Getting the Narrative Perspective Right in Real Estate Agent Marketing

 
Content is the lifeblood of online real estate agent marketing. Good content not only contains the key information you want to communicate about your business, it attracts new customers, boosts SEO efforts and increases your company’s credibility by presenting your brand as an industry ‘thought leader’. In 2014, marketing real estate simply doesn’t work without a comprehensive content strategy.
 
The Holy Grail of all content marketing campaigns is to create something that others want to share. If your content goes viral, the internet takes on all the hard work, so it’s worth putting in the effort early on. Striking the right tone in your real estate marketing content is a crucial part of engaging an audience, and in turn encouraging them to share it of their own volition. One of the key decisions to make is which narrative perspective to adopt in your writing.
 
Effective use of the three narrative perspectives will give your copy an edge over competitors, and drive more traffic to your website. Before we play around with the possibilities, let’s look at the commonly accepted usages of each narrative perspective:
 

• First person narrative is generally used for expressing an opinion in a blog or op-ed article
• Second person narrative is generally used for a call-to-action
• Third person narrative is more suitable for objective reportage, such as press releases or customer case studies

 
Strategic use of each narrative perspective is a subtle but powerful tool in any online campaign, and realtor marketing is no exception. Want to draw your audience in as a friend? Use first person narrative so your reader feels connected to the author. Looking to strike a professional tone of detachment? Go for third person narrative. Trying to get them to commit to an action? It’s second person all the way.
 
Real estate agent marketing offers plenty of opportunity to wield each narrative perspective to good effect. To understand the impact of each, consider the following sentence, written from three perspectives:
 

• I think I’m going to love my new neighborhood
• I think you’re going to love your new neighborhood
• I think she’s going to love her new neighborhood

 
Subconsciously, you probably placed yourself right in that new neighborhood when reading the second version. You had a flash of imagery: tree-lined avenues, leafy cul-de-sacs, grand old civic buildings – whatever it is that makes your perfect neighborhood, a second person narrative surreptitiously conjures the picture.

Of course, you may not necessarily want people to use their imagination. You might prefer to adopt a tone of experienced authority so your reader knows they’re getting information from an expert, in which case you should use first person narrative. If you want to share an example of a previous customer in order to prove your credentials, you would present a case study using third person narrative.
 
Successful realtor marketing campaigns are comprised of numerous elements. There’s a wide variety of sophisticated tools – such as Voice Broadcast and Cloud Call Center – that can ramp up your lead generation efforts, and traditional advertising channels like billboards, lawn signs and print media are all highly effective strands. But when you start coming up with realtor marketing ideas for your online campaign, think carefully about your audience and the narrative perspective to which they will best respond.