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THE ART OF MARKETING

By Staff Reporter
20 September 2013 | 11 minute read

Real estate agents are transforming themselves into marketing specialists to set themselves apart from the pack, Fairfax Marketplaces’ Tony Blamey tells Real Estate Business 

Gone are the days of a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing homes, according to Tony Blamey, general manager – real estate at Fairfax Marketplaces.

Agents have traditionally used simple marketing methods, but all that is changing, Mr Blamey says.

“What we used to see in advertisements in the past was a one-size-fits-all approach,” he tells Real Estate Business.

“If you have a bigger house, you had a bigger advertisement and if you had a smaller house, you had a smaller ad.

“I think the practice of agents now is much more sophisticated, so they’re looking at each property on its merits, what the goals of the vendor are, whether they want to sell it quickly, whether they’re after a certain price and what sort of audience or buyers they’re going to target.”

According to Mr Blamey, the agent who is able to communicate a more in-depth and structured marketing campaign will stand out as a best practice agent.

“Gone are the days when you could have a cookie cutter approach to marketing. It shouldn’t be something that just happens behind the scenes, like a kind of back-office type of service; now it should be upfront – it should be the conversation that the agents have in the living room with a vendor,” he says.

“It will really differentiate a successful agent who wins the listing from someone that doesn’t.”

According to Mr Blamey, the best agents are also using a range of different media outlets to create an almost specialist and unique marketing campaign for each of their property listings.

“The best prospecting agents are the ones that are using new technologies and new tools to support the process,” he says.

“I think agents need to become more and more like marketers and realise it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing.

“The best agents will use a range of different media and techniques to market a home.

“There are many options now: there’s print, there’s online (with many different products on offer), and there are also things like mobile and video, as well as social media, that are becoming increasingly important.

“They are definitely using a broad range of media and they’re not making sweeping or broad decisions around marketing.

“They’re looking at each property on its merits and applying the right marketing schedule to that property.”

Mr Blamey’s comments come less than a month after Domain launched its ‘insights to success’ video series, hosted by industry veteran Kevin Turner.

According to Mr Blamey, the series will feature the top agents sharing their secrets in all areas of real estate, including marketing.

“We’re proud of the fact that we can aggregate this valuable content and provide it free to the industry,” he says.

“I think we will continue to add content and we chose video and online as the delivery mechanism because it’s easy to access – whether you’re mobile or in the office, you can access it.”

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