I'm in the studio with Christopher Watkin for his Letting Agent Podcast, and Chris doesn't waste a second.
"You said recently that letting and estate agents are stuck in the 1990s. Talk to me."
So I tell him about a slide I put up when I'm speaking at events. "Why do agents still communicate like it's 1998?" Then I tell him why that year. "1998 is the year that Google launched."
That was July 2019. Swap in whichever apps you like now and it still holds.
Before Google
Think about what marketing looked like back then. Signs on roundabouts. Yellow Pages, local papers, local radio, maybe an ad in the local cinema. As I put it to Chris, it was "let's chuck something out and let's hope for the best", get a bit of brand awareness and see what happens.
Plenty of agents had moved onto social media by then. The trouble was they were using it the old way. "Let's get a Facebook page and fill it with listings that nobody gives a damn about."
What I wanted them to get was scroll versus search. "If I go to YouTube or I go to Google, I'm looking for something specific. If I'm on Facebook, you've got to grab my attention."
Remix it like a song
I've got a background in writing music and DJing, so I brought the idea of the remix to the table. "If I was going to write a song these days, I'd make a version for the club, I'd make a version for the beach bar." Maybe a festival version. An acoustic one. Different environments, different audiences. So why do we post the exact same thing everywhere?
Chris asked if that meant you shouldn't post the same thing on Facebook as on LinkedIn. I said you don't have to throw everything out and start again. At the very least, recognise that people are in a different headspace on each platform. The video might stay the same while the headline changes. Or you pick a different thumbnail to grab attention in that setting. It's about finding the right version. I go into how I do that in Record, remix, release.
Same with pictures. Chris was talking about agents using photos of road signs with the town's name on, and I said use real ones. I live in a little village on the outskirts of Cheltenham, and every now and again a Facebook ad pops up saying "Welcome to" with my village's name on a road sign.
"That sign doesn't exist. So when I see those ads with the sign that doesn't exist, I think you don't really care about the village I live in." Locals know.
One to one at scale
When Chris asked for more tips, the first was to get really clear on your ideal customer. Customer, singular. You might have four or five types, but think of each one as an individual, because that's how we all take content in, whether it's a podcast, a landlord seminar, a video or a blog. "If you talk to me like I'm a crowd of people, I'm not interested."
We'd had the knowledge economy and the knowledge age. My belief was we were going beyond that, "into the age of the individual". The old thinking said one to many beats one to one, because it scales further. I wanted to go one step on from that, to what I call one to one at scale. "Which basically is one to many, but for the individual that's consuming it, it feels like it's just for them."
A, B and C
I told Chris to be specific about who you want and who you don't. "That's quite brave, isn't it?" he said.
"Well, is it? Is it?"
Then I explained the three types of client (it works for staff too). A is avatar, your ideal client. Fun to work with, spends a decent amount. B is beware. They either spend good money or they're great to work with, never both, and the question is whether they're coachable enough to become an A.
We've all had the B who pays well every month while "everyone in our office dreads answering the phone when it comes up with their number." The whole atmosphere drops when someone has to deal with them. "How much does that really cost you versus how much they're spending?"
C? I nearly asked Chris to guess, then worried what answer he might give me. He reminded me it was a family show. It stands for "see you, as in see you later, as in I don't want to deal with you."
By the end I'd half talked myself into a change. Maybe A should stand for aspirational instead. The clients who really want to work with you because they're the right fit, and who qualify themselves rather than you having to sell to them.
Watch the full chat
First published July 2019 on Christopher Watkin's Letting Agent Podcast.
