Luxury real estate marketing calls for a unique approach. There’s more at stake financially, which leads to a longer sales process. On top of that, the average buyer of luxury real estate is well educated, Internet-savvy and detail-minded.Combine all of these factors, and you can see the need for a unique marketing approach. Here are five fundamentals for success in luxury real estate marketing.1. Lead CaptureOne client in a hundred will call you and say, “I’m ready to buy. Where do I sign up?” The other 99% of the time, the process starts with a lead and escalates through a series of touches. But without a good lead-capturing system in place, the process is doomed from the start.All of your marketing efforts should revolve around a central database. All marketing channels should also have a lead-capturing mechanism in place. Phone calls should be logged and added to the database. Same goes for walk-ins and emails. Internet leads should be collected and organized.To really maximize your leads, you should incorporate information-request forms in strategic locations throughout your website. This encourages customers to request additional information via the web, at their convenience. Ideally, these submissions would be added to your database automatically, or would at least go into a queue for later review.Make it a top priority to build lead capture into all aspects of your real estate marketing program. Without lead capture, you have no leads. Without leads, you have no business.2. Lead ManagementLead management is just as important as lead capture. Lead management refers to the process of recording, categorizing, and taking action on a lead. It’s what converts leads into prospects, and prospects into clients.Lead management should be a “no-brainer” for you. If the process is difficult or cumbersome, you’ll be less likely to adhere to it. At a minimum, your lead-management program should allow you to capture leads in a database, organize them by pre-determined criteria, and update them accordingly as a person moves through the sales process.When setting up your lead-management system, you first need to determine your ideal sales process. How many touches do you want to make for each client? How do you want to categorize them based on purchasing timeframe or other factors? How will you track it all? A good lead-management program should address and simplify each of these things.3. The Polish FactorWe’ve talked about the technical side of lead capture and management. Now let’s talk about the customer-facing, aesthetic aspects of your marketing program. Let’s talk about polish!When people shop for and purchase high-end, luxury real estate, they expect certain things. They expect the sales office to be fancier than an “average real estate” office. They expect more personal treatment and finesse from their sales agent. And they expect marketing collateral with a lot of polish.Your website, brochures and sales sheets are a direct reflection of your company, and your company directly reflects your product. People want a luxury home built with the utmost care and attention to detail. They want a home that makes them say, “Wow.” Your marketing materials need to reflect this, especially when they’re the first impression you make.4. Online VisibilityPeople shop for real estate online before doing it any other way. It’s an inescapable fact of modern real estate marketing. Statistics from a couple of year ago claimed that 84% of home buyers used the Internet for research. Today, I would imagine the number is closer to 90%.Now here’s something else to consider. If 90% of your audience is looking for luxury real estate properties online, but they can’t find your website … where does that leave you in terms of competitiveness?In the future, real estate companies will sink or swim in large part due to their search engine visibility. So when building your marketing program, be sure you add search engine optimization (SEO) into the mix. Ask your marketing provider if they offer SEO services. If they don’t, you’ll need to find them elsewhere. Otherwise, you’re letting a world of web surfers pass you by.5. Total IntegrationAnother thing to realize about marketing luxury real estate is that a single channel can rarely deliver success. Maximum results occur when several marketing channels work together in harmony, complementing and reinforcing one another.An example of this might be a direct mail piece that leads to a landing page on your website. The landing page has an information-request form, which triggers a confirmation email (and, ultimately, a sales process and continued dialogue).When multiple marketing channels work together as one, they dramatically increase the number of ways people can find you, talk to you, and purchase from you.* You may republish this article online if you retain the active hyperlinks below.

This article is intended to focus your attention on how important growth is in your personal savings environment, to make sure the investments in your portfolio are working for you and not against you.Property investment versus Unit Trust investments can be very interesting and statistics are needed to help us understand… which is the best?According to statistics from House Prize South Africa, Nominal Property Growth from 1981 to current has been 10.6%, but when you take inflation into account your Real Property Growth was only 1.2% to date.In short, your investment should be tested against the growth of inflation, and should perform better than inflation. Even if it is growing somewhat, if it is not performing better than inflation, it is essentially losing steam. The term Real Growth is used when you minus your investment percentage with the inflation percentage.Unit trusts a Great Alternative.Registered Unit Trust investments are a safe alternative. Companies cannot run away with your money; you can only lose money if the fund performs poorly.If we look at some top performing SA Unit Trust Companies Funds, we see that some of them had an average 10-year Nominal growth performance of about 17.8%. Over the past year, growth was at 12.2%; and since the Inception of 1999, the average Nominal growth has been 19.9%, while the average inflation for this period was 5.9%.This means that the Real Growth was a very good 14%According to published figures Unit Trusts investments has out-performed Property as an investment vehicle.Safety and access to your money also plays a big role! How safe is your property investment? How much are you paying in property taxes per year? You can sell your property if you urgently need money. However, if this time period is not going to be favourable, then how quickly can you re-finance property to get money? If you can’t afford your Bond re-payment then you will have to sell your property in-time and perhaps at a loss.In other words, if you have invested in property how quickly are you able to make this investment liquid?Double Your MoneyThe golden rule with Unit Trust investments is to double your money every 5 years. Should you invest a lump-sum amount of 100 000 your investment will be 200 000 in 5 years. With this type of investment there is also no term restricting you when you can withdraw your money.With a good Unit Trust investment, your capital should grow more than the average property investment, and your money will be more easily accessible should you need it urgently.Just remember: do your homework on these investments. Most importantly the company needs to be a Registered Unit Trust Company and the Companies offering needs to have a long; respected and above average Performance Record.Konrad Wentzel
+27 82 46 22212
0800 KONRAD (0800 566 723)
Wentzel Consulting (PTY) ltd
Independent Financial Planner
FSP: 7234

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