Here’s how to lose friends and de-influence people like a pro!
Marketing. It’s the lifeblood of your business. The thing that drives growth and sustainability. That opens doors and gets people excited about your brand. You’ve heard it all before.
Let’s do a little experiment and flip the script. Let’s talk about what not to do. Because for every smart, calculated marketing move, there’s a face-palm-worthy mistake just waiting to make you the laughingstock of your industry. Here’s your ultimate “anti-playbook.”
Talk About Yourself. A Lot.
If you want to repel people faster than a timeshare pitch at a free lunch, make every marketing message about you, your business, and your endless greatness. Nobody cares. Seriously. Marketing isn’t a spotlight; it’s a mirror. Reflect your audience’s needs, desires, and pain points—or risk them tuning you out. In real estate investing, this means instead of droning on about your personal success stories, try showing how you can help investors overcome challenges like property depreciation, finding quality tenants, or navigating tricky 1031 exchanges.
Ignore Your Audience’s Pain Points
Speaking of your audience, let’s not address their struggles or frustrations. Why bother showing empathy or offering solutions when you could just spew features and specs? If your pitch reads like a bland property listing, congratulations! You’ve successfully de-influenced your potential clients. Remember, your investors might be worried about things like market volatility, long vacancies, or neighborhood crime rates. Want to make sure they don’t trust you? Shrug off these concerns and talk only about your “extensive portfolio of Class A multifamily assets” without any hint of how you manage these risks.
Use Buzzwords and Corporate Jargon
Do you want to sound like a sentient LinkedIn post? Sprinkle in words like “synergy,” “core competencies,” and “value proposition” liberally. Bonus points if no one can figure out what you’re trying to say. Real estate has its own jargon: “cap rate optimization,” “upside potential,” and “preferred equity structures.” Sure, these terms sound impressive, but they don’t mean much to a new investor who just wants to know how you’ll help them build generational wealth. Real people use real language. Don’t alienate your audience with a lexicon that reads like a real estate finance thesis.
Be Inconsistent
Post on your social media once a month—and then five times in a single day. Skip updating your blog for half a year and then drop a novel-length post out of nowhere. Nothing screams “untrustworthy brand” like a chaotic content schedule. Consistency builds credibility. So, yes, this is exactly what not to do. In real estate investing, a lack of consistency can make people question how reliable you are when it comes to things like rental income distributions or timely project updates.
Oversell the Dream
We’ve all seen the ads: “Make six figures a month with no work!” or “Turn every investment into pure gold!” Overselling real estate investments is a great way to set yourself up for failure. The market has its ups and downs, and nothing is guaranteed. Investors are smarter than you think. If your marketing sounds like it’s ripped from a late-night infomercial, expect to be called out. Transparency wins, but overselling leads to disillusioned clients who won’t hesitate to tell everyone about their disappointment.
Spam Your Audience
Want to make people reflexively hit the unsubscribe button? Send constant, meaningless emails. Or better yet, DM them relentlessly on social media. Spam isn’t just annoying—it’s the fast track to getting blocked and blacklisted. If every communication is a hard sell about your latest apartment syndication or off-market deal, you’re missing the chance to share valuable insights about the market or investment strategies that could engage your audience.
Neglect Mobile Users
We’re living in 2025, where everyone is glued to their phones. So, make sure your website is desktop-only. Let mobile users pinch, zoom, and get so frustrated they abandon your site in seconds. This is a fantastic way to ensure your marketing efforts reach as few people as possible. In real estate, where time is money, a clunky mobile experience can mean the difference between closing a deal and losing a potential investor.
Forget About SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is for try-hards. Who needs organic search traffic when you can keep throwing money at ads? Don’t waste time on keywords, meta descriptions, or backlinks. Stay invisible in Google searches, and you’ll be the best-kept secret of your industry. But if you want investors to find your thought-leadership content or learn about your investment opportunities, ignoring SEO is like leaving money on the table.
Avoid Engagement
Why respond to comments or engage with your followers? It’s much easier to let your posts be a one-way street. Who has time to show appreciation or foster a community, anyway? Oh, wait—that’s how you build loyalty and brand advocates. Real estate is all about relationships. Ignoring engagement opportunities makes your brand look detached and uninterested in its community.
Keep Everything a Hard Sell
If your audience can’t go five seconds without feeling like you’re reaching into their wallets, you’ve nailed it. Focus solely on making sales and skip out on adding value. Who needs educational content, market trend analysis, or investment tips? Just push those opportunities like there’s no tomorrow. But if you want to retain and engage investors, a softer, value-driven approach will do you better.
Ignore Data and Analytics
Gut feelings are great and all, but ignoring data is a surefire way to waste money. Metrics and analytics might show what’s working and what’s not, but who wants to be held accountable? Don’t measure your success—just keep throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks. For real estate, this means ignoring data about property performance, audience engagement, or marketing ROI. It’s only your investors’ money at stake, after all.
Burn Out Your Team
Got a marketing team? Perfect. Push them to work around the clock, but give them no clear goals, tools, or appreciation. Exhausted, uninspired marketers produce uninspired content. But, hey, who needs creativity and energy in a field that thrives on both?
There you have it—the anti-guide to marketing. Follow these principles, and you’ll alienate, frustrate, and repel your audience like a pro. Or, you know, do the opposite. Effective marketing is about connection, consistency, and adding value. It’s about understanding your audience and delivering what they need in a way that feels authentic.
But if you’re aiming to make headlines for all the wrong reasons, now you know exactly what to do.
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