"Dr. JAY": (full story)
Online Success Through Psychographic Selling
(PART II) ...
Have you ever been on a website or gone to a store
on the basis of an advertisement only to find
out when you went to purchase the product that
it wasn’t as advertised? Our usual reaction is
disappointment if not anger. The truth is you
feel you have been caught in the old “Bait and
Switch” game. And if you are not careful, that
is exactly what your prospects will feel when
they meet you after they visit your site.
Let’s look at an example of the typical real
estate sales professional going after a new
target market via their new website. The names I
am going to use are fictitious, any similarities
to people that you know are purely coincidental…
Mary Rotlaer recognizes that she needs to
improve her web presence. She decides that she
wants to increase her price range and therefore
is going to go after the luxury market as her
target market. Mary realizes that this is a
tougher task than she realized and needs
additional help. Mary hires me as her coach to
help her create this new targeted luxury market
website. Mary and I start working on the
psychographic of the luxury market in her area.
Soon we have created the outline for content
that speaks the language and really captures the
attention of her intended luxury market client.
Mary has a new website designed and launched.
She has everything working correctly in the
search engines, and she gets her first luxury
client over the internet. The couple, Biff and
Bunny Crazyrich, will be coming in the next week.
Biff is a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company,
has his MBA from Harvard, is a regular reader of
the Wall Street Newspapers, and is about to
become the CEO of a start-up company in Mary’s
area. Bunny is a Laser Eye Specialist, with her
degree from Brown University, she wears trendy
clothes, and is used to having the best things
in life. They were attracted to Mary’s website
that so eloquently spoke about knowing the best
neighborhoods, fine shopping and dining, wines,
entertainment, and country clubs.
Next week comes, and Biff and Bunny show up
at Mary’s office. Mary has several listings
to show them. Since Mary has not shown or seen
very many homes in the luxury price range, she
really doesn’t know the neighborhoods all that
well. She has never met any of the builders, and
since she doesn’t live in this price range,
cannot tell you much about the other people in
the neighborhood. As Biff, Bunny, and Mary are
driving around in her midsize Pontiac, Biff
wants to know more about the Fine Dining in the
area and where Mary likes to dine. Well, Mary
cannot speak very much about the cuisine because
she only ate there once and that was on someone
else’s tab. Biff would like to know who has the
best wine lists and if any of them specialize in
wines from Italy, especially Brunello’s prior to
1990. Mary has never heard of a Brunello, much
less knows much about a wine from Italy beyond
that Chianti that came in a wicker basket-like
bottle she drank in college. Bunny wants to
talk about fine shopping and wants to know who
has the latest styles, and who is best connected
with the latest European fashions. Biff wants to
move on to what are some of the best local
stocks and who he should talk to. Bunny, wants
to talk about the local opera company. Biff wants
to know which country clubs have a TPC course,
etc., etc.
Then it happens. Biff and Bunny start acting
distant with Mary. After the first round of
showing, they tell her that they decided to look
on their own for awhile, and they will contact
her if they find something. Mary doesn’t hear
from them again. Then Mary happens to go to a charitable event, where they are doing a live
wine auction, and who does she see win the bid
on 10 cases of wine at $50k…that’s right Biff
and Bunny. She decides to go over and
congratulate them on their purchase. As she does
she finds out that Biff and Bunny purchased a $7
million dollar home in new neighborhood she knew
little about. Mary is devastated.
The problem is that Biff and Bunny felt they
were “bait and switched” with Mary. Here Mary
had created this great website that really spoke
their language, but they found out quickly that
Mary couldn’t walk her site’s talk.
If you cannot speak your target market’s
language in person, then you either need to
better educate yourself about the intended
target market, or change your online target
market all together. “Fake it till you make it”
will only go so far. If you are truly committed
to a particular target market at some point you
must become the expert. That means fully
understanding how they think and feel, and know
intimately what their general fears and
aspirations are. They need to be “heard” and the
only way that can happen is to “speak their
language” - in person as well as online.
The reality is when it comes to Real Estate
you don’t sell homes, you sell a service. If
your personal service is not consistent with
your online service, you really don’t have a
service at all.
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