazing collaboration with a company called Open Reel,” he said. “Email communication, social media communication, video communication. It is really education over entertainment right now.”
Chris Mumford | Credit: LinkedIn
CoStar Group Marketplaces CMO Chris Mumford echoed Forsythe and Leone’s insights while noting a strong personality is also part of attracting and retaining long-term clients. Mumford, who came to CoStar six months ago from Geico, said consumers ultimately work with people and brands they like.
“Well, in my experience, there’s two ways [to differentiate your brand]. One is emotional; one is very rational,” he said. “The most powerful [approach] I’ve found in my career is personality. People buy from companies that they like, and so developing a brand, whether you’re human or developing a brand that’s a product or service, people need to understand what that brand stands for and what the personality of that brand is and why they’re in business.”
Mumford said CoStar residential portal Homes.com has nailed the task of creating a strong brand personality and leveraging the pain points agents have had with other portal rivals to bolster their value proposition — a marketing platform that allows agents to have center stage on their listings.
“They did an amazing job on the emotional side of putting the brand out there and expressing a vision,” he said. “We still have some work to do to educate and make sure people understand how they can tap into the power of this product that’s evolving and getting smarter and better and more robust every single day. We’ve got more work to do there.”
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