Above, from left, Karen Bebart, J. Nicholas D’Ambrosia, Matt Hendricks, Kymber Lovett-Menkiti and Cory Vasquez. Photo by AJ Canaria.

Speaking at RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange, executives from major brokerages, Zillow and the National Association of Realtors® outlined how they’re adapting to serve each consumer individually.

Whether it be adjusting your approach with different generations and customers’ needs, panelists stressed the importance of meeting individual “needs, wants and desires” during a session moderated by Realty ONE Group Co-President and CMO Cory Vasquez titled “Refocusing on the Consumer.”

Evolving marketing strategies

CEO of Keller Williams Capital Properties Kymber Lovett-Menkiti emphasized the need for defining our “avatars”—the subset of people you are uniquely positioned to serve—to build a marketing message around talking to them specifically. 

Zillow’s Vice President of Industry Affairs, Matt Hendricks, agreed with Lovett-Menkiti on nailing down an avatar, but emphasized the need to prioritize the product.

“You really have nothing to market unless you have an incredible product, or products or things that you bring value to everybody else. Your avatar—you as an agent, you as a team—that is your product,” Hendricks said. “You have to start with the product in order to have something to market.”

From Long & Foster Real Estate, Senior Vice President and Principal Broker Nick D’Ambrosia acknowledged that it is about the consumer, but highlighted how we need to learn what the consumer actually wants.

“Different consumers want different things,” he said. “Different generations want different things. They want to be approached. They have different needs, wants and desires.”  

Karen Bebart—director of consumer strategy & brand advertising at NAR—focused on how often the market has evolved, and how we need to guide consumers through these changes. 

“You can’t keep coming out with the same message,” she explained. “You have to evolve as time evolves, as the market evolves, as people evolve.” 

Addressing generational changes

Touching on wealth transfers and how women are starting to dominate more assets in real estate, Lovett-Menkiti once again emphasized the importance of getting hyper-specific with your audience. 

“When we talk to everyone, we’re talking to no one,” she told attendees. “So how do we get really specific? How do we understand what’s happening in the demographic and generational trends—and then get really specific in our marketing and our messaging and delivery to be able to address those different things?”

Hendricks, who has experience working with different generations, stressed how beneficial it is to lean on those you work with to get in tune with the different communication styles across generations. 

“It’s about changing and understanding who they are and leaning on those that you work with, those in your office, those in your brokerage, that are more in tune to whatever generation that is,” Hendricks said. “You have to adapt to whatever their style is.”

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