Exceptional real estate marketing creates an illusion that is greater than the sum of its parts by Mark Stevens

Mark Stevens, MSCO

Great marketing is really about one thing: making people fall in love. In real estate, that means in your rental building, condos, luxury homes and the like. And the fact is, buyers and renters get intoxicated with a concept, an idea, an inspiration much more than with brick and mortar.

But what does most real estate marketing offer up? Yes, it’s all too true: Brick and mortar. While floor plans, square footage and technical features are important, all must be a subset to the fall in love aspirational dream. 

Years ago, my firm and I worked closely with Intrawest, then a real estate company masquerading as an operator of ski resorts. Yes, management ran some of the best ski resorts in the world, but the founder was a real estate guy first and foremost and half of its then $2.2 billion in annual revenues were driven by the construction and sale of ski homes.

We launched these sales on the foundation of an envisioning process, where we would create a powerful and compelling thematic concepts.

Think of it as blank page thinking:

• What would excite potential buyers?

• What is the ideal mood to create?

• Given all the possibilities, what would be most compelling, even exhilarating?

It was always based on what would make buyers “fall in love.” I have always believed that people don’t buy what they like–they find reasons not to pull the trigger when like is in play–but when love is in the equation, very different game.

I will never forget the fact that former Bloomingdale’s CEO Marvin Traub once told me–at a time when the store was at the pinnacle of cool and correspondingly of retail profitability as well–that, “What I do isn’t retailing, per se, it’s show business.”

Exceptional real estate marketing (like all else that is truly exceptional), creates an illusion that is greater than the sum of its parts. One that has an invisible exponent over its name. Conversely, in any industry or endeavor, what is marketed as the sum of its parts fails.

Great real estate marketing must take the lessons of the Patek Philippe’s of the world: The company doesn’t actually sell watches: it markets brand new heirlooms that fetch prices far and above the sum of their parts.

Regardless if the category of real estate that you are in, actually or metaphorically, curb appeal is a must. More than that, when the design, location, name, concept and environment are all factored in, the by-product must be a raging curb romance. 

Mark Stevens is the CEO of MSCO, Rye Brook, N.Y.