- Using Storytelling In Listings
- Overcoming Objections Effectively
- Getting Ahead On Social Media
- Personal Branding With Storytelling
The secret behind great marketing isn’t just great pictures and text; it’s the ability to tell your audience a story with your content. As a real estate agent, you aim to showcase your market expertise and customer service skills through your marketing efforts. Great marketers – which real estate agents should be – are also great storytellers.
But why does storytelling work? Stories are compelling because they are engaging, capture the emotions of potential clients, and are a lot more authentic than traditional forms of marketing. In fact, every sale starts with a story!
So, when you tell your potential clients the characteristics that make you unique yet relatable, there is a higher chance that your clients will trust and choose to work with you on their property search journey.
But how do you harness the power of storytelling for your real estate business? In this article, we discuss ways to use this powerful tool: marketing, social media, branding, and dealing with objections.
Using Storytelling in Your Listings
Think about the two key elements of your property listing on Bayut – the description and the photographs. The formula to getting your listing noticed in the search results is having high-quality photographs of the property accompanied by an attention-grabbing description – a description that tells a story to the property seeker who comes across your listing.
Take a look at these two descriptions for a listing – notice how storytelling makes a difference, pushing the property seeker to imagine themself at the property.
Description One (without storytelling)
2BHK with spacious rooms is currently rented until January 2021. This unit has a built-in kitchen with appliances, is conveniently near the tram and metro, and is located on a high floor.
Description Two (with storytelling)
It’s Thursday evening, and on your 10-minute walk home from the metro, you grab a selection of cheese and freshly baked bread at your local Marks & Spencer Food and pick up dinner and a lush dessert from Bateel.
Ten minutes later, you and your family enjoy dinner on your balcony with impressive views of the Dubai Marina and Marina Skyline.
Welcome home to Marina Gate.
When you’re writing your property descriptions, focus on the lifestyle the property offers and help your audience envision themselves there. You can always list its facilities and amenities in bullet points later on, but work the magic of storytelling in the first paragraph.
In addition to your description, you can also use storytelling in your listing’s photographs. Use the pictures to take prospective buyers on a property tour by showcasing its best features. Pictures from the living room, views from the balcony, and the dining area add to a great listing.
You also have the option to upload video tours and Floorplans on your listing through Profolio™, which definitely can give your potential client a better picture of the property.
Overcoming Objections With Storytelling
Dealing with client objections is part of a real estate agent’s job. Our Help I’m New To Sales workshop extensively discusses the APAC framework for handling objections effectively.
When using APAC, or Acknowledge-Probe-Address-Close, you acknowledge your client’s fears or concerns, probe or understand why they have these concerns, address them, and then close the deal.
Storytelling can be a great tool when you address or acknowledge your client’s concerns. For example, let’s say you’re working with a client who seems to have gotten cold feet.
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Instead of addressing your client’s concerns by saying something like, “I get that this is a big purchase, but trust me, there are three other buyers looking at this unit, and it won’t last. You’ll lose out if you don’t submit an offer now.”, try storytelling and really empathise with them.
In this situation, you can say, “I understand, and I had a client just last month who was feeling overwhelmed by such a large purchase. She took a couple of days to list out her pros and cons and was surprised that one of the pros was that her mortgage payments were substantially lower than her current rent payments. She is now spending her evenings with her family enjoying their backyard and pool and making plans for their next summer holiday in Paris. This will be their first holiday in three years as they were never able to afford rent and a holiday. And she is building equity in a long-term investment. She has a total sense of financial freedom while building a long-term asset.”
Using storytelling in this scenario allows the agent to tap into the client’s emotions – by addressing their concerns – and talking about a previous client’s positive experience with buying property in Dubai.
Storytelling On Social Media
A common faux pas by real estate agents on social media is creating content that just talks about properties – without keeping an audience in mind. Listing out a property’s details, such as its number of bedrooms, amenities and facilities, does not answer the audience’s question, ‘Why should I be interested in this post?’
This is where storytelling comes in. While writing your captions, think of how to make a story from your content. For example, if you’re posting about a 5-bedroom villa in Dubai Hills, talk about the lifestyle the area offers instead of listing out the details of the property.
Caption One (without storytelling):
5 Bedroom + Maid Room in Address Villas Hillcrest for sale for AED 28M. Basement, G + 1 + Roof Terrace, Parking Garage, Private Garden, Close to Clubhouse, Luxury Interiors, BUA Approximately 10,372 sqft.
Caption Two (with storytelling):
Whether it’s spending quality time with family, connecting with nature, or taking in stunning views on a leisurely stroll, Address Villas Hillcrest is the ideal place to savour life’s beautiful moments. This gorgeous 5-bedroom villa is now available for sale for AED 28 M. Reach out to me at +971… or DM me for more details!
Weave the information you have about a property into a story, and watch your content stand out.
Storytelling In Personal Branding (Agent Profiles and LinkedIn Bios)
Two places where you can tell property seekers a bit about yourself and set yourself apart from other agents are your Agent Profile on Bayut and your LinkedIn profile.
Your Agent Profile is like your business card – it is what property seekers can see about an agent while looking through listings on Bayut. On the other hand, your LinkedIn profile is a place to showcase your past achievements and core strengths. Typically, when someone looks your name up on Google, both these accounts tend to be on top of the search results.
Agent Profiles have separate sections that display an agent’s years of experience and areas of service. This means your Agent Profile bio should highlight your strengths and reasons why your clients should work with you.
On the other hand, your LinkedIn bio can instead be the place where you mention your real estate experience and why you’ve chosen the area you specialise in.
Don’t just tell clients that you are a specialist in Downtown Dubai. Instead, tell them your story of why you chose a career in real estate. “I chose real estate because I genuinely enjoy meeting people and helping them overcome challenges with large purchases. My background in hospitality has helped me develop my strong customer service skills, so my clients are at ease throughout their property journeys ”.
Share why you got into the real estate industry (like the example above), your story behind your strengths, or something you love about real estate (architecture, modern design, etc).
You’ll find that such compelling stories help to build rapport and trust with your customers.
We believe that storytelling can be used in every phase of the sales cycle. This technique is crucial to building better relationships with your customers and increasing your chances of a successful conversion. Find out how storytelling can help you accelerate your career in real estate by joining our workshops at Bayut Academy!