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When you are marketing luxury real estate, here is a fun way to impress your clients while driving them from property to property.  Why not offer them an espresso?

Handpresso, a French company is the creator of an outdoor version of an espresso machine powered by a hand pump which is available in the US via importika.com, 9.95.  This model comes with 4 cups, a serving flask, and two small napkins in an elegant black carrying case,  As you are touring the gardens of a home you are showing, you can relax with your clients as you discuss the property and serve them a freshly brewed espresso.  We would suggest  packing a tin of biscotti and  some chocolate to sweeten the deal making process.  The coffee pods are also available in decaf.

The other gadget is a personal one. Since 2008, European drivers have had the advantage of being able to brew a creamy cup of espresso in their car.  This is very handy when you are rushing out of the door and have no time to stop at your favorite coffee place. The new gadget, HandpressoAuto, made by French company Handpresso is due to arrive in the US later this year (Christmas present?) plugs directly into the cigarette lighter of your auto.  It takes two minutes for the portable machine (size of an average thermos) to deliver a cup of espresso.  All you have to do is pour water into the thermos, place a coffee pod, hit the “on” button, and enjoy the hit of caffeine.  The personal one presently retails for 150 euros.

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Steamboat Springs has a reputation as being one of the friendliest resort towns in the USA. The townspeople have a tradition of genuinely caring for each other, an “Old West” ranching tradition, that is engrained in the soul of the community. And, they are proud of it. Come Winter Olympics the entire town gathers to send off their local Olympic athletes. If a neighbor needs help they are there to help them.

Click to read more … and view the beautiful homes of Steamboat Springs

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As a luxury real estate marketing professional it is important to be well versed in all the cultures that surround us and particularly those in your marketplace.  It is a great way to establish rapport with a potential client, and to become the go to person for that community.

The Spring Season is a time of celebration.  It signifies rebirth, new life, and the beginning of a New Year.   Here are a few of the rites of spring from around the world.

The Persian New Year is known as Nowruz.  It is celebrated by the Iranians, as well other parts of the world, Central Asia, Crimea and some groups in the Balkans It is based on the Zoroastrian religion, and it celebrates the day of or the day after the spring vernal equinox, depending on the region.

The Buddhists celebrate the New Year with Buddha’s birthday on April 8th. In Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Laos, the New Year is celebrated for three days from the first full moon day in April.

Easter is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ.   Emperor Constantine decided the date would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox. This date may fall in a 35-day range from March 22 to April 25.

The Greek Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter after Passover.  The logic in their celebration is that Christ died after Passover, and this is a more accurate time to celebrate.  This year the Greek Orthodox Easter will be celebrated on April 15th.

Passover is observed to commemorate the freeing of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.  A special meal, (Seder) is prepared accompanied by a reading of the Passover story.

In South and Central America, Catholics celebrate Easter and La Semana Santa, or Holy Week as one of the highest holy days of the year.  In Latin America and Spain, the week leading up to Easter involves solemn processions, prayer, masses and other preparations for Jesus’ rebirth.  Cascarones or confetti eggs are made by hollowing out a chicken egg and filling it with confetti or small toys.  The outside of the shell is also decorated.  To have a cascarone broken on your head signifies good luck.

In the Sweden Walpugisnacht is celebrated.  The legend is it that witches filled the skies on the eve of St. Walpurgis Day on April 30 or May 1st. Torches are made of rosemary and burned so that the smoke will repel the witches.  This festival is also celebrated by the Czechs, Dutch, Estonians, Finns, Germans, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Austrians.

Get acquainted with the people who are buying. As the planet seems to shrink and people from more nations are in the market for luxury real estate here in the United States, it is important to learn the different customs and unique slants on luxury. Being knowledgeable of the various cultures of our planet gives you an appreciation for all the people who make up our global melting pot.

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As a luxury real estate marketing professional it is important to be well versed in all the cultures that surround us and particularly those in your marketplace.  It is a great way to establish rapport with a potential client, and to become the go to person for that community.  In our previous post, we discussed several spring events; here is one from Murcia, Spain that is delightful, and would be well worth attending if you find yourself in Spain.

One of the autonomous regions of Spain is Murcia.  Murcia borders are the Mediterranean Sea, Andalucía and Valencia.  Unlike its neighboring regions Murcia is a one province region.  One of the notable festivals in Murcia is the “Entierro del la Sardina (Burial of the Sardine)”.  This festival is held after Easter. This traditional parade began in 1850.  A group of students decided to form a group whose leader is a sardine (symbolizing fasting and abstinence) in order to relive the Carnival Fiesta.

On the 14th of April 2012, a grand parade of floats representing the various sardine (Sardinero) groups, will be accompanied by musicians of every variety including Samba bands, costumed Giant heads representing the gods of Olympus, and all participants will be throwing thousand of toys to the crowds.

The evening ends in the wee hours of the morning with the burning of the papier-mâché effigy of the Lenten sardine in Plano de San Francisco.

What a great way to celebrate the end of the Eater holiday.  Happy Easter Everyone!

Cheers, Ron & Alexandra

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One of the key components of strategic branding and marketing, when marketing luxury real estate is thoroughly knowing the mindset of your target market and speaking to them in their language.  That is what is known in marketing terms as messaging.  When you can communicate your extraordinary promise of value succinctly, i.e., with an economy of words and graphics, and you can do so on an emotional level, with passion, your chances of success increase exponentially.

While we were interviewing the top brokers in Steamboat Springs for our series, 50 Top Luxury Real Estate Markets in the USA,  one of the brokers told us about a local mountain sports and lifestyle clothing company called Smartwool.  This company has their passionate messaging, the articulation of their unique promise of value, spot on!  Here tis how they do it:

WE WERE
MADE FOR
EACH OTHER.
What you get from us isn’t just a product; it’s the ability to do more of what you love, for as long as you want. That’s our promise.

This value proposition zeros right in to the emotion core of mountain athletes who are passionate about their sports, those who aim for endurance or just want to be able to stay outside, longer.  Messaging at its best is “speed matchmaking”  And, that is what happens here.

The faster you can create an emotional bond with your target market the faster you can build trust.  And, trust is the prerequisite for buying products or hiring a service professional.

Then, Smartwool goes on about “The Power of Comfort”. They say,

“When you’re comfortable, your body performs better, allowing you to forget about what you’re wearing and enjoy the moment”.

High performance is the archetypical quest of athletes, especially competitive ones. It also appeals to their spiritual side in that it addresses one of the greatest benefits of outdoor sports (and simply communing with nature, for that matter): quieting the mind and being in the present.

Smartwool as a company is obviously passionate about mountain sports and the outdoor lifestyle.  Their messaging makes their passion palpable. Their ability to communicate their passion clearly, and with an economy of words that resonate within the heart and soul of their target market, is remarkable.

Do you know what you are passionate about?  Do you know what your target market is passionate about? How can you communicate your extraordinary promise of value to your target market, as a luxury real estate marketing professional, succinctly so that they quickly bond with you and trust you?  The sharper your messaging is, the more you deliver it with passion,  the faster the matchmaking process can happen and that is what great marketing is all about.

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As a luxury real estate marketing professional you can have a superior value proposition, but will you be able to capture the attention of your ideal client?  As the world becomes more democratized with technology, the competition for attention has become one of the biggest marketing challenges.  First, you have to capture the attention of your ideal clients, (so they can hear you loud and clear above the din of your competition), and then you have to hold on to it.

Here is a clear example from the world of wine.  According to 2009 figures, over 20 billion bottles of wine were produced globally.  Competition for attention is fierce.   We recently discovered two Spanish wines produced by La Granja (the farm) 360 from Spain.  Modestly priced at .99 and .99 a bottle, it is thriving in sales side by side with similarly priced California wines (California makes 90% of wines in the US).  What makes is different is its message on the bottle.

Both wines have eye catching labels.  The first bottle pictured above is a 50/50 blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha grapes.  Wine connoisseurs describe it as, “An everyday drinking soft rounded juicy red wine, with rich ripe raspberry flavors, and great match for barbecue, roasted pork chops, spare ribs, sausages, grilled vegetables and cheeses.”  The ordinary zebra has made itself extraordinary by painting his back end in red!



The second is a Syrah with a 100% juice Syrah grapes, planted for the first time in this region.  Unlike its North American cousins, this wine is not jammy.  Here is the review, “It’s ripe with blackberry-fresh-off-the-bramble flavor with hints of dried herbs and well-balanced tannins. And as the label of the rooster with the golden egg portends, this wine is provocatively irreverent… it keeps you pouring.” The rooster is crowing about producing a golden egg!

Like wine there may be several comparable luxury real estate marketing professional in your market place.  This is where graphics and design come into play.  Graphics are a shortcut to get the message across of how you are different, and to be great it has to convey your message at a glance.

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Photo Courtesy of Apple

Most luxury real estate marketing professionals think of branding as a creating a new look for their product or service. But, the realm of branding actually occurs in the minds of your target market.  And, it occurs in product or service categories.  Whoever comes up “top-of-mind” in a category becomes the market leader.

For every product or service category that is meaningful to us, we have a category. Often there are many sub-categories in our mind. For example, personal computers have a sub-category for desktops, laptops and tablets.  Some sub-categories even have their own sub-sub-categories.

For example, when Apple introduced that Mac Air, a very slim and light-weight laptop that runs on a Flash drive (not a hard drive) a new sub-sub-category was born. As Intel and many other companies jumped on the band-wagon to copy the success of the Mac Air,  the category was given a name: “Ultrabooks”.

It can also be said that ultrabooks are a niche within the product category of computers.  A niche is a specialized but profitable corner of the market Identifying and dominating an uncontested or under served market niche is the fastest route to market leadership in that niche.  The operative word in the definition of niche is ‘profitable’.  A niche would simply not exist if there was not a market for it that was profitable.

The iPad actually redefined the category of tablet computing, as there were several attempts at creating this new category prior to its launch.  Apple has so outdistanced any of its competitors in both quality and quantity of units sold that it is next to impossible for any other company to catch up.

Only Amazon’s Kindle Fire which uses Android as its operating system, has been successful at making a dent.  But, the Kindle Fire can only complete on price (not on features and not on the the number of available apps).  Because, Amazon sells their tablet at cost or below they have made it very difficult for other Android based competitors to enter this category.  And, other tablets using alternative operating systems, such as Windows 8, will have a very tough time entering the market.

We offer this discussion of market categories to get you thinking about potential uncontested or under-served market niches, as luxury real estate marketing professionals.  Here is why:  What is the first brand to come to mind when you think of the category of tablet computer?  For most people tablet and iPad are synonymous.  What would it mean to you if your name was synonymous with the profitable niche that you decided to dominate?

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We were fortunate to be invited to consult on the local and international marketing of a beautiful luxury residential development project on the east side of San Jose, in the Central Valley of Costa Rica.  From the Central Valley it is an hour to an hour and a half drive to either the Caribbean/ Atlantic coast or the Pacific coast.  The mild climate is consistently in the low 80’s with relatively low humidity.

Our experience in meeting our clients and the various people we were introduced to was nothing less than enchanting.  When discussing the various aspects of the project, each individual in charge was passionate about their expertise.  In planning the site, the developers agreed to keep all the mature trees and bushes intact and incorporate them as part of the common areas. This included the coffee trees which had migrated on the property from the coffee bean plantation next door.  The landscape architect also decided to identify the trees and plants by both their Spanish and Latin names.  There are walkways designed to explore the grounds and benches to sit on where you can reflect upon the magnificent flora.

Our strongest impression on this adventure was the friendly nature of the people we met.  Everywhere we went, kindness and acceptance was abundant.  Time was not a pressing issue in the many meetings we attended.  There was no sense of urgency or the feeling of being rushed.  What was more important was feeling good about each other.

We asked our new friends, colleagues and clients, “What makes Americans and Europeans move to Costa Rica?”  Here is what they said, essentially: “We have a strong sense of family, a deep caring for each other, and a slow paced lifestyle.  Our people are well educated with a 94% literacy rate. We are also pro-business as we attract many companies who want to move here.  These companies are aware of the value of an educated work force”.

Intel was offered as an example.  They had identified 10 cities where they could open offices in the South and Central America’s.  With everyone wooing them, Costa Rica was not even on their radar.  The people rallied, as did the President and all other luminaries, to convince Intel to choose Costa Rica, which they finally did.  Now, Intel continues to grow and expand there.

Advising our Costa Rican clients on marketing luxury real estate was a sheer delight and we have made some wonderful friends in the process.  We encourage you to reach out and connect with your counterparts in this fine country.

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