Marketing Techniques That Sell

Posted by Ryan Ward on Jun 05, 2008

When showing a home, it’s often easiest to run through the particular set of features within the home, but, you may be missing the best opportunity to show off differences that can help a home sell.

Benefit marketing plays a fundamental role in separating the good from the great in sales and real estate is no different. Just about everyone can walk into a home and see the features, but, buyers are often trying to take everything in quickly when visiting a home so running down a list of features that they can already see does not help them discern why a particular feature may be important. This is where benefit marketing comes in to play.

As you walk through a home with a client, explaining the benefit of a feature can greatly improve the desirability of the home.

For example: a home has a tankless hot water heater. Many buyers today know that this is a new technology, but, not necessarily what it means to them. Taking a moment when highlighting the feature by explaining how that feature benefits the buyer gives a meaning to that feature. In this case, it means lower monthly utility bills and endless hot water for a shower. For a family of 5, this would be a significant benefit and could be the difference maker between two similar homes.

Another example of benefit marketing might be explaining why new windows in an older home are important rather than simply stating that there are new windows. “Green” building is one area where benefit marketing is important, but, it encompasses just about all features within a home.

Explaining the benefits of a feature imparts the value of that feature on the consumer and answers the “What’s in it for me?” question

Benefits solve problems and they are often emotional. They allow someone to connect in a way that cannot be done by simply listing a feature. Benefit marketing is part of what you are being paid to do. You are the expert. Guide the consumer through the process, provide value and you will be rewarded.

Another way to look at benefit marketing is when soliciting listings. Bring value to a listing that a seller can’t get from another agent.

A great example of benefit marketing for a seller is to showcase their listing and get it in front of more buyers than your competition is capable of doing. Here is an example of offering a real benefit to a seller.

On the home page of our Atlanta website and on the appropriate city page, we include nice little slide shows that links to the single property website. We do get a lot of traffic to our site, but, we aren’t afraid to send it off to the individual websites for our listings. By tracking the visits, we can see that our sellers are receiving more views of their home from us than all other sources combined.

In fact 238 of the 266 views (about 90%) from the last 30 days to just one of the sites were referred from our website.

That includes all virtual tours, other agent websites, the MLS and every other place we market the homes online. You can demonstrate value, by making your clients feel good and helping solve their marketing problem.

The next time you show a home or draw up a property flyer, be mindful to include the benefits of the features. Solve a problem and connect with the consumer. Benefit marketing will help give you the edge over your competition.

Ryan Ward is a REALTOR® with Keller Williams REALTY Consultants in Atlanta, Georgia.

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