Madison Avenue comes to Austin

I spoke with a colleague last week regarding targeted sales messages aimed at the luxury home buyer. Since he is a well known for his "Madison Avenue" advertising approach to selling real estate, I knew he would have a unique perspective on this subject and he would share it with me.  His name is Stan Barron.

He told me of a client who had contacted him with an all too familiar story.  A seller, after what seemed a long seven month listing period, was not satisfied with the level of marketing success afforded him by his previous listing agent - even though they were considered to be a top local marketer.

Long story short, Stan took over the listing - made two simple changes - and sold it in 50 days. What were these simple yet powerful changes he made .......

Market Focus:
He looked at earlier efforts made and found them to be rather academic in nature.  The home had been on numerous luxury tours, some open houses and ads placed in the newspaper.  Unfortunately, all in vain, as the showings were minimal, and the seller never received an offer.

The flyer used was filled with redundant comparisons such as: excellent schools; convenient shopping, and all the other “me too’s,” but failed to mention the home’s most outstanding attribute.   It was a unique feature that no other listing in the neighborhood could match, yet it was not made a prominent focus point in the overall marketing efforts.

Market Strategy:
As we know, the key to good marketing is to promote that which cannot be easily matched by others.  What was so compelling about this property that made it such a promotable commodity?  Well, instead of sitting on the ordinary “subdivision” lot, it was sitting on an intoxicatingly beautiful five-acre lot.

So, the headline on the new ad just read: Tired of seeing expensive homes on tiny lots?

A conclusion was made that the prospective buyer would probably be from out of town because, at the time, people were moving here from California and Florida and grabbing up real estate like monkeys at a fig festival.  We had to get the message to the right buyer.

Luxury Homes on the Internet:
As we now had the proper market focus, and we had identified the most likely buyer, we just had to go and find him - or more appropriately - he had to find us.  Besides the usual MLS and agent web site listings, there was a need to more properly showcase this unique home to put it ahead of all the rest. 

Stan, who brought the “Madison Avenue Selling Approach” to Austin, listed the property as described above, and allowed us to showcase the home on the Austin Real Estate Network.

He chose our network, not only because of its outstanding search engine positioning in the luxury home arena, but the exposure it provided to those people relocating to Austin.  It proved to be the extra muscle needed to reach his customer.

As luck would have it, a buyer who was relocating from California to Austin found the home on our website, contacted Stan and bought the house.  To quote Stan, “It worked to perfection.”

Remember, like we always say – They will look until they find it, so make it easy for them.

• Austin Real Estate Network

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