Attraction vs Promotion
Big brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, United Airlines, spend billions and billions of dollars each year to get this.
Frank Azar is probably one of Denver’s most prominent examples of this strategy in action.
We’re talking the Proximity Effect (first studied at MIT), sometimes also referred to as the Familiarity Principle (or Mere Exposure Effect).
Boiled down into simple terms - people like to buy from, and do business with, that which is familiar to them.
Hence the billions of dollars spent on exposure (familiarity-making) through advertising, shelf space, brand packaging, collaboration, value delivery, billboard and bus stop ads.
Those who understand this and use it, no longer have to “sell”, they’re literally picking up the phone (ringing the cash register) to warm engaged prospects seeking them out. Their familiarity strategies have done the “sales” work for them.
This stuff works if you work it.
In real estate, the old adage of “you’ve got to list to last” aka “listings generate business”, is due in part to this principle and the impact of a listing yard sign.
Building Attraction through Familiarity
So when it comes to your real estate business, what are the things you can do to start building a Proximity Effect within your database of clients and sphere?
You don’t have to spend millions on Super Bowl ads or even billboards (although you’d be surprised at a billboard’s effectiveness - just ask this guy👇).
Here are a few ideas:
Understand your Ideal Client. Once you have this in mind, your messaging and attraction strategy becomes a lot more effective and easier. Is it a specific home buyer or seller, neighborhood (farm area), demographics (objective or “the who” - age, gender, income, etc) psychographics (subjective or “the why” - belief systems, values, goals, and attitudes, etc), home style, price point, language niches? And if you think you don’t have control of this because you’re on online leads, you’re mistaken. You can continue to define and refine your ideal client as you build your business.
Maximise Exposure (aka be visible to your community). When it comes to this, I would guess that if you asked yourself truthfully, you probably sit in the camp of “wanting to have an attraction-based business, but also wanting to remain an invisible agent”. For reasons ranging from the cost of these tactics to (most likely) being embarrassed to engage in them. We’re talking about some of the tried and tested familiarity tactics such as billboards and bus stop ads, advertisements, flyers, and postcards, “I’m your local agent” signage in your front yard, name tags, community events, online personal advertisements to name a few. We’ll leave this one here as a very effective familiarity strategy, and you can decide whether to pursue it or not.
Frequent Connections. Seek out opportunities to make frequent in-person connections and supplement these with social media interactions. And to dig into the “social media interactions” further, this does not mean trying to beat the algorithm by posting daily and hoping your connections see it 🙏🏽 (this is promotion). It means, time blocking an hour a day to intentionally engage with your social media connections in a meaningful way - commenting on their posts, congratulations on xyz, sharing an article with them, using the social media intel to drive a personal connection opportunity, or at the very least send a handwritten note.
Get your face out there. A simple and effective tactic. Include a personal picture of yourself on all your correspondence - your email signature, your marketing collateral (Thrive Marketing Hub specifically supports this with agent bio imports across most pieces). Video messages delivering relevant and timely information with your face-to-camera are BIG - need we say more?
Deliver value. When thinking about exposure, it’s important to think about what you’re providing through these instances. Some of these activities are simply an effort to get more exposure (#2). But wherever you can, it’s important to deliver value (define this as entertaining/informative/educational and timely) - which is way easier to determine if you know who your ideal client is (#1) and make frequent intentional connections (#3).
With all of this to consider, you may be wondering how often you should touch base with your community. We recommend you build a system that combines both automated and intentional connections, and err on the side of more than less (you often underestimate how much you’re engaging with your people).
Attractiveness develops slowly through consistent, purposeful actions. When done well, people might not understand why, but they'll feel drawn to work with you.