The Advertising Clutter Conundrum
Neil Whitfield
?? Helping Independent Estate Agents To Get More Listings And Sell More Properties By Doing LESS Marketing | Author | Coach | Copywriter | Speaker | Trainer | Agents Together Mentor
Estate Agents & Letting Agents Can’t Cut Through The Advertising Clutter Simply By Adding To It.
It’s a problem that most businesses face at the time of writing this article (April 2024). And it’s only getting worse.
In 2005, researcher J. Walker Smith famously estimated that consumers were exposed to 500 marketing messages a day in the 1970’s and 5,000 a day at that time.
Almost 20 years on I’d say that number is already out of date and far too low. Google thinks the number could be as high as 10,000 marketing messages per day.
But whether it’s 5,000 or 10,000 advertising messages a day is largely irrelevant. Because either way it’s way too much. As Smith said at the time;
“Advertising clutter is the single biggest problem with marketing. Not just today, but as long as advertising has been around. People are annoyed by ads that show up in unfamiliar places, but become used to them over time. So marketers respond by finding even more unfamiliar places. It’s cumulative and it’s getting worse…
“If we really want to do good marketing, then we have to get out of the clutter business and stay solidly in the communications business.”
This very neatly ties into my Simplified Seller & Landlord Acquisition method. This flies in the face of conventional online marketing wisdom which promotes quantity over quality.
My method is based on the fundamental principle that throwing more marketing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks was never the answer, it’s not currently the answer and I’d like to suggest it never will be the answer!
When Walker Smith was doing his research in the noughties, social media and AI weren’t even in existence.
Social media saturation and the sluice-pipe of ChatGPT generated bilge has only been opened up relatively recently.…
And as an aside, how’s AI working out for you?
Just like how the personal computer never quite delivered on that promise of a life of 24/7 leisure time, all I can see ChatGPT doing is helping us to create a lot more low quality stuff, a lot quicker. And who does that help, exactly?
It’s very much a race to the bottom – or if ChatGPT wrote it, a competitive descent towards minimal standards ??
But you do have an option. No one’s forcing you to take part in this particular race.…
There is another way.
I’m currently working on a new book. It takes a lot of the content from my 2023 book Five Mile Famous (sadly no longer available, thanks to some bloke with a Trademark – long story) and it overlays the Simplified Seller & Landlord Acquisition method on top.
领英推荐
In a nutshell it’s about winning more instructions by doing less marketing.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
But obviously there’s a catch.
And that catch is that if you’re doing a lot less marketing, the marketing you do needs to be a lot better.
It’s not quite as terrifying as it sounds. It’s quite simple to do infact. Not easy. But simple.
And it should be music to the ears of burned out estate agents and letting agents who are being ground down by the constant demand for more and more content to add to their growing list of ‘must be on there’ social media channels.
It’s actually quite empowering. And invigorating.
Because it focuses your attention and efforts into producing a small number of marketing assets that will rise above the clutter. Assets that you can be proud of and will stand the test of time.
You don’t have to wait until the new book comes out later in the year to learn more, or understand how changing your marketing approach could significantly benefit your business.
I’ve recorded a series of three videos outlining my Simplified Seller & Landlord Acquisition method to attracting your ideal sellers & landlords to your estate agency business;
They’re all available to watch or read as LinkedIn articles. Just click the links above to read/watch them.
And you can take the FREE Fee Pipeline Calculator to see how making a few changes to your marketing (like I’ve described above) can reliably and predictably add to your monthly fee pipeline