In any industry, and Real Estate is clearly guilty, we tend to speak our own language. We use terms and acronyms that we know and understand when we speak among ourselves, but habitually use them with our clients as well. Those outside our industry may not use things like CMA or escrow everyday.
Over the last month I was slapped in the face how much this is true in our industry, and it came from viewing the most recent commercials from two of the three largest lead generating portals, Zillow and REALTOR.com. I'm not going to get into the benefits of one over another, or my belief that there is no reason for REALTORS to have a preference beyond a direct return on investment to their own businesses. What I do want to point out is how brilliantly they can teach us about language and how to communicate with our clients.
REALTOR.com's newest campaign is directly targeting their paying clients, they have tapped into the emotions and fears of those who pay them for their product, REALTORS. They attack Zillow directly, they speak to our frustrations with the bad information found on Zillow. In fact they name Zillow by name seven times to only three times for themselves. It is clear that their goal is to reach REALTORS and connect to them, and not so much home buyers who do not have these emotional concerns over Zillow. You can see it here.
REALTOR.com commercial
Zillow went a completely different direction, their most recent commercial shows a couple traveling looking at homes on Zillow.com and deciding on a home to bring back the child they were flying to meet and adopt into their lives, and the new home they will live together. This clearly is targeting the emotions, dreams and desires of families and how they see their homes, or want to.
You can see it here. Zillow commercial
Looking at the views on the two videos their impact is crystal clear. REALTOR.com has had approximately 6 thousand views in a month, Zillow has had approximately 143 thousand views each of the last seven months. It seems that REALTORS are watching REALTOR.com as they targeted them to and families looking to find their dream homes are watching Zillow's. Who knows which approach is right for those companies, because both actually make their money selling to exactly the same customer, REALTORS. One chooses to go after their customer directly the other to their customer's customers to sell a connection.
The most important part for each of us is making sure we are communicating to the people we need to, and in a way that resonates with them. I would suggest watching both several times and consider how you then can also target, communicate and connect with whom your business depends upon.
