The end of bespoke content writing in estate agency?
It seems as if AI and computer-generated writing are taking the world by storm at the moment, particularly among estate agents. Of course, AI is not a new thing, and computer-generated writing has been around for some time, but it has become very accessible and seems to be a free add-on for many software applications we use daily.
In all honesty, as I saw the use of these applications increase among estate agents, I did wonder for a second if it was time for me to pivot my business model. With agents across the country waxing lyrical in social media groups about how they've used AI to write their most recent blog post, I thought I might be out of a job. Perhaps it's time to consider my skills and pivot my business because AI has taken all my clients?
And I get it. AI writes a blog post for you in mere seconds; it's ideal if you are busy trying to run an estate agency office and you don't have time to sit and write articles for your website when you should be out doing valuations and agreeing sales. I dare say I'd consider using it if I was still working in an agency office again.
But after some research, I've realised I don't need to worry. Whilst AI is great for writing a quick article, it has some major drawbacks.
Lack of emotion and personality: AI will absolutely produce an article about the housing market, preparing your property for sale, or whatever the topic may be. It will even include headings, and sub-headings, breaking the text up so that it's easy for the reader, and it works well for SEO too. But, consider for a moment how the information is gathered - by scouring the internet. AI collects information that it can find online, putting it together for you into an article. Not only that, there is no emotion or personality. Content marketing is a great way to showcase your company voice and your personality, not to mention your expertise. How much expertise are you showing the audience if they could have typed the title of your article into an AI application and found out the answer for themselves?
Corporate b*llocks: Most of the agents I work with are independent and proud of it. They pride themselves on giving a bespoke, personal service, getting to know their clients and having the autonomy to tailor the service to fit their needs. They are driven by service, not figures, and have no board of directors that they need to keep happy. A corporate agency cannot achieve this service level, so independent agents embrace this difference and shout it from the rooftops. Many clients love that the boss, who makes the decisions within the company, works there, in the office, every day. Unfortunately, AI-written blog posts have the distinct whiff of corporate b*llocks - the opposite of what you want if you are a fiercely independent estate agent.
Misses the essence: Moving away from blog posts slightly to look at property descriptions. It is just not possible for AI to capture emotion or tell the story of a property in a description. Of course, you can ask it to write a description of a 3-bed semi, but there will be no magic, no pazazz. It will simply be a paragraph saying that there are 3 bedrooms. What about where the early morning sunlight streams through the window, gently warming the property? What about the perfect spot to enjoy a G&T on a long summer evening? Or the spectacular views that become even more fabulous during those chilly winter months when the trees are bare? These little details make the difference between a factual description of a property and a poetic, romantic description that pulls at the viewers' emotions, resulting in a sale.
Realistically, if the information generated by the AI is scraped from the internet, one article will more than likely sound much the same as the next, wouldn't it?
But there is one main positive about utilising AI to help you in your estate agency.
It removes the issue of the blank page: Writer's block is real, and many of us freeze and have no idea how to get started or what to write when faced with a blank page. But if you have an idea and you type that into an AI application, you can get a first draft. But remember that the AI application is gathering information from the internet, so the words generated will not be original and will certainly not be your ideas.
AI cannot write bespoke original content for you. It will create a first draft, but it's not a catch-all solution to your writing needs. You do have to have an involvement in the process - the initial idea must come from you, and you will need to edit, tweak and amend so that the content has your tone of voice, but if you are in a pinch and you don't know how to start, it is an excellent tool.
As in any industry, cheaper options will always be available for content writing. Just like some homeowners will want to use Strike and sell their home themselves, and some sellers are willing to pay a good fee for an expert agent to help them through the process. Likewise, there will be agents that feel that they can devote the time to writing their own content and using AI to help them, and then there are those agents that will pay for a professional to write bespoke content for them. As such, I am not overly concerned that the robots are coming for my job!
If you want to know how to get expertly written, bespoke content for your estate agency that uses the correct tone for your brand and will appeal to your ideal customer, get in touch.
