The New Age of Property Marketing: From Search Media to Interest Media

Gary Vaynerchuk recently said something that stopped me mid-scroll:

“Social media is dead. Interest media is here.”

Annoyingly, he’s right.

Because that one line neatly explains something we have been seeing in property marketing for years.

The feed has changed.

People are no longer only seeing content because they follow someone. They are seeing content because the algorithm believes it matches what they are interested in right now.

And that changes everything. Especially property.

For decades, estate agency marketing was built around one simple idea: Put the property where buyers go looking. Newspapers. Agent windows. Property supplements. Portals.

Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket became the new shop windows. And for a while, they were brilliant.

But portals are now becoming the ‘Yellow Pages’ of property search.

Useful? Yes.

Familiar? Absolutely.

Essential in the way many sellers still believe? Absolutely not.

And we all know what happened to the Yellow Pages. ( Who? )

It didn’t disappear into insignificance because people stopped needing plumbers and electricians. It faded because the way people found them fundamentally changed.

The same shift is happening in property right now.

The old model was search. The new model is interest.

A portal is passive.

A buyer already knows they want to move. They already know the area. They enter a price range, number of bedrooms and postcode, then scroll through the same list of properties as everyone else.

That still has a place. But it is not the whole game anymore.

Because the right buyer for your home may not be actively ‘searching’ today.

They may be watching coastal renovation videos.

Reading about relocating from the South East.

Looking at interiors.

Researching schools.

Following rural living, architecture, gardens, retirement planning, surfing, walking, wellness, investment or holiday letting content.

They may not have typed “North Devon” into Rightmove. But they are showing interest. And interest is now the signal.

The algorithm often knows before the buyer says it out loud.

Modern platforms are built around behaviour.

What people watch.

What they click.

What they linger on.

What they save.

What they search.

What they come back to.

That means property marketing can now move from passive exposure to active targeting. Not in a clumsy “LOOK AT THIS HOUSE” way that makes everyone want to hurl their phone into a hedge!

In a thoughtful, story-led, specific way. The starting point is no longer just:

“How many bedrooms has it got?”

It is:

“Who is this home really for?”

A family wanting more space but still needing schools and broadband?

A couple leaving the city for a slower coastal life?

A buyer looking for land, income potential, outbuildings, a studio, a workshop or multi-generational living?

Once you know that, you stop marketing a property as a list of rooms and you start marketing it as a possible life.

This is where content-led property marketing wins.

A traditional listing says:

Five bedrooms. Three receptions. Detached. Garden. Parking. Views.

A content-led campaign says:

This is the coastal home for someone who wants the sea nearby without living in a tourist car park.

This is the village-edge house for buyers who want privacy, space and community in the same sentence.

That distinction is important. Because algorithms reward relevance in real time. A listing just sits and waits.

Content moves.

It becomes video.

A carousel.

A long-form SEO article.

A LinkedIn post.

A Facebook advert.

A YouTube campaign.

A Google search campaign.

An Instagram reel.

A telephone conversation. (Remember those!?)

It can reach people who are not just searching for property, but showing signs they are becoming buyers.

It’s shared with partners, liked by friends, commented upon in groups and more.

That’s the opportunity.

Being ‘Buyer Centric’ quietly delivers results.

For the last decade or so, our approach has been built around one central belief:

Every property has a ‘most likely’ buyer.

A cluster of people for whom that home will make more emotional and practical sense than it will for the general market. Our job is to understand them and then build the marketing around them. That means asking better questions.

What problem does this home solve?

What lifestyle does it offer?

What would make someone stop scrolling?

What would make them send it to their partner?

What would make them book a viewing before someone else does?

That is why imagery, video, copywriting, social storytelling and paid distribution cannot be treated as merely decoration.

They are the assets within the strategy.

The photography gets attention.

The video gives context.

The copy gives meaning.

The targeting finds the right audience.

The campaign creates momentum.

And when it works properly, the result is viewings, offers and a sale.

And probably with a better price tag too. In most cases the home has found a buyer that appreciates it and was willing to put their best foot forward to secure it.

The next phase is bigger and better.

We are now moving into the most ambitious version of this approach yet.

Using Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Ads, organic social media, email campaigns, editorial property articles, short-form video, SEO articles, retargeting and our usual buyer avatars, we can reach more active buyers, and more relevant buyers, for each individual home.

Not just anyone. The right people. At the right moment. With the right message.

Portals may still tick a box, and in some cases they still help. But the smart agents are no longer treating them as the centre of the universe.

Because a portal listing on its own is not a strategy.

And sellers deserve more.

Exposure is not the same as marketing.

This is the bit that matters most for frustrated sellers. Your home can be online everywhere and still fail to sell well.

We see it all the time. It is on the portals. It has a brochure. It has been emailed to a database.

It has had a board outside. Technically, it has had “marketing”.

But nothing much happens.

Then everyone blames the market. Sometimes the market is the problem. But often, the issue is alignment.

The price is not enticing to buyers.

The presentation is not strong enough.

The photography is functional but not emotional.

The copy is accurate but lifeless.

The wrong buyer, if any, is being spoken to.

The campaign has no urgency.

In a buyers’ market, discovery is not enough.

You have to create desire.

You have to build confidence.

You have to reach the right people, not just people.

And you have to do it before the listing loses its freshness.

The future belongs to relevance.

The old way was broad.

Get it on the portals. Wait. Hope.

The new way is specific and dynamic.

Build the story.

Define the buyer.

Create the content.

Distribute it intelligently.

Measure the response.

Adjust quickly and constantly.

This matters even more in places like North Devon, where many homes are not simple commodity properties. A coastal village home is not just bedrooms and square footage. A country house with land is not just acreage. A character property is not just a floorplan with fireplaces.

These are emotional purchases. Lifestyle purchases. Identity purchases.

If your marketing does not understand that, it reduces something special into a dull searchable result, amongst pages and pages of other dull searchable results.

That is a waste.

But. The basics still come first.

No amount of clever targeting will save a property that is fundamentally misaligned. If the price is wrong, the market will tell you. If the presentation is poor, buyers will hesitate. If the photography is weak, they will scroll past. If the launch is flat, momentum will be hard to build.

Interest-led marketing is powerful. But it is not magic. The right property, marketed in the right way, can meet buyers where they already are.

Not buried on page four of a portal search…but in the stream of what they already care about.

All the best

Nic Chbat – Director

Need some advice! Call me on 01271 410108 or drop me an email at nic@matchproperty.co.uk . I’ll come straight back to you.

P.S. You can also find our why your sale needs more than Rightmove to sell – FIND OUT HERE