Real Estate Agents as Agents of Change: A New Class of Digital Marketers

A real estate agent who masters marketing is a real estate agent who is a leader in his market. Which is to say what a real estate agent does to market his services—online—influences what his presence is offline. His virtual community should be as personal as the physical community he represents: accessible, active, respectful, and at the ready; ready, also, to help buyers and sellers; ready to answer questions—and able to anticipate the most frequently asked questions—while offering insight about residential or commercial real estate; ready to show what potential clients should see for themselves, that he is both an agent and an ambassador who provides excellent service. Marketing these strengths is critical to success as a digital marketer.

Each agent should, therefore, be a model of personalization. By being true to his voice—by voicing his expertise, so clients can profit from his advice—by being a prophet (of sorts) in his own right, that agent can expand his audience and advance his interests. He can amplify his message without raising his voice, since his success is more about sound advice than the sound and fury of his voice.

That rule applies to digital marketing—to all forms of marketing—because the best marketers are the most authentic people in any market. They know who they are, and they do what they say, despite the temptations of fame or money. They owe their success to what they have done and continue to do: to uphold the principles they believe in, delivering what their clients expect.

According to Erez Kanaan, Founder and President of Kanaan & Co., real estate agents have to brand themselves and their respective agencies. He says: “Every agent must connect with his or her community by leveraging platforms that extend his or her reputation online.”

I second that sentiment, and draw a similar distinction between what a real estate agency chooses to say versus what a real estate agent must say. The latter is a person with a legacy to preserve and protect whose name is a trust to keep, whose family shares that name, whose posterity will inherit that name, whose community respects that name. To squander that name on gimmicks and bad marketing would be a mark against that name. It would be a sin to sacrifice that name.

Real estate agents need not market a message that is bland or bombastic. Not when the message that resonates the most is the one that people most remember. They remember it, not because it is the most creative message, but because it is the most authentic message—by and about that person; that the person online is the same person in any setting; that he earns what he cannot—and would not, even if he could—buy, which is trust.

Marketing of that kind is the foundation of digital marketing. Marketing of that kind has universal appeal. Marketing of that kind is what every real estate agent needs. Marketing of that kind is what every real estate agent should do.