Swim Like An Elephant—What Does That Mean?

The Connection Between Swimming Elephants & Marketing

Additionally, their enormous size creates buoyancy, allowing them to float effortlessly when they tire.

Amazingly, elephants have been known to swim continuously for six hours, covering a distance of 30 miles!

Elephants spend 90% of their time standing, so who knew they were such good swimmers?

So, what does this lovely little story about elephants swimming have to do with marketing?

I’d say the fact that a 12,000-pound elephant can swim 30 miles at a time is quite remarkable, which has everything to do with marketing!

Why People Don’t Care About You or Your Brand

The truth hurts, but not if you accept and understand it first.

The reason people don’t care about your business and brand is that you haven’t given them a reason to care.

In fact, you’ve probably given them a bunch of reasons to not care—by making the conversation and coveted point of engagement “all about you.”

What should be common knowledge by now yet is still mostly ignored, is that brands need to make the marketing conversation, “all about the consumer,” and make them feel something.

Remember, you need to get past the mind’s gatekeeper first – the lizard brain, to gain entrance into the consumers’ castle.

Once inside the castle (i.e. you have the consumer’s full attention), tone of voice is critical. 

David Ogilvy, perhaps the greatest advertising mind on the planet, said it best,

“Talk to your audience the same way you would talk to a friend.  Use their language.  Don’t address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.”

And don’t forget, always tell a story.

Does It Pass the “Who Cares Test?”

It’s my favorite question in the world and it applies to everything, especially marketing.

I first heard this question in my printing CEO days, when a colleague of mine asked me this question, and gifted me a lifetime of relevance.

It literally stopped me in my tracks and made me re-examine everything through this lens.

So, now I gift this to you.

Before you do anything marketing-related as a brand, entrepreneur, or business, ask yourself this important question, and make sure the answers are clear.

Back to David Ogilvy and the art of communication, before you speak (and after it’s passed the who cares test), know what’s most important to your audience.  It’s all about sacrifice, of all of the messages you wish to communicate, one must come first.

 Make it remarkable.

Real Estate Agents Tend to Market Only Listings—Instead of Their Brand

I’ve had the privilege and honor to publish over 250 editions of DIGS magazine over the last nine years, and as a student of marketing, something has always struck me as curious.

I’m guessing about 95% of all the real estate agents’ ads that have run in DIGS have been pure “homes for sale” related. 

At a glance it makes perfect sense, right? After all, agents have a fiduciary responsibility to market homes for sale in the markets they serve and get them sold as fast as possible—that’s the goal.

But agents also have a fiduciary responsibility to stay in business!

And to do that, they need to nurture and grow their own brands.

What’s curious though, is that the real estate business is a long game, yet most agents play it short. 

I’ve heard it too many times to count and it never gets old because it is so incorrect:

“I don’t have any listings, so I have nothing to market.“

Many Real Estate Agents and Reators at some point in their career

Sadly, it’s a prevailing mindset—no listings mean out of business, yet nothing could be further than the truth.

It’s easy to fall prey to this mindset and run your real estate business like a retail furniture store – it’s also easy to be average and why the failure rate is so high.

The real reason DIGS is still thriving after 9 nine years of continuous transformation and disruption in the real estate industry is that we’ve made agent marketing and branding our priority since day one.

It’s simple really, without you, there is no us.  We can’t grow unless you do. 

We’re in this together, stakeholders in the mission and fiduciary responsibility we share—to keep you relevant in the local real estate community, help you sell your listings, and to amplify your brand authority so you can get more listings to sell.

The times may be changing, but our focus and passion remain the same.

So, don’t forget about your brand, your story, and your community – the pillars that are foundational to your business.