Luxury Real Estate Marketing Trends: Eco Friendly Packaging in 2012

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50 Top Luxury Real Estate Markets in the USA: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

February 6, 2012

Pristine and serene are words that best describe one of the most beautiful lakes in America. Yet, Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho is just one of 13 magnificent lakes in a mountainous region that includes the towns of Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint and Hayden Lake. With 5 ski resorts within a short drive of these towns, the area is steadily gaining a reputation for quality of life that is unsurpassed, especially if you enjoy a full range of winter and summer recreational sports. Located just 30 minutes from Spokane International Airport, the Coeur d’Alene area is not just a destination for vacationers it is a great place to retire or simply call home.

Luxury Real Estate Website Design: 7 Components of an “Authoritative” Website

February 6, 2012

So much attention has been paid to get website visitors to find you, but what is going to keep them on your site and keep them coming back so you can capture their leads? In marketing luxury real estate online your website should give the visitor a strong level of confidence that you are the expert, the authority in your field. Visitors should feel like they do not need to look any further once they have discovered your site because they have found the most authoritative website in your marketplace or the niche in which you focus.

"Authoritativeness” is also one of the criteria used by Google in the page ranking system. They simply want to match the user with the expert who can best answer the user’s query. The more the user is satisfied with the answers the more often they will come back to Google for search, and that means more eyeballs for the ads they sell.

Here are 7 components that comprise a successful authoritative website:

An interactive “brochure” about you or your company that gives an immediate positive first impression. Your portfolio of sold homes, especially if it is extensive, can quickly establish your authoritativeness.
A strong marketing message in words and graphics that instantly sets you apart from your competition and demonstrates that you are the expert
A user- friendly self-service environment that is easy to navigate
A window to the lifestyle of your marketplace
Original content, content that no one else has
Content beyond just real estate information that offers compelling reasons to keep coming back to your site, especially for local visitors, those who are not currently in the market to buy or sell. These are your potential referral sources beyond just your immediate sphere of influence
Remarkable content that sparks word-of-mouth advertising and builds an audience of raving fans.

If market leadership is your quest, building the most authoritative website in your marketplace or niche therein is of paramount importance. But, website visitors are becoming savvier. If you do not instantly differentiate yourself or your company from your competition and offer original content that is engaging your chances of capturing the all important lead is reduced significantly.

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Luxury Real Estate Web Design: Information Overload?

February 3, 2012

You may have heard the phrase, “sticky website” bandied about. It has to do with the time a website visitor says on your website during a given visit. The stickier the site the more time they spend there and the more chance you have for capturing their lead which is important if you want to gain or sustain market leadership as a luxury real estate marketing professional. But, is there point where providing too much information is detrimental to your succcess?

Content rich websites are sticky to the extent they offer compelling information. But, how much information should you provide? It is possible to overwhelm your visitor with too much content. The key is to find the best balance for your target market. Compelling information is important, but compelling them to reach for more by contacting you is even more important.

Get the idea of feeling satiated after a good meal at a fine restaurant. Any more food beyond that point is an overdose. Now, get the idea of how you felt when the waiter brought you the dessert menu and offered you a choice of coffee or an after dinner drink. You were not satiated, yet. The meal was awesome up to that point and you wanted just a bit more. That is the point you want to achieve in terms of the amount of information on your website.

If you are a Monty Python fan you may have seen the film, “The Meaning of Life”. There is a scene in a French restaurant with an enormous man, Mr. Creosote, who is a glutton. The waiter offers him “one more petit four” and he literally explodes.

Think of Mr. Creosote, when it comes to de-cluttering your website and finding just the right balance of information that keeps your visitors hungry for more. That is an important factor to consider for a luxury real estate website, if you want to capture more leads.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Say “Audi-os” to Vampires

January 31, 2012

Photo by Garytnt

One of the best ways to understand branding is by watching the Superbowl. The Superbowl reaches over 90 million viewers. In this venue, the advertisers’ intent is to generate “buzz”, and to firmly establish the brand position of their product or service in the mind of their target market. As luxury real estate marketing consultants and brand strategists, we pay close attention to how luxury purveyors are differentiating themselves from their competitors.

Luxury car makers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and now Audi are competing for the eyeballs of high net worth consumers during the time-outs of the most watched football events of the year. In 2011, Audi clearly wanted to continue establishing itself as the “new” luxury car. Its message was, “escape the confines of luxury.” It showed wealthy people imprisoned (prison with gold bars) by their old standards of a chauffeur driven Mercedes and listening to Kenny G. This commercial translated into measurable post game sales.

This year Audi has turned to vampires. In its new commercial, a vampire driving his Audi S7 on his way to join his vampire friends drinking blood cocktails in the woods around a bonfire. As he approaches the grounds, he eliminates all his buddies because of the powerful LED headlights. These lights are, according to Audi, the closest to daylight.

Here is what Andrew Lipman, communications manager of Audi had to say about this commercial, “Audi’s upcoming spot puts Audi signature LEDs up against the focal point of today’s most ubiquitous pop culture craze: vampires. As the most-viewed television program of the year, the Super Bowl is one of the best platforms to showcase a brand’s creativity and voice. The S7 is the epitome of luxury.”

As viewed by Ron Schott, senior strategist at Spring Creek Group, Seattle. “I think this latest campaign is definitely a way for Audi to actually get a little closer with the average consumer during Super Bowl time, I really don’t think it portrays Audi as luxurious .”

This commercial is humorous and entertaining. However, it does not communicate with the luxury consumer, whose interest in vampires is minimal and who is definitely not the average consumer. Will the luxury buyer buy the epitome of luxury to kill vampires?

This is a clear case of competing on features rather than differentiating from the competition. Mercedes already has LED lights around its headlights. LED lights are not a unique feature, and installing enough of them to mimic daylight is not a differentiator.

As luxury real estate marketing professionals it is important not to lose focus. Stay the course of your brand position by keeping within your niche and by competing on your fundamental difference (not features) in the marketplace.

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Luxury Real Estate Personal and Company Branding: Is Your Slogan on Point?

January 30, 2012

As a luxury real estate marketing professional you can distinguish yourself from the competition with a great slogan. The slogan is effective when you can distill in a few words the essence of your brand. How are you distinct from your competition?

In the highly competitive world of auto insurance, there are many slogans. One company is expressing its unique promise of value using this slogan: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Here is Mercury Auto Insurance’s slogan: “It takes more than a good neighbor to save you money!”

State Farm is promising neighborly personal service when you have a claim. That is nice. Isn’t that what is expected from any insurance company? Mercury Auto Insurance is saying that they are not just a good neighbor, they also save you money. Being a good neighbor is important, but isn’t it more important to save you money?

In the smaller competitive world of Farmers’ Markets in Central and Southern California, one of the growers has this slogan, “No baloney just vegetables”. In a venue full of organic vegetables, fruit, etc, this has no validity except for expressing a sense of humor.

A slogan has to be so compelling that in an instant it can communicate its value. In women’s shoes Donald Pliner has a slogan which distinguishes his brand from other shoes made in Italy: “Made in the Mountains of Italy”, which evokes an instant emotional response: the notion of craftsmanship and attention to detail in a small town rather than in an industrial city such as Milan.

What is great about all the slogans mentioned here is the brevity of their communication. The key is getting the entire value proposition condensed into just a few words. That is the art of slogan writing which is what we strive in our strategic branding practice.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Saying Yes to Business and No to Busyness

January 26, 2012

"A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble." Mahatma Gandhi.

We keep hearing from the majority of luxury real estate marketing professionals that they don’t have time! And given the condition of the market, they feel they need to do more. Life is out of control. They don’t have time to work on their business (meaning focus on promoting new business) they are so busy working in their business. Many take calls while eating lunch or dinner and are going to bed with their cell phones on their night stand ready to answer regardless of the time the phone rings.

In a recent Harvard Business Review Blog, Tony Schwartz points out that we don’t take time to prioritize our lives, and have a tendency to say “yes” to requests and not mean it. “Think of it as a madness loop — a vicious cycle. We react to what's in front of us, whether it truly matters or not. More than ever, we're prisoners of the urgent…Truth be told, there's also an adrenaline rush in saying yes. Many of us have become addicted, unwittingly, to the speed of our lives — the adrenalin high of constant busyness. We mistake activity for productivity, more for better, and we ask ourselves "What's next?" far more often than we do "Why this?"

Prioritizing our day’s work and our lives takes time. In the face of all the things we have said yes to, we don’t have time to do that. Every to do becomes “urgent”. Recently, we were contacted by a firm who wanted to set aside a day for time out and have a mini retreat to reflect on their leadership and create a fresh marketing plan for the new year. They had to postpone this as every one of their clients wanted something that was deemed urgent, and they could not take a day off to reflect, nor could they see time available in their first quarter.

Even though they are fully cognizant that their pipeline needs to be filled, they feel trapped by all the “yeses” they have committed to. The other aspect of this is that they cannot see the opportunities that are in front of them, and are apt to easily dismiss the very things that would assure their success. They are out of focus! This firm does have time to follow up on referrals or take on new business, which is absurd because it is the antithesis of their revenue goals.

Getting off the yes wagon begins with setting aside time to reflect on the scope of work for the day. Prioritize on a daily basis. The result will be getting more done in less time, and having time to enjoy your lives. Say “yes” to business and “no” more often to busyness.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Is Customer Service a Luxury?

January 25, 2012

“The greatest danger for a luxury firm is to lose its status as a differentiated, premium brand, but wealthy consumer perceptions suggest that luxury overall may be in danger of losing its cachet,” said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. “This calls for a renewal of efforts to be unique and exclusive and to execute well on customer service.

The most frequently cited qualities that define luxury-superior quality (76%), craftsmanship (65%), and customer service (57%)-are the areas where wealthy consumers are finding the greatest dissatisfaction. More than half (56%) say that craftsmanship of luxury products is on the wane; 51% say that quality is decreasing; 50% notice a slippage in customer service quality and 48% say that luxury products are losing their design value.”

How does this apply to luxury real estate marketing? Real estate as a profession is a service business, real estate agents and brokers are service professionals. As we interview agents across the country for our series 50 Top Luxury Markets in the USA, we find that those who respond immediately to our queries are thriving in their marketplaces and those who want to eclipse the market leaders. They are easy to access, willing to share their insights, passionate about their marketplace, return calls and emails promptly and are a delight to talk to. One of the top market leaders recently interviewed said that you have to be nice to everybody regardless who they are or what their status in life. He returns everyone’s calls personally. As a result his client lists grows and referrals are plentiful.

Many of the agents we interviewed who are market leaders did not have websites, do not engage in social media, and do not know or care what SEO means or being #1 on Google. They are differentiating themselves on service, manners and excellent communication skills. They knock on doors; they meet people day in and day out. They are relationship oriented. They network face to face. They practice the fundamentals of business. They water plants for their sellers when they are out town. They send handwritten notes, birthday cards, and take their clients out to lunch. Tech is not the priority focus in their success equation and in many cases has been relegated to the back burner.

Luxury by definition implies rarity and exclusivity. Given the results from the Luxury Institute, it is evident that customer service is a key indicator in choosing a brand/service professional. People will remember you for your luxurious service. In our practice as branding and marketing strategists, we feel that customer service should take priority, and technology should facilitate customer service.

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50 Top Luxury Real Estate Markets in the USA: Malibu, CA

January 21, 2012

From the outside looking in Malibu has a very high profile due, in part, to the paparazzi and the media shining a spotlight on its glamorous surface. Certainly, it is known as getaway for many Hollywood celebrities and titans of business. The sitcom, Two and a Half Men takes place here. Even some Malibu real estate agents became local celebrities when they were featured on the reality TV show, Million Dollar Listing. But, beneath the surface Malibu has the intrinsic values of a small, rural California coastal beach town with a Mediterranean climate and a close-knit community. This, plus its close proximity to the diverse amenities of Los Angeles and easy access to the entire globe, makes Malibu one of the top 50 luxury real estate markets in the world.

Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Luxury on a Dime!

January 19, 2012

In our home town of Santa Barbara, California we are extremely fortunate to be able to shop year-round at outdoor farmers’ markets five days a week (except for relatively few rainy days). It is one of the many amenities that contribute to the quality of life here. To participate, all of the farmers’ produce must be certified organic.

In our local supermarkets and specialty markets like our favorite, Trader Joe’s, you usually have a choice between organic and non organic produce. Organic is usually more expensive. Given the price differential, you could say that organic produce is a luxury. In fact, understanding the buying decision between these two options in produce can shed some light on the very meaning of luxury, itself.

Here is how the USDA (Department of Agriculture) defines ‘organic’.

Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods. These methods integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used.

Many studies have demonstrated that organic is simply better for your health. This could be a justification to spend more on organic produce. Many say that the peace of mind alone is worth it, even if they are not certain that organic produce is actually healthier. The price of illness far outweighs the price differential between the two choices.

Bananas are rarely grown by local farmers. Most bananas are grown in Central American and South America. Therefore, for us, Trader Joe’s is where we purchase bananas. We like to buy them partially green so that they do not get over-ripe before we are ready to eat them. But, up until recently, we purchased, non-organic bananas without thinking much about the difference. That is because bananas supposedly are resistant to pesticides due to their thick skin.

Recently, we could not find partially green bananas in the non-organic stand, so we bought organic as a matter of convenience. Then, we had a big surprise! The organic bananas taste remarkably better. The flavor was more pronounced and so was the aroma.

Now, we only buy organic bananas. For 10 cents extra, the taste is worth it and in the long run, organic bananas are probably healthier. What was interesting here is the decision making process that shed some light on the price differential that made organic banana a luxury. Health, peace of mind, convenience and finally taste, these are some of the “quality cues” and the values that comprise the luxury mindset and justify a higher price point. Now, that is luxury on a dime!

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50 Top Luxury Real Estate Markets in the USA: Carmel, CA

January 18, 2012

Actor-director Clint Eastwood once was the mayor of Carmel. Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, two of the most innovative and influential 20th century American photographers lived here. Each of these men are considered true masters in their own right and faithfully represent the rich artistic history that is at the core of Carmel-by the Sea, the center point of California’s North Central Coast.

Over the years, the natural beauty of the area has inspired poets, writers, painters, and architects alike. Mike Canning, who represents Carmel's legendary Butterfly House, says, “It is one of only 5 true oceanfront properties in Carmel. The home, designed by Frank Wynkoop, is anchored directly into the rocky shoreline and has panoramic views from Point Lobos to Pebble Beach. Captivating Carmel residents and tourists for decades, this oceanfront architectural landmark exceeds unique”.

Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Serving the Ready Minded Consumer

January 18, 2012

In our previous post, we discussed ease of use for the consumers as one of the important keys to enhance your web site. Once the ready minded consumer contacts you, what is your response time? Availability and response time go hand in hand. If both are not in harmony, the consumer will go on to another site. According to Gary Beerman, vice president of Alert Site, “The Industry standard is that a brand’s website has to load within four seconds, or the probability that the consumers will leave the page is quite high.”

If the response time is more than 5 minutes, the probability that the consumer will leave the site and go to a competitor’s site is also high. According to a survey generated by Lead Response Management.org

When a lead is contacted in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes, it will produce a significant increase in qualified leads that have the potential of closing.

The best time to call to qualify a lead is mid to late morning (not before lunch) and late afternoon (4-5PM is best 5PM-6PM is OK). The best days to follow up/qualify are on Wednesday and Thursday. The worst days are Monday and Tuesday. Friday is good to make contact, but not to qualify.

It is a good idea on your web contact form to have a form which asks the prospect their communication preference, i.e., email, text, or phone. Asking that question ensures the beginning of a fruitful relationship.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: The Evolution of Web Sites & the Consumers Who Use Them

January 17, 2012

As a luxury real estate marketing professional, it is important to continue to meet the current needs of potential clients on your web site. Luxury real estate sites need to evolve as consumers become more web-savvy, clearer about what they are looking for and more time-starved.

Consumers now expect to instantly find what they came for and also be able to control the speed at which they consume the information they find. “Flash” sites and rich media sites are a thing of the past. They can be a turn-off or a distraction for the “ready-minded” person.

For example, watching a slide show or a video about a particular listing presents the information at the speed you set which is not necessarily their speed. A slide show with thumbnails that they can click on, touch to view (on a touch screen) or hover-over at their own pace is now preferred.

Luxury real estate websites should be easy to navigate and facilitate immediate access to information in a self-serve environment. The MLS can be viewed from a multitude of sites. Property search is a commodity and it is free. The days of having someone register to view properties are over unless you offer an extraordinary promise of value that cannot be found on your competitors’ sites.

Less is more! Pare down unnecessary information. Luxury buyers do not want to access properties in all the neighborhoods in a given marketplace. They most likely are interested in the luxury areas only. Therefore, augment custom search functionality with pre-set search queries based on anticipated criteria, such as property type, location, and price range. This offers them the luxury of time and makes it easy to get what they want which is an added value.

Less is more in design as well. Keep it simple and elegant. Think of website design as a map to guide your viewer’s eyes to what they want to see. Your sellers want to see their properties displayed elegantly. Your buyers want to see your listings as well as the rest of the relevant inventory in your marketplace. Present the canned information (schools, demographics, etc) stylishly. Do not take the easy way out and just give them a links to other sites.

Today’s luxury real estate consumer expects to find original content in addition to commoditized information that most likely can be found on all of your competitor’s websites. Blogs offer the vehicle to present original information from the author’s point of view. Yet, very, very few luxury real estate marketing professionals properly maximize this opportunity to connect with web-savvy consumers. If you offer truly original content, consumers will actually slow down and take the time to appreciate your unique slant because doing so is a luxury.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: The New Frontier/Original Content Marketing

January 15, 2012

Another leading trend in the affluent sector that impacts luxury real estate marketing is the growing technology IQ of the affluent consumer. The affluent consumer has become tech savvy, and understands the value of the internet as a source of original knowledge and up to date information.

One of the most effective ways of marketing yourself on line as a luxury real estate marketing professional is to blog. The old paradigm for blogging was to write posts that are laden with keywords interspersed with some relevant content, all for the purpose of extracting “Google Juice”. It also encouraged reposting the same post and changing a few words here and there. This type of blog (beloved by the Google robots) could definitely get that for you and may even catapult you to the coveted #1 position. It will not build an audience of raving fans, which is the primary purpose of blogging. In fact it is a turn off, and it works against you. No one wants to be treated like a robot.

What today’s luxury consumer is looking for in blog posts is consistent, original valuable information, making them savvier about your marketplace. They are looking for “insiders” insights, the newest and latest information. A post that reviews a book written by a local resident as well as an invitation to a reading by the author would be an example of content marketing (pull marketing). This type of engagement creates subscribers, grows audiences, referrals and a call to you from a potential buyer/seller.

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Redefining Luxury in 2012

January 12, 2012

One of the leading trends in the affluent sector that impacts luxury real estate marketing is the change in how the affluent define luxury. The affluent are becoming “value masters”, the new badge of smart consumers. The annual Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluent Survey (by Ad Age) is a nationally representative behavioral study of more than 14,000 adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual household income.

Value Matters
89% responded “When I decide to purchase a luxury item, I go out of my way to find the best price possible.”
60% responded “Even though the recession is 'officially' over, I am still spending money much more cautiously than I used to.”

Quality
78% responded "When it comes to quality, I believe you get what you pay for."
18% responded "I tend to buy based on price, not quality."

Online
68% responded "When I go shopping online, I usually know exactly what I want to buy."
64% responded "I regularly read online reviews of products before making an online purchase."

Offline
63% responded "When I go shopping in a retail store, I usually know exactly what I want to buy."
47% responded "I regularly read online reviews of products before making a purchase in a retail store."

In buying a luxury home whether as a primary or secondary residence, the new affluent buyer is researching the market place. With value as the objective rather than the old paradigm of “being able to afford anything I want”, the premium of perceived value (i.e., buying on the “right” street or the “right” neighborhood) does not have the same importance as it once did. They are also willing to wait for price reductions. Given the new shift in psycho graphics in the affluent marketplace, how will you adapt as a luxury real estate marketing professional?

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing: The Difference between a Trademark and a “Trustmark”

January 11, 2012

From a branding standpoint, there is a huge difference between a trademark and a “Trustmark”. If market leadership is your quest, this distinction is of paramount importance.

Trust is the expectation that promises will be kept. Trust is earned by the demonstration of kept promises. In the context of market leadership trust is the consistent delivery of an extraordinary promise of value that results in achieving top-of-mind status in a given product or service category (or a niche within a category).

Obtaining a trademark is relatively easy. But, it takes the constant, steady, unswerving delivery of your unique value proposition to build a dependable, reliable name for yourself or your company, a brand that your target market can trust over time. Only when your reputation becomes highly regarded on a consistent basis does your trademark transform into a “Trustmark”.

In the realm of luxury brands there is a full spectrum of highly regarded Trustmarks that range in categories from small indulgences to extravagant products and services. See’s Candies, an example of a small indulgence, is a market leading company that has consistently earned the trust of millions of people for over 90 years. Every time you purchase candy at See’s you get a free sample and the quality is always a constant.

Hermès has been a trusted name in high-fashion, perfume and lifestyle accessories since 1837 and enjoys an impeccable reputation for standing behind their products. A young woman recently brought in a saddle to a local Hermès store that needed its stitching repaired. Although, the saddle was purchased decades ago by her grandmother, Hermès repaired it at no charge. Stories like this one exemplify the level of legendary service that can always be expected at Hermès. And, that is what makes the difference between a trademark and a Trustmark.

As a luxury real estate marketing professional in pursuit of gaining or sustaining market leadership, building a personal or company brand that becomes a Trustmark vs. a trademark should be one of your primary goals. How can you develop a reputation for legendary service and consistently deliver on your extraordinary promise of value?

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50 Top Luxury Real Estate Markets in the USA: Aspen, Colorado

January 9, 2012

Aspen, Colorado has long been considered a world class ski resort that attracts wealthy and famous visitors who seek the Rocky Mountain high life. Yet, the Aspen lifestyle, as described by locals, evokes a deeper, richer story, a story centered on a very strong sense of community that began in the late 1800’s when it was known as the most productive silver-mining district in the United States.

Today Aspen has evolved into a “learning community” and a cultural mecca. It is a place to fill the senses, to commune with nature, to exercise your body and to give your brain cells a workout as well. According to Brian Hazen, “Aspen is a community that has the amenities of a world class resort. It is not a resort that is seeking to be a community”.

Luxury Real Estate Marketing: Creating Customers for Life

January 5, 2012

A consumer’s first impression of a company or luxury real estate marketing professional is of paramount importance. If you manage to make an indelible positive first impression, your next challenge is to be consistent with every subsequent encounter over time. That is if you want to have a customer for life. Here are a couple examples that illustrate this point.

Recently, we needed to get in touch with the manager of a branch office of one of the major luxury real estate brands in the USA, in a very high profile (and competitive) marketplace. But, we did not know the manager’s name. We placed a call to the office and encountered a voicemail that had one option: “If you now the extension of the person you are trying to reach, you may dial it now. For the company directory, press #”.

Since we did not even know the name of the manager, we intuited pressing “O” and got another recording. This time we were prompted to leave a message with the promise of a returned phone call. However, we had to wait and listen to a lengthy message before we heard the sound of the “beep”. We had to endure several completely irrelevant questions to the purpose of our call, like, “if you need our address, the address is …” Does this sound familiar?

What if we were consumers who were contemplating giving the listing of our $5 million dollar estate to an agent in this office, and we wanted to ask the manager which agent would be most appropriate for our needs? In a matter of 90 seconds of our life that were utterly wasted on this call, that company would be crossed off our list. That recording would have cost that company potentially $250,000 (with a 5% commission)!

On the complete other end of the spectrum we recently had lunch our favorite Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, California that made a lasting first impression over 27years ago, and has been impeccably consistent at making remarkable impressions each and every time we return there. Il Forno has fabulous food, outstanding service and a wonderful wine cellar. If feels like “coming home” to our extended family when we dine there.

Il Forno was founded by Joseph Suceveanu in 1985. The Chef, Domenico Salvatore has also been a part of Il Forno since the same year. In addition to Santa Monica, Il Forno can also be found in three different locations in Japan: two in Tokyo, and one in Fukuoka. When they opened in Japan, Il Forno was immediately considered to be one of the top Italian restaurants in the country.

Great first impressions need to be made upon first encounters. But, every single subsequent encounter must be great to create a customer for life.

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Personal & Company Branding: The Benefits of a Single-Word Brand Name

December 26, 2011

Choosing the right name for your personal or company brand can help you achieve a strong competitive advantage. One brand strategy that can help you to reach top-of-mind status in your marketplace, as a luxury real estate marketing professional, is to distill your brand identity to a single word.

Many celebrities have been successful at doing this, including Oprah, Cher, Madonna, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Daughtry, and of course, the Donald. We are not suggesting that you must change your name or the name of your company to a single word. But, the one-name brand reveals three important branding principles that are definitely worth understanding and applying.

SHORT NAMES ARE EASIER TO REMEMBER: A one-name brand makes it very easy for your target market to remember you. Therefore, when you chose or change your brand name keep this principle in mind: Make it as easy as possible for your target market to remember you after their first encounter with your name.

SINGLE-WORD BRAND NAMES ARE INIMITABLE: Once you stake claim to your single word as your brand name, it makes it difficult for someone else in your marketplace to copy you if they want to stand out

CONVERTING A COMMON NOUN INTO A PROPER NAME COMMANDS INSTANT ATTENTION: If your one-word brand can be converted from a common noun to a proper name it can immediately grab the attention of your target market.

A name like Sting or Seal simply cannot be ignored because it is such a departure from the norm. You hear the name once and it sticks in your mind.

Both Sting and Seal were born in England. Sting’s original name was Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner. Seal was born Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola SamuelIt. Both had the good sense to condense their names to a single syllable. If you can do the same, you could have a distinct competitive advantage in your luxury real estate marketplace.

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