Successful Luxury Fractional Marketing And Sales In The Current Economic Climate

David Disick, regular contributor to Fractional Life, previous speaker at Fractional Summit and well known practitioner in the fractional vacation home marketplace in the United States briefly summarizes the fractional marketing and sales techniques that in his view can maximize success:

This Paper briefly summarizes the following techniques in marketing and sales that can maximize success:

1. State of the art web based programs
2. Public relations/Strategic branding alliances
3. International marketing
4. Local broker programs
5. Some marketing and sales strategies

State of the Art Web Based Programs

The Internet has evolved into a superior international marketing tool for maximizing results and minimizing costs. Web based programs should be designed to reach out to the luxury and fractional community of brokers, agents, and prospective purchasers internationally; nationally; in the specific locales where the target audiences reside; and segmented by critical clusters of aficionados of particular venue types (such as metropolitan areas, mountains, beaches, golf and wine country).

Underlying these elements is the use of leading edge Internet and social network marketing methods to create an unprecedented international marketing reach. Leveraging Web 2.0 Internet marketing methods enables global reach, in contrast to the limited reach of traditional marketing methods and at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

B2C Marketing Strategies. The internet is a superb international marketing tool for directly reaching our target market, high net worth purchasers, in greater numbers, with greater precision, in a timely manner and with economies of scale. Listings can be syndicated globally on dozens of B2C websites. Distributions of listings over most Internet channels is virtually instantaneous. Regular reports can be generated so that the visits each property gets on each of these channels can be monitored. All listing brokers can display listings in multiple languages on their broker websites.

B2B Marketing Strategies. One can maximize the use of the global referral network and international MLS, Proxio. Proxio, launched in April 2008, already has registered more than 1,700 agencies in 54 countries. Proxio will enable each local broker to form a global referral network with their peers in 50 states and 50+ countries. This will quickly put listings in the hands of thousands of potential referring agents who represent willing and able domestic and foreign buyers. All listings will be displayed in multiple languages on this platform.

Selecting brokerage firms to list properties based on their company’s global network of agents is another B2B strategy. Choosing different companies will maximize the potential for cooperation and synergy between companies that could result in greater sales volume for each company.

As a condition of listing properties, one should require that the brokerage firms invite their entire roster of international agents to attend webinars about the procedure for, and commission benefits of, selling luxury fractionals. The webinars will be promoted to all agents in each marketplace. The events will be recorded so that those who were unable to attend can be contacted again with a link to the recorded events. Listing agents can also use the webinars as a marketing tool to reach out to<