How to Market Luxury Real Estate
Image courtesy of Casa Cook in Mykonos.
The global luxury real estate market has gone from strength to strength in recent years, with new international markets emerging and mature markets seeing bolstered demand. With this ongoing growth has come a huge increase in supply, with developers identifying opportunities and competing aggressively at all premium price points.
Today, the opportunities are abundant but the competition is stronger than ever before.With the stakes so high, it’s critical to your project's success that you have a very deep knowledge of all aspects of your luxury real estate marketing plan.
At Proven, we’ve led projects that have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue across the globe, from Ireland to South Africa to Belize. Each of these different locations has brought different challenges but we’ve always found that, at the high end of the market, the same common principals need to be applied.
Tips from the best real estate marketing companies
Luxury real estate carries a high price tag and targets an exclusive set of high end customers. If you’re successful, the margins are high. But to execute effectively, you need to incorporate and perfect many different marketing components. Learning how to market luxury real estate requires a mixture of art and science, and the best way to assess this is by using practical examples.
With that in mind, here are 14 critical areas to take into account when marketing luxury real estate:
1. Identify and understand your target market
When assessing your target market, there are many different aspects to be taken into account, from which media channel they prefer, what publications they read through to what marketing messages they respond to and their sets of expectations of your product.
Some things to watch out for:
Younger affluent buyers have a very different set of needs and expectations than wealthy retirees
International buyers are very different from domestic buyers. Cultural and language issues need to be taken into account and catered to
First-time buyers may view things very differently to seasoned buyers
Decision makers will change from one group to the next. Some buyers rely heavily on their lawyer or accountant, while others may be flying solo.
Building your understanding of your target market is an ongoing task, and while it needs to be started well in advance of your sales launch, it needs to continue to be adapted even as you proceed through your sales cycle.
2. Perform deep real estate market analysis on price point
Deep financial feasibility needs to be undertaken on each unit’s price point prior to entering the market. This doesn’t mean that you need to be priced at the same level as everyone else, it’s simply that you need to have a really credible story to explain why your price is different. More importantly, that story needs to be embedded with your buyer before they ever know the price point.
As a luxury property, you will have so many more unique elements to showcase - better construction quality, larger spaces, better designers, nicer furniture, more exclusive location, higher quality gym, access to amenities etc. These need to be quantified and allocated a certain value so that you can build that value proposition for your buyers. This in turn will help your sales team to clearly convey all of the value the buyer is getting.
Take all of these elements into account as you prepare your price analysis, allocating a value to each of them. Then clearly explain each of these values to your real estate sales and marketing team, allowing them the opportunity to convey this in turn to your prospects.
3. Ensure your story is worth telling
Design is simply not enough. For luxury property marketing to work, your product needs a depth of story. Investing the time in building a compelling story will hyper charge all aspects of your marketing downstream, from your ads to your social media and PR.
Like any successful brand, your story needs to showcase what you stand for, how you’re different, what you care about. These are important emotive elements that your target market should care about and respond to. Have you invested into sustainable materials like bamboo, or are you minimising your use of single-use plastics? Have you created any local partnerships or affiliations to assist your local community? Or have you built wellness amenities into your development because you believe that the right home can allow your resident to live longer, happier lives?
Whatever your story is, take the time to invest in it, discuss it, pitch it and adapt it until it feels right.
4. Take the time to care for your real estate prospects
Every engagement is an opportunity to build a bond with your buyer and separate yourself from the crowd. This relates to your social media, your PR, your advertising, your phone calls and emails.
Take your email auto responses for example - they’re often so bland and ‘template-ish’, so they offer an opportunity to show that you respect the details and like to go the extra mile. Incorporate a personalised message to make it that little bit different. The same goes for emails that are confirming calls/tours etc, follow-up emails.
This may take a while, but invite your team to participate and assess every small detail to see how it can be made a little bit more interesting, more creative, more personal.
5. Build strong partnerships
GoPro and Red Bull, Kanye and Adidas - brand partnerships are everywhere. With your real estate project, you need to treat every brand you incorporate as a partner that brings a unique opportunity to add credibility and value to your offering. These brands also differentiate you from the crowd, creating opportunities for media pitching.
Affluent buyers expect branded partnerships at every level, from the flag your property is associated with through to the brand of kitchen appliance, the TV and electronics and beyond.
There are so many great examples of luxury real estate marketing ideas with many different brand partnerships to be seen around the world, from major partnerships like Armani and Porsche through to micro partnerships with companies like Miele or Bang & Olufson. These brands form part of your brand story, so be sure to pay attention to what story they’re telling.
6. Create a specific real estate broker strategy
In a recent survey, eighty-seven percent of buyers found their real estate agent to be a very useful source of information. Brokers will play a key role in your ability to make your sales and so they need to be incorporated into your marketing plan.
Speak with your broker partners about how best to showcase your property to their clients. They may be willing to give you an exclusive space within their newsletter, or feature your collateral in prime spaces within their offices
Host webinars for brokers in faraway places to ensure they have a full understanding of your project
Create online resources accessible only by broker partners so that they have easy access to the most updated pricing and availability as well as any recent press or news.
Work openly and honestly with them to understand what units and price points they have difficulty with.
Remember that your commission can be structured in any way that’s agreeable to both parties, so look for opportunities to incentivize them towards selling the units you most need them to sell. That may be your higher priced units, or the unit with the least exciting view. Be real about it and price commissions with the same detail that you price units.
7. Build an exciting real estate marketing referral plan
Once you get your real estate marketing moving and you’ve been receiving press, getting leads and making sales, referrals will represent one of your best opportunities to build further. This knock-on momentum can be so valuable, so be sure to incentivise and build your buyers into advocates.
It’s important to think this through in advance and have a clear strategy to make it easy for your buyers to promote you. For instance, having a clear purpose and concise core values will help your buyer care about your product and also give them talking points with their friends.
Add to this a simple and clear incentive plan, which doesn’t need to always be monetary, as many buyers may feel awkward about getting paid to recommend something to a close friend. Instead, you could offer a gift, an upgrade of some sort, access to an added perk or amenity such as complimentary airport pick-up, or a discount on the first year’s maintenance fees. Be imaginative, and be sure that it comes across as thoughtful and generous. If your buyers feel cared for, they will be sure to tell their friends, and that can convert into some of the cheapest and easiest sales you can make.
How to leverage Real Estate Digital Marketing
Digital real estate marketing will play a central role in your real estate marketing plan. Here are our top tips to maximise the role of digital marketing in real estate.
1. Use digital PR to raise awareness
If you’ve built a compelling product with a deep story, then this part is where you get to monetize all that hard work. Your digital PR pitch is built upon the fact that your product is:
Differentiated from competition: your unique sales points
Relevant to your target audience: align with the publications, blogs and podcasts that your market are loyal to
Interesting and compelling: you should have partnerships, design elements, a viewpoint that is new and unusual and exciting
If you have all of these things, you can break them out into different pitches for different digital publications, e.g. sustainability vs design vs personalised service. Then, and only then, can the action begin.
Any luxury real estate market report you read will show you that successful media campaigns play an integral role in the success of luxury projects. Outreach needs to be respectful but tenacious, consistently following up to maximise your chances of exposure.
2. Track your real estate digital marketing conversions
If you want a great ROI, you need to be able to measure it. With more options at your fingertips than ever before to promote your product and engage with your audience, it’s increasingly important to track and monitor which of your efforts are delivering returns.
Impressions
Track leads from different sources
Conversion of those leads into sales
Time for conversion and what other key milestones had to be passed on the way
We’re no longer living in a world of binary marketing, instead there is ongoing overlap between all of your initiatives. But tracking each individually and continuing to monitor the customer journey and discuss it openly with your sales team will help you continue to refine your strategy.
Active example:
A buyer may first sign up for your database as a result of your Google Ads. They then receive your weekly email newsletter and get targeted with remarketing ads. 2 months later, they like your Facebook post about your sustainability initiatives. One week after that, they read your blog post on sustainability and they click into your website, signing up for a call with your sales team.
Luxury real estate marketing campaigns can span so many different initiatives and mediums. Tracking your conversions across the board will help you to keep your campaigns optimized the way a real estate digital marketing consultant would.
3. Build your own real estate blog
The blog is an open-ended opportunity for you to showcase the levels of detail that have gone into your development. It opens up opportunities for you to showcase so many of the stories that are otherwise hard to convey, for instance:
your designers and your project team, conveying the passion and detail that has gone into making your development different
interviews with existing homeowners talking about the elements that they were drawn to. This kind of triangulation is great social proof, and buyers tend to be able to relate to other buyers.
Speaking with your on-site team and your neighbours, from the friendly barista to the local barman, you can bring to life the characters that your buyers will have access to if they buy
Your blog is allowed to have a much less formal tone of voice than many of your other mediums. Whether you’re focused on land marketing or luxury real estate marketing, a blog is a truly great space to build a sense of human connection with your prospects.
4. Try real estate video marketing
Video has quickly become an essential part of all real estate marketing, and 88% of marketers say video marketing provides them with positive ROI. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are changing the way marketers promote, with 360 degree tours of homes becoming a norm and buyers getting more comfortable with using them.
This is especially true in the post-COVID world where buyers across the globe are getting used to assessing properties from the comfort of their own homes. Strong, high-quality video is therefore no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
It will also play a central role in your digital marketing campaigns, as social video has been shown to generate 1200% more shares than text and images combined. Consider that you’ll need B-roll for any TV opportunities, a 90-120 second video as a showcase piece, and several short 10-20 second cuts for online advertising and social sharing. Once you capture that footage, it will open up so many marketing opportunities.
5. Add experiential real estate amenities
Most buyers, and especially younger affluent buyers, value experience over anything else. Are they buying bricks and mortar or are they buying a dream? This opens the opportunity to make your offering all the more compelling by including interesting experiential elements to round out the buyer experience and help to push them over the line from prospect to owner.
Most developments have certain spaces that are not ideal for residential space, and these provide ideal places to be turned into something imaginative. There are no restrictions, so focus on the elements that will resonate with your prospect.
Could you consider a Bee Farm, a bowling green, a meditation garden or yoga pavilion? There are so many options that will add a new dimension to your offering and help your product stand out from the crowd.
6. Personalize your digital real estate marketing
More often than not, a house is a home, so make it easy for your buyers to make it their own by offering personalisation options. These are great opportunities to hook your prospects into thinking more deeply about your property in tangible terms. Small items like furniture options are great, but there’s so much scope to go further.
Offering options of types of coffee machines for instance, or art pieces, right through to offering to pre-stock customised books or music playlists, there are endless possibilities. Increasing the number of options available often doesn’t impact your budget, it merely adds some administrative time. If executed effectively, it can help drive sales, meaning there is a very strong ROI.
Personalisation also applies to your marketing methods, and by using segmentation you can ensure that your buyers receive personalised emails and remarketing messages, speaking to them specifically about the units they reviewed on your site.
7. Think outside the box
The luxury market is extremely competitive, so you will need to think outside the box in order to find a way to differentiate your product from that of your rivals. Remember, there are no strict rules you have to adhere to, simply be guided by what would interest your target market.
For instance, at the Aston Martin residences in Miami the buyer of the $50m Triplex Penthouse will have access to the last remaining Aston Martin Vulcan as part of the deal. In Dubai, select residences at the Dubai Marina incorporate a free Lamborghini with every purchase.
This kind of unique value add has been seen at a number of luxury developments around the world, and it continues to attract media attention and help deliver high end buyers. What interesting or unique add-on could you offer to your buyers?
Ask Us About Our Real Estate Marketing Services
The world of luxury real estate is more competitive than ever, yet it offers so many opportunities to create interesting and impressive marketing initiatives that can convert into real sales. If you have an upcoming real estate marketing initiative and are looking for a real estate marketing agency with deep personalized experience, let’s arrange a call as we would love to learn more.
