RISMEDIA, November 12, 2009—In this day and age of luxury property marketing, innovative agents have elevated the bar in reaching out for luxury home buyers. Dedicated property websites are not the highest form of ‘marketing art’, now the new trend is dedicated property blog sites combined with social networking.
The luxury property real estate market is a highly specialized, competitive market that requires Realtors to utilize innovative marketing techniques to showcase their client’s properties. Multimillion dollar properties are not the average property listing and just placing the listing on the local MLS is not the ideal strategy to present to a luxury listing client.
What’s the difference? When designed properly, blogs bring life to the property since they are much more search engine friendly than a typical property website, this is key when marketing luxury property. Today’s sellers expect a worldwide marketing budget and exposure in every domicile. The challenge is that many sellers expect their agent to pay for advertising in worldwide publications, which can put even a very successful agent in the red very quickly. Not to mention that most ultra luxury properties take time to sell. The key is to maximize exposure and develop a hub on the Internet with a very organic and highly “indexable” 1parkplace luxury blog solution so that the search engines become our best friend.
What does this mean for luxury home sellers when choosing their marketing agent? Be extremely choosy. Remember, as a seller, the allure of print publications is visually pleasing, however, remember that 96% of all home shoppers start on the Internet. Pick the agent with the best Internet marketing plan and largest social network of luxury agents and clients.
Using social media networking to market luxury or unique property listings is being utilized by a select few of the real estate industry. Jerry Simonson, a luxury home seller in Coronado, California set his sights on selecting an agent with the most comprehensive Internet marketing plan to find a buyer for his $14 million dollar Coronado luxury estate now named “La Bella De Coronado”.
Simonson selected Jan Clements of Prudential California Realty in Coronado, California (www.coronadorealestatehomes.com). “After interviewing many agents, I selected Jan because of her vast knowledge of Coronado luxury real estate as well as her dedication to stretch the envelope in marketing my luxury Coronado property” says Simonson.
Clements initially embarked on the typical luxury marketing channels to get the property exposure (i.e. property website, MLS, luxury print advertising), however, it became apparent that the market has really slowed down for properties at that price level and she needed to implement a larger reach, but not go bankrupt in the process.
The solution – an innovative marketing strategy utilizing a combination of a 1parkplace luxury property blog and a social media marketing campaign that allows her to network this unique property to 1,000’s of fine home real estate marketing specialists around the world.
Clements commissioned a blog site from 1parkplace to showcase her exclusive Coronado luxury property. She also engaged her seller into the process and as the seller, Simonson got to practically design this site to showcase his very special Coronado luxury home for sale, working directly with the 1parkplace blog design team.
Starting with giving this fine Coronado luxury property a very special name, ”La Bella De Coronado,” then registering a keyword-rich domain www.coronadoluxuryrealestate.com, six weeks later, Clements is ready to market this luxury Coronado property around the world via the internet, Facebook, e-mail and more. What’s critical is the back end reporting built into the 1parkplace blog platform that provides details on what marketing is working, and want is not.
Now “La Bella De Coronado”, a luxury resort by the sea with beautiful, expansive views of San Diego’s bay can get its story out in a way that cannot be communicated in a few paragraphs.
In an arguably more challenging scenario, Jim Dalzell and his team of luxury marketing experts at Prudential California Realty in Rancho Santa Fe, California (www.dalzellgroup.com), secured a $32 million, stunningly beautiful Caribbean luxury estate listing named “Presidio Del Mar, “ located in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands by presenting a multi-faceted, Internet marketing strategy.
While being over 3,000 miles away, this team of luxury marketing experts, together with 1parkplace, assembled a comprehensive marketing plan that relied heavily on a solid luxury blog platform, Internet marketing and persistent email campaigns to top luxury agents. “We had to make a strong commitment to networking and Internet, especially since the Caribbean MLS and market reach is so limited around the world,” says Dalzell.
They too had a very methodical seller who interviewed agents from different parts of the U.S. and Caribbean, yet the seller, Rob Blakeney selected the Dalzell team because of their unique marketing plan and experience with selling ultra luxury real estate, even knowing that they were clearly across the U.S. The Dalzell’s partnered with a local Caribbean showing agent and then went to work on implementing their worldwide marketing plan.
Starting with this luxury real estate blog site, www.caribbeanluxuryhomesandvillas.com, where the Dalzell team can showcase the photos about “Presidio Del Mar” and then adding the photos from their visit to describe the absolute stunning location, thus educating those who may not know about the area, about the history and many exciting activities to enjoy nearby this fine Caribbean luxury estate.
International luxury listings present a unique challenge to Realtors. One of them being the capability to seamlessly market the luxury property worldwide. Using the Internet, Facebook, e-mail, Twitter and Active Rain, pointing to their luxury real estate blog site, the Dalzell team has implemented a global strategy that incorporates social networking and search engine optimization (SEO) to reach luxury marketing agents and home buyers around the world.
The following are three key steps every luxury property marketing specialist should know and follow in order to gain the best results in luxury property marketing:
Step 1 – Create the blog site – Dedicated to the property in a way that it brings life to the luxury property by capturing every feature and detail. By using a blog platform, every feature can have its own set of photos and a story in the form of a highly “indexable” search engine friendly “blog post.” This is ideal for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Especially with a luxury property, you typically have much more information and photos and as the site comes to life, the more content the better the results.
Step 2 – Social networking – While step one will provide an awesome place to go, step two will help get people there. The expectation being that the luxury listing will appeal to another luxury property specialist who has an interested client or, better yet, the client directly. Armed with this information, the luxury property specialist must assemble a comprehensive email list of luxury agents around the world. This is not an easy task, however, do it once and it will last forever. This is a difficult list to buy. There are networks already active such as RISMedia’s Top 5 In Real Estate, and many of the franchises such as Windermere, Prudential and Sotheby’s that provide their associates e-mail lists to luxury agents. Now a new and novel strategy is to research agents on the Internet and interestingly, Facebook now has tremendous reach into those agents who are marketing luxury property. By dedicating an hour a day, a viral friend network of hundreds and perhaps thousands of marketing agents around the world can be built.
Step 3 – Measurement & follow-up – While the absolute method of realizing results is a successful closing, there are steps along the way that have to be monitored to maximize effectiveness. Having detailed tracking on visitors to the site and using email management technology that tracks the clicks to the site, provides a prospect list to effectively follow-up with. This is where the phone and personal email interaction kicks in.
Contact 1parkplace at team@1parkplace.com or call 888-425-2300
About Steve Hundley – CEO of 1parkplace, Inc.
Steve’s passion is to develop the most cutting edge internet marketing and technology solutions for America’s top REALTORS and brokers. He founded 1parkplace in 1995 after a 10 year successful real estate career listing and selling homes in the Silicon Valley of California. 1parkplace is an industry leading Internet Marketing technology solutions provider that develops custom lead generation, contact management, website and BLOG systems for maximum sales results. Steve is also recognized as an industry educator and recently formed the 1parkplace University where he has hosted exclusive training events delivered by top industry veterans such as Tom Ferry, Steve Rodgers and Allan Dalton. As an innovator, Steve constantly strives to blaze new trails and his company continues to grow at record pace.
For more information, visit www.1parkplace.com.
