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.

Phoenix has been experiencing a rapidly growing real estate market and the prices of properties here have soared in recent months. Investors are flocking to Phoenix to view listings, shortlist properties, negotiate prices and buy condos and luxury waterfront property. Golfers want to retire in Phoenix. Baby boomers are booking properties for spending their retirement days. This flurry of activity has motivated a number of people to seek careers as real estate brokers and agents. They are granted their licenses to work in the profession from various real estate schools.One of the leading real estate schools in Phoenix, Scottsdale Real Estate School offers real estate courses online and on CD-ROM. It’s never been so convenient to pass your real estate exams and achieve a license. The real estate courses offered include: real estate license, sales associate and broker?s pre-license, post license continuing education, and prep courses for students to prepare for real estate exams and state exams. They offer fully accredited real estate courses that meet the license qualification and continuing education requirements for real estate professionals in Phoenix. These courses can be done from anywhere around the world. Scottsdale Real Estate School is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They believe in serving the student around the clock to better meet their needs.Scottsdale Real Estate School has introduced the most convenient way available to fulfill the professional license educational requirement. Their CD-ROM and online real estate classes allows the aspirant to begin courses at any time. Upon passing the online exams, they receive a certificate of completion and full course credits. Additionally they offer a new and exciting way to obtain the required real estate education credits. They noticed that many students simply don’t have the time or desire to attend a class. For them, an online training course has been created.There are a few criterions that need to be fulfilled before applying for a real estate broker license. It is required for the applicant to be at least 18 years of age when applying for a real estate license. Additionally he may not have had a real estate license denied within one year, or revoked within two years immediately before applying. Scottsdale Real Estate School helps the applicants with the license procedure and makes it as easy as it can be.