THE POSITIONING BATTLE

One of the great “ahas” I took away from reading the marketing classic Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout, was the idea that the human mind is an “inadequate container.” The basic idea they share is that under the constant bombardment of advertising and marketing, the human mind becomes saturated by brands and can hold only a finite number at any one time. Ries and Trout cite the work of Harvard psychologist George A. Miller when they assert that the maximum number of product brands we can remember for a given category— the brand “saturation point” for the mind—is seven.

That’s when I had a huge “aha.” Their book is about major brand advertising, the multimilliondollar campaigns behind soft drinks, airlines, cars, and fast-food chains. It made me wonder what the implications were for the local real estate agent marketing to their target audience. Chances are, if the average person can’t name more than seven brands of potato chips, they can’t possibly name more than two or three real estate agents in their market. Data gleaned from the 2002 National Association of Realtors (NAR) Profile of Buyers and Sellers tends to back this up. According to NAR research, 76 percent of all sellers contacted only one agent and 16 percent contacted just two. On the buyer side, the statistics are just as revealing. According to the same NAR research, 59 percent of all buyers interviewed only one agent and 22 percent met with just two! From this we can clearly see what Ries and Trout are talking about— “mind share” for real estate agents is slim to none. Considering all the information people are assaulted with, they tend to block out all but the bare minimum, if for no other reason than self-defense.

Clearly, with so many choices, people will tend to limit what they remember. Average out the NAR statistics, and you’ll see that roughly 86.5 percent of all buyers and sellers seem to have room in their minds for only one or two real estate agents. In the battle for real estate consumer mind share, you’re either first or second or you’re out of contention. You’re either at the head of the class or with the rest and lost in the mass!

So the big question and challenge is how to win those first two positions of real estate mind share with enough people. The answer is through a systematic lead-generation effort.