Marketing Property in the Digital Age

Fraser Coast Property Brief Episode 4 explores how property marketing has evolved and what is working in today’s digital landscape. Host Glen Winney is joined by Karla Gieseke from Karla on Brand to unpack the shift from traditional real estate marketing to modern, digital-first strategies.

The episode opens with Glen reflecting on the early days of real estate on the Hervey Bay Esplanade. Success relied on shopfront window displays and foot traffic, with agents spending their days driving buyers from property to property. This sets the contrast for how much the industry has changed, from physical presence to strategic, qualified, and digital-led marketing.

Karla shares her background in branding and marketing, including experience working with businesses to build clear positioning and strong digital presence. The conversation then moves into how marketing has transformed over the past 25 years, with online platforms replacing traditional methods and changing how buyers discover and engage with property.

A key focus is how buyers behave today. Property searches now start online, with digital platforms and property portals playing a central role. Social media is also a major influence, with platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok shaping how properties and brands are presented and discovered.

The episode explores generational differences in buyer behaviour, highlighting how different age groups consume content, choose platforms, and respond to messaging. Understanding these differences is essential for effective marketing.

Karla also breaks down the role of AI in modern marketing. From content creation to data insights, AI is changing how marketing is executed and scaled. The discussion looks at what is possible now and where this technology is heading over the next five years.

Authenticity is another key theme. As content becomes easier to create, trust becomes more important. The episode discusses how to balance polished marketing with genuine, credible communication that connects with buyers.

There is also a comparison between marketing in major cities and regional areas like the Fraser Coast. While regional markets may adopt trends at a different pace, the fundamentals of strong branding and clear messaging remain the same.

Looking ahead, the episode outlines the marketing trends likely to shape the property industry, along with the tactics that are becoming less effective. It closes with a clear focus on what agents and developers need to prioritise to stay competitive.

This episode gives you a practical view of how property marketing works today, and what you need to focus on to stand out, connect with buyers, and drive results in a digital-first market.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Fraser Coast Property Brief, the podcast where property, development, and business leaders share what's really happening across the Fraser Coast. Each episode brings you insights into local projects, market friends, and the people helping shape the future of our region. Welcome to the Fraser Coast Property Brief, episode four. Today we're talking all things marketing. So we're talking about marketing property in the digital age with Carla Gisica, also known as Carla on Brand, on Instagram, if you want to check her out. So today we're going to explore how marketing in the property industry has evolved, especially over the last 25 years. Well, I've been in this industry here in Harvey Bay for probably over 30 years, but let's talk about the last 20 odd years and what's really changed. So Carla's got to provide us some insights on branding, social media, the generational buyer differences and how they find property and also the impact of AI going forward. So I just want to, before I introduce Carl properly, I just want to go back with my 25 odd years when I started in the 1990s. Um we were selling completely different way. If you didn't have a shop front in Harvey Bay on the Esplanade, you just weren't in the game. So everybody had to have a shop front. They used to have all their window displays or manual cards put up in there and regularly changed if there's any deviation in the property. Back in the days, we chickly used to call the buyers ice cream liquors because they'd be on holidays, they'd walk up, they'd go to the ice cream shop, they walk up and down the esplanade, check out all the agencies with their ice cream, and for some of the more inexperienced agencies, they'd turn into taxi drivers because they'd take tourists around, look about 10 properties, and then once the emphora of the holiday goes over, they didn't buy. So that was the old-fashioned marketing, it wasn't very effective. Back in 2000, I decided to go against the market trend. So I set up Century 21 Project Marketing Queensland, which was a specialist off-the-plan marketing company, and I decided to go to Boat Harbor Drive rather than the Esplanade because I didn't want unqualified people coming in there. We we focused more on the property, we focus more on the estates, and we used to bring the buyers to us that were very much qualified. So let's talk about how it's changed. But let's first of all let's talk to Carla. No one is Carla on Brand. Welcome, Carla. Thanks, Glenn. So give us a little bit of background about you for a start. Um, you've come from South Africa via London and ended up in Harvey Bay. Give us a bit of a backstory on your experience.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, so I've been uh working in branded marketing for almost 15 years now. I've my journey started in South Africa, moved to the Channel Islands, then ended up working in London for a good eight, nine years, and then we've moved to Australia, uh, Harvey Bay, so of all places. So I've been I've been quite around the block, if you want to call it that way. I've seen a lot of different things, different countries, and and how they approach branded marketing.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, and you've done a lot more industries rather than just um property, but I would say whatever's changed in marketing relates to just about every industry in the market. 100%, yes. So what's some of the key things? We'll get we'll dive into the individual things, but what's some of the key things that you've seen as a major generational stiff shift in the last 15 to 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, I mean, what has not changed in the last 15 to 20 years? I think one of the biggest things that's changed, specifically in the property um marketing um era, is that all about how people are searching. So I remember when I just started 15 years ago, um, we used to do like 1.2 million um letterbox drops um in every part of London. And it was this big stress designing it and getting it out. And that's sort of how people reached their clients. You know, you would do letterbox dropses, you would do the window displays, like you said, a lot of physical things. But with the rise of Google and the way that we search, it's become a lot more like online. So you have your domains, your real estate or comms, things like that. But then it's even evolved even more, it's evolved into social media because that's where clients are. People are on Facebook, people are on Instagram, that's where they want to be may. And with the raise of I, it's uh it's even gonna change even more. What that looks like, we don't know, but it's definitely shifted from physical appearance to completely digital and showing up where people are already showing up online.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

All right, so let's delve into some of those topics. I'm showing my age here, but uh when we first got in it, if you weren't in the yellow pages and had a physical listing, um, you were in trouble. You were buggered for a year, basically, you missed out your market opportunity for a whole year. You couldn't fix it up the next day online. Um there used to be an ad for anybody that's probably over the 50s on the yellow pages and saying not happy Jan because she didn't put the ad in the yellow pages, and that buggered up her marketing for 12 months. So we've gone from that, we've gone to producing TV ads where you know you run them for months, things to a really instant age where you can change your marketing overnight. So let's let's delve into the digital side first. We'll leave social media a second, but just how's it changed digitally? Um, you know, where people search and how they actually find property?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

So I think originally when we moved away from the sort of physical postcards to to the web, it was very much like your name was your brand. So instead of going, I want a three-bedroom house in this area, you would go to the estate agent that you know and go browse on their website. From there, it's moved into places like um domain and um REA and all of that, that already takes all of that info and brings it together to serve the client. So it's really changed the way we search, and I think that's what's really key about it is the biggest change that's happened is the way we search for what we want.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yep. Like I've I've noticed in in myself, I've had two franchise businesses in the past, and like you said, if you you were in a strong franchise and their website was the most powerful thing they had. So being part of a franchise, you were known. Um, I've really seen over the last five or so years that it's nearly irrelevant, the franchise name or their website, and it's either realestate.com or it was domain.com. Um, and the whole population seems to be trained just to go into those two websites for a start. So, how does that disrupt it, you know, how real estates work?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Well, I think it's disrupted the brand part of it because originally you need to really have that established brand, like you say, like either buy into a franchise or establish that brand name yourself. Where now the brand has shifted more to the actual person, the seller. So once you find what you what it is that you want, it's like then questioning whether that person, the seller, is trustworthy, whether you know, are they just selling to you or they're not? And it's shifted the brand more to the actual person, the personal brand, then the bigger brand, the brand name, if you want to call it that.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

So, how are people searching? Are they they're searching by area, are they searching by a property type, or you know, how how do they fine-tune that massive information out there and get to your agency? Um you know, is it just price suburb? What is it that they really start searching for online?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I think it really depends on who's searching and how they're searching. I I guess the the the beautiful thing about like REA and domain and all of that is that it gives you all of those filters. The problem is what if you're looking for something that's not within those filters? What if what if that's evolving? And I personally think that's exactly what is evolving, which is why things like social media plays a bigger role, you know, it looks at your algorithm and then it will directly target you. So it's almost like the internet as a whole, whether you're browsing, searching, on domain, whatever, it takes your needs and it will serve you what it is that you're looking through via advertising.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah. So from a agent's point of view or whatever business you're in, how do you get up that ranking, especially on on web searches and Google, the old fashioned work? How do you how do you lift your business up on those rankings?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Well, that's a good question because places like Oriane Domain will always have more money. Yep. Um, and it's basically through pay-per-click, SEO, um, and what you're trying to do is you're trying to build your website authority by showing that you know you are important, um, and then the algorithm will push you up. But you can also just pay for that, which is you know brings in a whole other aspect of what is ethical, what is real, what is fake, who's really the best, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

So for our non-tech listeners, what's an SEO and what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Uh SEO, it's called search engine optimization. And is essentially it's making sure that when someone is Googling something specific, Google wants to match it with the website that's going to give the search the best result. So if the person searching uses specific key terms, having that on your website allows Google to go, okay, this is the best match. Um it's a lot more nuanced and complicated like that, but that's essentially what it is.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yep. So let's get on to our more recent digital shift, and there's another one after that, which is AI, but social media. So start off great, don't know how many years ago now Facebook came on, everybody was on Facebook. Uh Facebook's a mix now of toxic content, um, unregulated, and some good content. So, with especially in the property industry, if you're trying to get your property through whether it's Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, um, YouTube or something, how is social media evolving? Um, tell us the good parts and the bad parts about it.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

So, social media is is great if it's used correctly. Um and initially when social media surfaced, it was amazing because people were on board, um, uh the advertising on it was amazing, but what we've seen is as it's aged, uh you have more demographic joining it, where originally it was quite like a young hip thing to do. Now everyone's on Facebook. Um and what I've seen specifically was really interesting for me in the Fraser Coast is how Facebook is almost used like it is LinkedIn or an opinion platform, or it's very interesting because in South Africa, in England and the Channel Islands, Facebook was not used in in such a way where the in the Fraser Coast there's there is a very toxic culture online where people sort of have an opinion about everything and feel the need to share it. And that's exactly the issue is that anyone has an opinion and can share it. So there is a shift away from it. Um, personal branding is still very important, but you sort of don't want to give too much away personally on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah. So give me a little bit of a breakup on demographic, on aging, because you know, I see Facebook as getting to the older generation. So if you talked about Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and that what sort of age brackets do each one of those attract the most?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So at the moment, Facebook is your oldest demographic demographic. Um I can't remember the exact fact, but I think it's like there's more 55 plus year olds on it than there is younger than that. Um Instagram is aging, but Instagram is still very trustworthy. Um, it's very much trusted by your sort of 30 plus age group. TikTok is your younger, your younger generation, 18 plus, but is moving into the 30 plus space and older. And LinkedIn is a completely different ballgame. LinkedIn is much more about being a professional and what you have to offer, advice, um, guidance, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

What about YouTube? Where's that setting in amongst it?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Oh, YouTube is is a tricky one because YouTube can be embedded in so many things. Um YouTube is becoming quite interesting because it's as much as we use the word social media, YouTube has become more like interest media. So it's like you follow someone because it's got a specific interest onto that.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

So I've heard just recently that YouTube overtook Netflix for revenue over the last week. It's the biggest revenue um place on basically on any sort of uh social media. So there being your traditional social media segments, and you know, how do you actually get your way through all that murk, especially in the Facebook and that, if you're a brand or a real estate or whatever it is, and actually get your name out there or get your business or your product you're trying to sell without getting caught up with that negativity? What sort is it sponsored ads or is it comment? Is it, you know, what's the best form to use those medias?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

So I think the biggest mistake I see is people go, okay, we need to show up on social media, and they just go and show up on all of it. They just post content without thinking, and usually it's just stuff from ChatGPT that's on it. Um, and I think that's exactly the problem is you what you should rather ask yourself is who am I trying to connect with and where are those people having conversations? So it might be that it is Facebook for you, but it might be that you should rather start a YouTube channel, it could be that you should start rather do podcasts, it could be that you should rather just spend all your money in paid advertising to make sure that you are actually meeting the people you want to be talking to instead of just showing up.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, showing up worked about five, six years ago, but it's it's not so it's actually targeting your putting in demographic profiles, their interests, and all those things and making it more Pacific.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah, and like knowing your customer, like all right.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

So we're topical today, podcasts. Um, it's a new trend, it's becoming very big. Um, you're getting a lot of uh uh radio stars and TV personalities moving into podcasts. Why is the trend heading towards podcasts at the moment as uh information?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I think to two or three things play a big role in it. The one is people are time poor and sitting and scrolling takes time where you can plug in a podcast and you can go for a walk. You can plug in a podcast, you can do some work. It's a it's an on the go, easy, digestible format. So it doesn't necessarily take away your time, where Doom Scrolling does on your social media platforms.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

I like that too.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

The second thing I think is authenticity. I think people really want to connect with people, and yes, you do get AI podcasts and all of that, but a lot of a lot of what we consume currently on social media is just fake AI generated or people using ART generated. People want to actually hear from people, people want to feel that connection. Um, and I think the third thing is trust that comes with that connection, is people want to be able to trust the information that they are getting.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yep, and it and it seems to be the next step. We've we've been trained for the last two or three years not to go and watch TV when the TV tells you to watch it, but you just on demand, Netflix, um, Prime, and all those have taken over that thing. Podcasts, that same sort of thing. You don't want to, when you're driving around or doing stuff, listen to the radio and let them pick what you want to hear. You've got the opportunity, so I want to hear that now, and that's the big difference I see at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

It's like it's like they say, like we're moving away from social media and we're going into interest media. It's like if you're interested and that person's going to give you that content, you're gonna binge it.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yep, yep. That's that's a good point. So, generational differences, somebody around there 60-year-old and somebody that's 25-year-old, they're two very different consumers. So, how does a business you know try and get to both that ends of the scale, or is it two completely separate marketing solutions they do within the business? It's a tricky one, no. So if it's just use property, for example, if you know if I'm trying to sell a house or a block of land, um, the person that's 25 is not going to be looking at the same content as the 60-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

No, and they probably also don't have the same buying power. So you are put you're probably looking at two separate campaigns. Yeah, um, I would say like direct advertising, like your meta ads and all of that, is a great way to do that because you can do one campaign, two different audiences, same message, but tailored to your audience.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Right. And um, you know, what what how do you think they're consuming it um visually or listening, or you know, what's what's the biggest way in a very busy world, especially, you know, if you're young mum with family, things like that, like yourself, you probably don't have time to sit down and watch the TV or anything like that. So what's the best way for you to consume information?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So uh first of all, like the people that I follow, um, that's something that's big for me. I make sure that who I follow I actually want to hear from. Yeah, um, and the second way that I I find is I listen to a lot of podcasts because I don't have time, but I can plug it in, I can do the dishes, I can plug it in, I can do all of that. So for me, it's I like to consume content that's like on the go. Even if I'm like searching for something, I will always go give me a short video about it.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

So really short, on the go, easy to digest content.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

You want the executive summary.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Well, I'm on the same, you know, I I drive to work or whatever else, and you know, I'll listen to uh podcast called Fear and Greed in the morning, which is a couple of economists talking about the market, what's happened the last 24 hours. So it's very relevant. I've got an up-to-date snapshot of what's going on or what's happened the last 24 hours, and they do a four-minute one going home in the afternoon and tells you five big stories a day. So that's awesome. I I love it, so I really consume it. So let's talk about the future now. AI is the big topic. Um, how's AI going to play a role in marketing today and in the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, I mean, it's it's played such a role already, but one of the biggest things that AI has brought into marketing is that it can do a lot of things for you very quickly that you used to hire people for. It can uh copyright for you, it can create images, it can um summarize stuff, it can give you uh marketing ideas, it can do all of these things. It's it's insane. Um, I think the biggest shift that we're already seeing, and it's going to play out quite a lot in the next year, I I think even less, is coming down to two things. How is advertising going to work with AI? In other words, currently when we Google, we will get ads like PayPal Click or on the sidebar. If we're starting to use AI to shop, to do our research, to be our agent, what is advertising within that going to look like? Which is a very interesting question.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

So you think advertising will start getting into Chat GPT and the other ones and they'll pop up through the content?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Because already we're not really using Google anymore, we're Googling through AI. And then the question is, well, how does advertising play a role into that? So that's a really interesting aspect of it. And the other aspect is like the automation that AI will be able to do things that any routine job can do. So the question will be what's going to happen to those jobs and how are you going to use it?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Um so marketing could be one of the big industries affected by AI. They could also take advantage of it, but you know, there is the more mundane roles that will be taken away or become so much more efficient. Um, you know, I even see it with uh writing content all the time. I I will run it through AI and I'll have the ideas, but it can clean it up for me very quickly. Or do a really good presentation through Copilot or something. So it's uh it's amazing what's happening. So do you think, you know, is there gonna be another major shift in marketing with this? Is there, you know, because you know what what are we actually gonna be looking at within the next five years?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

You know, like the the traditional TV gonna be gone and it's just all computer based through AI or well, I think I think it's quite unknown what AI is going to do, but I think the majority of people don't even understand how deep AI is already running. They're busy chat GPTing images for birthday parties. They are people making billions of dollars using AI to build code and website and making businesses from it. I think one of the biggest things that's going to change from a marketing and brand perspective is that it's gonna come in and completely disrupt everything. The same way you used to have a physical shop and then Google came and it completely disrupted that. That's what's going to happen. I I'm unsure what it means, but I do think two things is for sure. I think Google is gone. Um I think we're done with that. And the second thing is I think is going to bring up a lot of questions around ethics and what is ethical and what is not ethical, which is also going to bring us to wanting more authenticity. So it's the two sides of the same coin.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yep. So Google's gotta be with the yellow pages on the shelf. Um so the ethical question's a big one because um there is so much fake content now and it looks so real. You know, you can take an image of something and do anything. You know, I was just listening to news this morning, uh Val Kilmond at died recently actor. They're just about to launch a movie with him as the main actor, and they're using completely AI to reproduce him for the movie. Obviously with content, but that's that's coming out now. So how how can the consumer for a start um work out what's fake and what's real in the content, you know, especially it's getting pushed out through social media. What is there any tricks to actually try and identify anything at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, there is. Um, when it comes to imagery and video, the one thing you will see is it looks almost too perfect. Like it's just got that edge of it being too perfect, where humans we are actually non-symmetrical if you look at our faces, our bodies, everything, where AI is making everything symmetrical. So you can you can see that it's just slightly too perfect. Um, and the other thing with content is that ChatGPT and other um AI has got a very specific way of writing. But that even said, you can still get away with it. There's a lot of things that you won't even believe is AI, and that's why it's going to come back to that authenticity piece. Like, do I trust the person that I'm getting my information from?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And that and that's the the thing I'm seeing at the moment is trying to get news content. You know, you've got a war in Iran and things like that, and there's so much news content coming through social media, but you know, they're they've got pictures of other countries and they've got fake ships getting sunk and things like that. So people are pushing all that stuff out through social media. So even the traditional news is getting murky in social media. So, how do you know how do you identify that this is a real news channel? Do you just go back to your trusted brands like Channel 7 or CNN or something like that? Yeah, or if you've got all these smaller versions out there, what do you trust?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

That's the thing. That's the question at the moment. Some people are going back to their traditional, you know, sources of information where other people are are digesting the information from a person on social media. So they would go, like, I believe there's this guy in England, he's like a seven fact-checked or something like that, and he's he's basically become a reporter overnight because he's documenting this. This is the biggest question, though, that we are going to have to answer as a society is where's the line?

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, it's nearly becoming a moral question. It is a moral question, yeah. So, you know, because there's there's no regulations out there at the moment what people put out there, and companies like Facebook and that are not stopping the content, and they they're quite open about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

And they're privately owned, so there's no governing body, there's no ethics body.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

There is absolutely no government regulation on AI yet. Um, you know, all the government's done is stop people under 16 going on Facebook. That's about it, but they just go set up a fake account and do it anyway. So uh we're not really dealing with the question, you know, it's that much opportunity out there and it's that many exciting things, but we're not balancing the risk with that. So just before we close, give me what you think the market trends are gonna be in marketing and property over the next you know two to five years, especially with the onset of AI. Where do you think the change is going to be heading?

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Um, I think one of the biggest changes is is virtual styling is becoming quite a big thing. Yep. Um, and that's AI, AI-led. Um, I also think a big change is going to be building that personal brand of people feeling like they want to buy from you, um and investing more in direct advertising. So making sure where your audience is and directly targeting them because social media, TV, even radio is all up in the air right now. So if you're not going direct, you I think you're going to miss the mark.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Alright, so when you say direct, it might be sponsoring a podcast that's you know focused on a certain demographic, or it might be paid ads on social media. What other direct ways can people get best bang for a buck? You know, even the TV channels are now going to online streaming and things like that. So is there is there ways to get into that market?

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, so TV is actually a very interesting one at the moment because it's it's in streaming advertising at the moment, but they are rapidly developing their offering with with AI and all of that to be able to target people in certain regions even with advertising. So within the next couple of months, I think you'll be able to go. I want to advertise X, Y, and Z in the Fraser Coast at these hours, and you'll be able to do that. I think that's like 18 to two years away.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Very exciting time ahead. So we might wrap it up there, and I really want to thank Carla, also known as Carla on Brand. So check out our Instagram if you're young enough to be on Instagram. Um, but yeah, so it it's great to get an insight. Um I want to bring you back for more podcasts, Carla, and we'll we there's plenty of other topics to talk about. We might delve into some of these, so please stay tuned, watch our next episode, and click the like button or follow us to um keep in tune with what's going on on Frasco's property brief. Thank you very much.