Real Estate in Review: Marketing’s Fundamental Misunderstanding
19 April 2024
Steve Osborn
Managing Director, Identity Marketing
Time and time again, I find myself on the other end of calls with the owners of very successful real estate companies. The narrative is almost always the same. They’re either on the brink of firing their marketing manager or frustrated that (yet again) their marketing talent keeps heading for the exit. Surprisingly, this issue isn’t that good talent is hard to find – it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of marketing as a discipline within the real estate sector.
Selling properties doesn’t automatically equip you with marketing expertise. Obtaining a Bachelors in Marketing is a three-year journey (at a minimum) for a reason. It carves out the clear distinctions between roles like Marketing Coordinators, Marketing Managers, Brand Managers, and more. Unfortunately, these distinctions often get mixed up or used interchangeably in the property sector.
Marketing Coordinators are tactical. They’re behind the scenes, handling the day-to-day work.
Social media updates, website maintenance, creation of marketing materials from templates like DLs, and more are all handled by Coordinators. It’s the groundwork of marketing, foundational yet often underestimated. After spending three years learning their craft, individuals in these roles are eager to get into work and work with an organised company that appreciates their skills and understands what they bring to the table.
In contrast, Marketing Managers operate on a strategic level. They’ve most likely done their time as marketing coordinators and are now solving bigger problems. They’re tasked with a strategy to steer marketing efforts in alignment with the company’s overarching goals. This entails managing budgets, market research, setting targets, and evaluating campaign outcomes. They’re not just part of the team, they lead it, making critical decisions that shape the company’s marketing trajectory.
The heart of the issue is real estate firms frequently fall into the trap of mislabeling roles. Driven by the need to bridge gaps in their marketing efforts, they seek a Marketing Manager when, in reality, their scope of work aligns closer to a Marketing Coordinator.
This oversight creates an environment ripe for disappointment, leading to a cycle of high turnover. Turn this around and junior marketers are thrust into strategic roles that they don’t have the skill set to fulfil. No one wins.
So how do you fix this? How do you hire the right person for the right role? It ultimately comes down to doing a proper audit of where your marketing is at, and who needs to fill that role. In larger-scale companies, hiring a marketing manager and coordinator is an easy fix. For smaller, boutique agencies, hiring a manager can often lead to there not being enough work for them to do at a higher level.
A good compromise here is hiring a coordinator, and then shifting the manager workload to an experienced marketing agency. It often costs less than having a full-time employee, and you gain access to the expertise of a full team of marketers, designers, social media managers, and more. In essence, work out what you actually need, and who can actually do that work. That’s all there is to it.
Keen to hear more from Steve? Check out his piece on leaving your mark through innovation.
