Hi Everyone,

Oftentimes I receive messages like that “I do not need any marketing, just send me a buyer for my property and I will pay you a huge commission”. Well, definitely, those real estate sellers or agents are newbies to the field and haven’t learned yet that marketing produces potential buyers and eventually one of them would become an actual buyer. And there are so many people trying to sell their properties without proper knowledge of the process (and failing because of that), thus let’s talk again about difference and interconnection between Marketing and Selling.

Plenty of articles on the topic can be found on the internet and here are my summarized definitions:

MARKETING is the set of activities aimed at attracting as many potential customers as possible to your product or service.

SELLING is the set of activities aimed at closing a deal with a single prospect.

In terms of international real estate sales and foreign/Russian buyers:

MARKETING involves advertising your properties to potential target buying groups in foreign languages, presenting properties at foreign real estate exhibitions, etc. - in general, spreading the word around that you have those properties for sale (important: let the foreign real estate agents who might be capable of sending you potential buyers, know about your properties for sale!).

SELLING involves convincing an individual foreigner who had shown interest in any of your properties (due to your marketing efforts!) to close the deal and purchase the property (important: take into consideration the language and culture of the prospect!).

Now we can clearly see that marketing and selling real estate to the foreign/Russian buyers never go one without the other: You have to find a prospect by marketing and then turn him into a buyer by using your selling techniques.

Some authors consider “selling” as part of “marketing”, some say the other way around – “marketing” is part of “selling”, but from my point of view they are the consecutive sets of events: First you do marketing to find many potential buyers and then you work with each particular buyer to sell.

Both sets are equally important: Without finding buyers you have nobody to apply your selling techniques to, and without proper selling techniques there is no sense to look for potential buyers, correct?

Thus, marketing and selling always go hand in hand. As in recent internet times almost all real estate foreign buyers come from the internet, let’s consider both activities in online terms in the next newsletter next month.

To your best business success,

Sincerely,