This is the a follow up to my last post on the Real Living Real Estate franchise: Modalities in Mail
The article mentioned in DMNews gave a few glimpses to the sophistication of Real Living's approach to marketing.
Some of the more interesting facts are:
- Their marketing focus is on women 25-54
- They have instituted an in house on demand mail house
- The Real Living online and off line material uses Red and Orange, as opposed to the typical industry blues, and yellows.
- The Real Living marketing material use lifestyle images of women as opposed to still houses.
- Since 2002 they have expanded to 63 franchises in 20 states.
- So far this year they have printed 2.2 million mail pieces.
- They say they have implemented social networking on their site.
Continues.....
I am very impressed. Targeting the female demographic is brilliant as they say ..."women make up 80% of the purchase decision"Mail on demand is cutting edge and they even are looking to institute their snail mail with Internet email in a sequenced methodology.
Lifestyle images always out sell product images. Now let me tackle the others that I am not so sure about.
The use of Red and Orange on their material interests me. Color Psychology says that Orange is typically thought of as an energetic color. The color conjures feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and warmth. It is used to draw attention. Red often means love, passion, heat, joy, power.
When I first heard that they were targeting women I was surprised at these colors. The typical female color is turquoise or even purple. But when I thought of liberation it made sense. From a design element it shows power and draws attention. Read the above definitions and how that may fit with their target women. Is it how women want to feel? Is it how women want to feel when purchasing their home? Very likely.
Topics on the site run from the typical to embracing more contemporary trends like the Green living. I am not so sure that what they call social networking is that progressive as they have a blog and they have a pretty standard way to get listings called MyRealLiving 2.0. Not sure where the Social part comes in, other than blog comments.
They use their blog mostly as a general article repository which I do applaud. They even offer affiliate marketing. One interesting stat I found was that their average " web consumer visits four times a month, plays for more than 13 minutes on an average of 14 pages. "
Impressively, a representative immediately answered my request for more information on the affiliate program and in his signature line it read: "Real Living. Green. Think twice about printing this e-mail." Not sure if there will be a disconnect on this whole Green thing when they print 2.2 million mailers, but I am digging these guys!
Notice the copy they use. They use the word play, implying a fun experience, as opposed to saying they navigate 14 pages over a time period of 13 minutes. "Girls just wanna have fun", and playing sounds more fun than navigating.
Interesting Color links:
- http://www.colormatters.com/
- http://www.benjaminmoore.com/-great to show your new buyers. They illustrate what a room looks like under different color schemes
Do you wish you had your own on demand mail house?
- SendOut-Run your own online mail database. Send Thank you cards, and any post card or fold over that you can think of. Customize and create your own with easy image uploading..
