In this episode, we started by talking about marketing and how the definition of marketing is actually quite fluid and sometimes confusing. The textbook definition of marketing is the process of communicating, delivering and exchanges goods and services that have value to a group of consumers. This is a bulky definition that may not have much real meaning to the average real estate agent, who generally understands marketing to be the process of generating leads. However, marketing in real estate does not stop with lead generation — marketing is a cycle that begins with lead generation continues onto conversion and leads to repeated contact with past clients.
Now, with a better understanding of marketing in the real estate industry, we moved onto how to make your market. While the MLS compiles all the listings in the area, you cannot consider this to be your market. You need to make your own market by promoting and marketing individual listings in both traditional and modern ways. We talked about the importance of holding open houses as well as promoting listings on websites and social networking sites.
We then discussed the fact that you can't just promote your listing and hope that you find the right buyer. You need to place your listing in a position which generates feedback, that you can then translate to your sellers. We know it's tricky to deal with sellers who have an emotional attachment to their home, but it's up to you to remind them of the reasons they want to make this move in the first place. You need to find that sweet spot in the middle, in which you can make your market while also delivering your sellers the results they crave.