It’s impossible to have a conversation about successful modern marketing strategies without talking about millennials.

With good reason. This unique and influential generation has come of age to become a large and crucial audience. That is particularly true for real estate, with millennials reaching their peak earning and buying power.

Here are five tips to make your marketing appeal to millennials.

Know your audience

Who are millennials? For a start they’re probably older than you realise. The term typically refers to people aged 26 to 41 which means they’re the world’s first “digital native” generation. They don’t know a world without the internet and they’ve been using social media platforms pretty much since they were invented.

Before making a purchase, particularly an investment purchase like a house, they will do all their research online, finding out as much as they can themselves before they contact you for more. That research will include websites, but it will largely include referrals from their social media communities and social content from real estate brands.

When they do reach out to follow up on a listing or to respond to your personal branding, it will most likely be via text or a social media message (75% of the entire population is using Messenger). Phone calls are for emergencies!

In the US, for example, a study by real estate listing site Zillow, found almost half of all buyers were under the age of 36, and half of sellers were under the age of 41. A 2021 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report by the National Association of Realtors found 99% of millennials searched online for general information about the house market and home buying. It also found 58% of them were likely to search using their mobile device.

Those statistics are mirrored in buyer behaviour in this part of the world.

Show integrity

As you might expect from a generation that’s grown up online, millennials tend to have a lower tolerance for hard sell, or for misleading clickbait content.

To connect with your real estate personal branding, focus less on your recent sales volume or sales prices, instead showcase your knowledge of the local property market – with any shifts or trends potential buyers and sellers should be aware of. In your property listings, millennials will likely be less interested in the size of a property and more interested in how it will fit with their lifestyle.

A good general approach is to be conversational and helpful, with a focus on what your audience wants to know, rather than what you want to tell them.

Recognise individuality

An important note for real estate marketers is that millennials tend to identify less with life stage, than previous generations. They marry and have families at different ages, if they do those things at all, and have a more fluid approach to their work life.

Instead they tend to find community with people who have similar interests, back similar causes or with those they live near and work with.

They’re more likely to pay attention to marketing content that recognises them as individuals rather than as part of a “life stage” group.

Share feedback

Millennials are more likely to trust people (even strangers) over brands, than previous generations. Instead they turn to their peer group, often via social media platforms, or they look for online reviews.

They tend to trust tips. It’s a good plan to include case studies and customer feedback in your personal or agency brand marketing, and make sure they’re on your website so your millennial audience can find them easily.

When you do get feedback, try and respond quickly. Make any reasonable changes and let those people know it’s happened. That can create a new stream of positive feedback, and adds the human, personal touch to your brand.

Be present

The last tip is the most obvious one. Be where millennials are spending time online. That means your brand and listing campaigns need to be on social networks. Those networks will increasingly be the platforms that help to determine where people find real estate services and the properties or locations they want to live in.

By not being on social media, your brand will become increasingly invisible. If millennials do find your brand on a non-digital platform such as a newspaper or flyer, the first place they’ll go to find out more is a digital or social platform. In fact, the highest number of Facebook users in New Zealand is in the 25 to 34-year age group according to Statista. If you’re not there, they’ll just move on to someone who is.

Get in touch with sales@listinglogic.com to find out how ListingLogic can manage your digital marketing strategy.