“Two ships passing in the night”. When I hear this I am immediately brought back to when I was a kid, watching a Humphrey Bogart movie my mom forced me to watch. Well, OK, maybe I enjoyed it. The phrase, Two ships passing in the night is an idiom, often said of people who meet for a brief moment and then part, never to see each other again.
This time I am not talking about 2 strangers in a romantic setting but a business one. Not boy vs girl or man vs woman but REALTOR® vs Echo Boomer. I remember when I got my first email address, I couldn’t believe I didn’t need to write a letter again (if I didn’t want to). I remember being a freshman in college, my girlfriend attended a different college than me, clear across New York State. Back before cell phones, email and social networks we communicated with something called a pay phone.
Back then, long distance was incredibly expensive. To save money, we wrote letters. Yes! Letters! The kind you write on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, stuff in an envelope, write an address [an actual physical one] lick and affix a stamp – ladies, don’t forget a squirt of your favorite perfume! #Awesome. Man, the good old days. I remember what it was like to check my dorm mail every day, “did I get a letter from my girl”? Today we call them Boo’s [Wink]
Today, I don’t need to write letters, technology has bridged the divide and brought us closer. Email, cell phones, texting, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, blogs, etc. today, if you want to talk to someone, you can – instantly! While technology has brought us closer, it has pushed some of us further apart, specifically – REALTORS® and Echo Boomers. They are like 2 ships passing in the night.
Age
Today the average 1st time homebuyer is 30, (down from 32 in 2006) while the average age of REALTORS® is [wait for it] 50! While the average buyer gets younger, the average REALTOR is getting older. “What we have here is a failure to communicate” Most REALTORS are Baby Boomers while most 1st time home buyers are Echo Boomers, [A.K.A. Generate X, Generation Next, Millennials], whatever you call them – don’t call them. They have phones they just don’t use them the same way you do. See Real Estate Marketing To Echo Boomer
Real Estate Marketing
The days of spamming everyone and anyone with your real estate marketing messages are coming to an end. They are long since over if you want to do business with the Echo Boomer. To market in traditional mediums like print, post cards, TV, Radio, Trade Shows, fliers, newspapers, yellow pages etc is like pitching a HUGE billboard in the middle of the desert – with no freeways within sight. That’s because the Echo Boomers get almost all of their information through technology – Google and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. See Inbound Marketing For Real Estate
Immediate Gratification
You don’t need to worry about finding them, they will find you when they need you. They deal in something called immediate gratification. They want what they want and they want it – NOW. Period. Technology plays very nicely into this for them. They won’t go to they mailbox, newspaper, yellow pages when looking for a REALTOR, they will just look for a home online, likely on their smart phones and most likely, call the REALTOR attached to that listing or reach out to their social networks.
QR Codes For Real Estate
Huh? Yep, QR Codes. They know what they are. A QR Code or Quick Response Code is used to drive someone from real life [IRL] to the Internet. You will begin to see them everywhere! They will make our lives much easier. The next time the door on your microwave breaks you won’t need to browse Google for an hour looking for the specific part #, you will be able to whip out your smart phone, scan the QR code and be directed to a page on the manufactures website where the piece can be purchased. Consumers will be able to scan a QR code on your for sale sign and be directed to a virtual tour on YouTube. See, When, Where, How and How Not To Use QR Codes.
Video For Real Estate
They love VIDEO. Why read something when you can watch a video about it? Exactly. When they want to know HOW TO do something – anything or what something looks like – a home, an area, a subdivision, a city, a state, a country – they will go to YouTube. REALTORS® need to learn how to make videos of value, value to the consumer. See Video For Real Estate
Real estate marketing is easier than it has ever been IF you know who your ideal client is, what they look for online and how to create content they would find VALUE IN. You don’t have to be 2 ships passing in the night, you can communicate with them, when they need you – if you are willing to learn HOW they prefer to communicate – websites, Facebook, twitter, Video, Text, QR Codes, PPC etc.
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