For years and years millennials were reluctant to purchasing homes after witnessing the housing crash of 2008. This generation has finally got the recession out of their minds and are now swooping up houses at historic rates. Take this into account with the fact that millennials are now the largest generation by population and it becomes obvious that they are the group real estate agents need to be targeting.
Creating home marketing strategies that target millennials can be a bit challenging. This generation does not generally respond well to traditional marketing since they think and buy differently than baby boomers. Connecting with this audience will require some restructuring of business strategies and focus more on individualism, brand experience and authenticity. This should put companies more inline with the general characteristics that come with millennials.
Communicating With Millennials
- Internet Experts. Millennials were born into the world wide web and rely heavily on internet content for information. They are super quick to turn to the internet to get answers to their questions and more importantly to read reviews about products and businesses. Almost 90% of consumers today will do some type of online research before dishing out money for a product or service.
- Wanderlust. Giving the option to connect remotely and on a flexible schedule will go a long way with millennials. They tend to put a very high value on the characteristics of flexibility and mobility. It is common for consumers in this generation to prefer doing all of their business remotely on mobile devices. Interacting with people through Skype, email, text and social media are everyday tasks when targeting millennial consumers.
Using these digital concepts in home marketing strategies have proven to be key for real estate agents connecting to millennials. They are glued to their smartphones conducting research and interacting with professionals as they go through the process of purchasing or selling real estate. It is important to note that this generation values convenience higher than they do cost. They will be flexible on the price if it makes for a quick close that gets them in or out of the home sooner.
Home Marketing Strategies That Target Millennials
- Social Media. Millennials obviously use these platforms for socializing but they also use them to search for homes for sale and real estate services. This a great place to advertise and meet potential customers. Sharing pictures and videos of homes, neighborhoods and local attractions will get people interested. Capitalize on this interest by reaching out to followers and start building relationships.
- Valuable Content. While they may be looking to buy they are at the sametime looking to educate themselves. A millennial looking to be a homeowner will have a goal of becoming an expert in the real estate industry before they even considering making a purchase. Creating online content that gives value and insight to the industry will be more popular than a company that just posts listings. Providing tips for maintaining a home or some remodeling ideas will go a long way in connecting with potential buyers and sellers.
- Straightforward Pitch. The traditional hard selling techniques are not going to be successful in the real estate market with millennials. They tend to be very suspicious to this approach and can discover the truth to false advertising within seconds on their smartphones. Having two-way honest conversations and quickly responding to their queries will gain their business along with future referrals and positive reviews on social media.
The millennial generation thinks and acts differently than baby boomers and now that they are the majority of homebuyers it requires adaptation for home marketing strategies. Putting these concepts to work now and attracting millennials before they dominate the market puts real estate agents ahead of the competition.