Marketing that Moves People: How real estate agents can build a brand, find fans, land leads, and communicate convincingly

By Shelley Zavitz

It’s time to find your marketing rhythm! Most real estate agents struggle with marketing. After all, we sell homes. There’s no reason selling our services should come naturally. Shortcuts won’t cut it: purchased leads often lead to random results. Meanwhile, gimmicks get old, and shouting about success turns out to be one of the least successful things you can do. But there is a way to build a loyal, passionate, and constantly growing group of clients who can be the basis of a flourishing real estate business in any market. You will even see high-quality leads brought to you - for free. The secret lies in an authentic, empathic, and creative approach that any real estate agent can adopt and get results with. It’s based on proven marketing and copywriting principles that have stood the test of time. And it’s an enjoyable and engaging process that will not only set you apart from your competitors but make you a better Realtor® in the process. Author and Realtor® Shelley Zavitz got thrown into the marketing deep end at the start of her first award-winning career, in radio. By the time she took up real estate, she had pieced together the down-to-earth system for success revealed for the first time in this book. With a little help from the musical megastars who inspired Shelley along the way, Marketing That Moves People is your number-one guide to cutting through the clutter and standing out in the ways that really matter to those you seek to serve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harriman House
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9780857199614

Shelley Zavitz

Shelley Zavitz is a successful real estate agent working in Portland, Oregon. With an award-winning background in commercial copywriting and brand building (including working for Virgin Radio), Shelley started relatively late in real estate. But by applying her extensive branding experience - as well as learning the ropes the hard way - she has become a dramatic success story. Knowing how hard and confusing it can be for those just starting out in real estate to actually turn their license into a profitable business, Shelley is now dedicated to helping others successfully make the same journey she did. Your First 365 Days in Real Estate is her first book. Born in Canada, Shelley lives in Portland with her family.

Book preview

Contents

About the Author

Introduction: Singing for Your Supper

Chapter 1: Running With Scissors

Or, How I Learned the Marketing Ropes the Hard Way

Chapter 2: The Essential Rules of Marketing

Or, How Being Practical Beats Pretty Much Everything

Musical guest #1: Beyoncé

Chapter 3: Your Target Market

Or, How to Build Loyalty by Truly Knowing Your Audience

Musical guest #2: The Grateful Dead

Chapter 4: Your Brand Identity

Or, How Finding What Really Defines You Will Do You Wonders

Musical guest #3: The Beatles

Chapter 5: Your Burning Why

Or, How Speaking From a Place of Deep Truth Beats Cheap Shocks Every Time

Musical guest #4: The Alabama Shakes

Chapter 6: Segmenting Your Market

Or, How to Make Your Brand a Long-Term Success By Narrowing in on a Niche

Musical Guest #5: Nirvana

Chapter 7: Cutting Through the Clutter

Or, How Being Relatable Always Rates Highest

Musical guest #6: Adele

Musical guest #7: Lady Gaga

Chapter 8: Copywriting and Content Creation

Or, How to Write Messages That Make a Difference

Chapter 9: Setting the Stage

Or, Where, When, and How to Get Your Content Out There

Musical guest #8: Psy

Chapter 10: Taking Center Stage

Or, How to Put Yourself Out There Without Putting Yourself Under Pressure

Musical guest #9: Dan Mangan

Final Thought: Embrace Your Superpower

Publishing details

About the Author

Shelley Zavitz is a successful real estate agent working in Portland, Oregon. With an award-winning background in commercial copywriting and brand building (including working for Virgin Radio), Shelley started relatively late in real estate. But by applying her extensive branding experience—as well as learning the ropes the hard way—she has become a dramatic success story.

Knowing how hard and confusing it can be for those just starting out in real estate to actually turn their license into a profitable business, Shelley is dedicated to helping others successfully make the same journey she did. Her first book was the bestselling Your First 365 Days in Real Estate (Harriman House, 2019).

Born in Canada, Shelley lives in Portland with her family.

Introduction:

Singing for

Your Supper

It never goes away. From the moment you are licensed as a Realtor ® to the moment you retire, the challenge of marketing must be faced.

What to do, what to say, how to say it, who to say it to—when and where—it’s not easy…

Most people in real estate struggle with it. After all, we are real estate agents: we sell homes. There’s no reason selling our services should come naturally. Often it is something we’ve never given much thought to—and then we beat ourselves up for not being able to do it flawlessly. It’s no wonder we don’t have any idea where to start.

So we try to take shortcuts.

A popular one is the purchase of leads. A lot of agents spend monstrous sums of money buying these up so that they have a huge list of people to contact—only to realize, too late, that just a random number of them are interested in what they have to say.

And now these agents have no budget to invest in things that might actually deliver.

I have some pretty sour news for you: there are no shortcuts in real estate marketing. Internet ‘leads’ aren’t even really leads—they’re just scraped data. And that scraping might not have been very careful. You have no idea about these people’s motivations. Who knows if you’ll connect with them? Their level of engagement could be anywhere from kicking tires to red-hot ready. Sure, there’s a chance you could convert on warmer leads, but why waste time and money playing lucky dip?

If your real estate business is properly positioned in your marketplace, and you do the exercises in this book consistently, you won’t need to take expensive shortcuts that rarely work. You’ll be able to connect with your clients like never before and elevate your brand to new heights.

Your leads will even come to you.

Holy camole, is that a thing? Yes, it is! You can stop the lead-gen bleed and keep your Benjamins in your pocket (or invest them back in your business) if you use just a few proven marketing fundamentals. And your leads will come to you.

In 2020, during a pandemic, with a transaction coordinator and not one purchased internet lead, I was able to gross over $350,000 in commissions. No major overhead, no mega team, no crazy slogan, no glitz, no glamour, no hidden talent, and no different from you.

For the four years leading up to this extraordinary year, I followed the exact path outlined in this book.

Marketing is difficult and requires self-awareness. There is no easy mode. That’s one thing you can take to the bank: easy means expensive. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to keep the money I earn inside my business.

Finding your marketing rhythm

It’s easy to become confused about what actions will have the most impact with your marketing. There is so much information out there for real estate agents—lots of it contradictory, or not really related to our careers or the issues we face.

I was confused and lost once, too, and know how it feels. And I know what it takes to get past it. That’s why I’ve written this book.

Ultimately it’s simple. You’ve got to find your marketing rhythm.

This book is written for any entrepreneurial real estate agent who wants to do that.

I use the term ‘rhythm’ deliberately—because marketing, done right, has a momentum of its own. And also because I spent the first decade of my career in radio advertising, which gave me a front-row seat on the music industry and pop culture. And it was as I wrestled with the challenge of marketing back in those days that I began to realize: the best marketing teachers I had ever encountered weren’t advertising experts or sales specialists, they were musicians. They were popstars. They were rockers.

They were bona fide global superstars.

These guys and gals mastered the marketing fundamentals better than anyone, and they did so with style. I picked up a huge amount of guidance in my time in radio advertising from them—and their marketing mastery went on to help me throughout my career in real estate. And since the fundamentals are what we need—and learning from those with style is more fun and memorable than learning from textbooks—I’ve decided to draw on the world of music throughout this book to help teach you what you need to be a real estate success.

Buckle up! I have some very cool tales to tell you about legendary bands and musicians from different eras and diverse genres—some that missed the mark entirely and some that implemented the marketing fundamentals till their fans sang their praises like songbirds.

And that is ultimately what we need to do as real estate agents facing our own marketing challenges. We’re singing our song—and if we do it the right way, we’ll have fans who want to join in and sing our song for us.

Shall we begin?

Chapter 1:

Running With Scissors

Or, How I Learned the Marketing Ropes

the Hard Way

I t made sense to me—it was a joke, I said as three faces looked down at me. They were backlit by harsh office lights, and the seat I was in was getting hotter by the second.

A… joke?

Yes, I—

Let me read to you what this listener said about that ad you wrote, Shelley, said the program director. He picked up the printout. The creative director in the doorway crossed his arms. The work was piling up on his desk. He didn’t have time for this.

I had been in the radio business for about nine months at this point, fresh from college where I had studied advertising and communications. I was a spry 20-something junior copywriter, walking to work in cheap heels past the Jaguars and BMWs in the parking lot of the radio station. I was broker than broke.

And I had just messed up my first real break.

I had been given the task of writing an ad for a pet food store: Ken’s Pet Depot.¹ (One of our most loyal advertisers, the program director had said.) The radio salesperson who had Ken’s Pet Depot for a client was one of the three figures glaring at me right now in what might as well have been the smallest office space on the planet.

The job had called for wit. My idea had been to do a take on the famous Saturday Night Live skits ‘Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey’—absurd reflections on life delivered with all the solemnity of a mountain-top philosopher over lilting keyboards and babbling mountain brooks. (E.g. I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate… And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.)

I was going to highlight some of the weird and wonderful things your pet might be thinking—to share what your dog or cat or bird might say about everyday situations if only they had a human voice.

I had a whole campaign written. There was Spot the Dog, Cocoa the Cat, Paulie the Parrot…

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have started with Spot the Dog. At the very least, I shouldn’t have shared his thoughts on what it was like to poop out a red crayon