Ah the “M” word…. Millennials.
It seems like whenever we talk about marketing and sales in any industry, the M word seems to always come up in conversation. And for good reason! In April 2016, the Pew Center reported that Millennials have officially passed Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation.
Couple that with the fact that older Millennials (those born closer to 1983) now have the buying power to make those larger life transactions: Home, Mortgage, Car, etc. The result? You’ve now got a growing size of the population who’s a great target for Realtors.
Millennials require a different marketing strategy and while there is some resistance to this idea, in general, most modern marketers understand that “traditional” advertising (TV, Radio, Direct Mail, etc.) is woefully ineffective with the Millennial generation.
So as a Realtor, what are the marketing activities that will allow you to better connect with arguably the most important demographic in the real estate market over the next decade?
We’ve listed 3 tips that you can use to better reach Millennials below:
In general, Millennials tend to care about the local community and neighborhood that fits their lifestyle, rather than finding the perfect house with all the right amenities.
Items for consideration would be whether or not local transportation is available to support a carless lifestyle.
Whether or not there are local restaurants nearby or large corporate chains.
Or whether there are activities like Yoga, Hiking, Biking, etc. that fall in line with their lifestyle.
To really connect with Millennial buyers, you need to connect with them on their interests and show them how the community supports their interests.
So what can you do to attract Millennials to you based on your knowledge of the local community/neighborhood?
Invest some time and money to build a really good community video of your targeted area. You should highlight local restaurants, bars, music venues, bike/hiking trails, and other fixtures in your local community that Millennials might be interested in.
The idea is to create a video that will help them imagine what their life would be like on a Saturday afternoon living here. For example: wake up, get some breakfast at the local cafe, hit the hiking trail, grab lunch afterward, and then go home, rest up, and get ready for date night with the significant other.
Taking this approach not only humanizes you as a Realtor, but it also shows the value that you have outside of just your knowledge of the home itself, it shows that you’re an expert and an insider in the community they want to live in.
Once you’ve built that video, distribute that video through all of your social platforms, email lists, etc. We’d also highly recommend that you put together a targeted Facebook Ad (targeting potential first-time homebuyers, renters, etc.) using that video as the media for that ad.
This will help you extend your reach beyond just your social network and will get your brand in front of a new audience.
So let’s say you put together that awesome community video, you’ve marketed it on Facebook and now you have people interested in your brand and your services.
What’s the next likely step that most Millennials will take? They’re going to do a little bit of digital research on you.
It might start with checking out your Facebook page to see what kind of content you have on there (and the last time you updated it).
It may involve a quick trip over to your website to see some of the listings you have up there and any useful content that you may have for them.
It may also involve a trip over to Yelp to do some research on what your previous customers have said about you.
All of these examples are the Millennial equivalent of “kicking the tires” on you and your brand.
But what if you have no tires to kick? That means that you don’t have a complete Facebook profile, a website that hasn't been updated in a while or you don’t have any Yelp reviews up. At this point, the Millennial buyer probably doesn’t have a lot of trust in your brand because your “digital storefront” looks pretty shabby.
How do you expect to generate business from online sources if you don’t have a proper-looking online storefront?
This is why it’s increasingly important to build your digital assets and some level of social equity.
Social equity is gained by engaging with people, commenting, liking, and generating online conversations through platforms like social media. Places like Facebook are a great place to build social equity because a new customer who comes to your page can see the comments, likes, and shares that your content is getting. It could also be the reviews that you’ve gotten on Yelp.
As you can tell it's incredibly important to build an online identity if you want to connect with Millennial buyers. You can do all the lead generation, advertising, and marketing you want, but if those buyers take the second step (e.g. do their research on you), you’ll have wasted all that marketing time and effort if you haven’t built up your digital assets and social equity.
So fill out your Facebook page with some well-written copy about yourself, your specialties, and how you help people.
Engage (comment, like, share, follow) with people on platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
Make sure you pay close attention to your Yelp reviews and encourage your previous clients to write Yelp reviews on you.
While these simple items may not yield more business initially, you’ll be on the right track to building up your digital assets and social equity.
One thing that frustrates Millennials during any sales cycle is poor communication and slow responses.
Keep in mind that Millennials have grown up in an environment where everything communication-related is instant. Text messaging, and apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger have resulted in instant communication.
Don’t we sometimes miss the days when we only had to worry about checking voicemail on a landline?
Those days are long gone. In fact, if a customer calls you and gets voicemail, chances are they’re very likely to hang up and go on to the next service provider. Getting a warm lead is hard enough and your hard-earned marketing dollars shouldn't go to waste simply because you let a warm contact go to voicemail.
So how do you better communicate with Millennials? You need to set up messaging platforms that are easy and convenient for them to get in touch with you.
Platforms like this are Facebook Messenger (which you can integrate into your social advertising campaigns).
You could even set up a Slack Channel (Slack is a popular messaging software where you can build communities) for people to join where you could share local events and information (including your open houses).
You should also make yourself available by text message and make that clear in your marketing materials that it's OK to text you. It's becoming increasingly popular for first contact to happen via text message (even though some of this may see as rude or not part of a standard sales process) rather than an in-person or first-tough consultation. Keep your tone and voice casual on these platforms. Remember text messaging and chat are all a lot more informal than email, so keep the dialogue casual, but professional.
And there you go! This isn’t the end all be all of lists to market to Millennials, but it's a good place to get started.
Do you have a real estate marketing strategy that is tailored to Millennials? What techniques do you use to get you and your brand in front of this important demographic?