Real estate public relations firm Lion & Orb announced today that it’s launching a new service to help individual agents get media coverage for their listings.
The new service is called PressList and is designed to match properties with media outlets that might want to cover them. Audie Chamberlain, founder of Lion & Orb, explained that the service is meant to be “a turnkey PR solution for agents representing sellers.”
Audie Chamberlain
“There’s just this huge appetite from the media for real estate,” Chamberlain told Inman. “Real estate is on the cover of Us Weekly and People.”
The concept behind the service is that an agent with a particularly interesting listing can turn to Lion & Orb, which will then use its relationships with media outlets to generate news stories about the listing. Chamberlain said the resulting coverage can help sell the property. It can also serve as a powerful marketing tool that the agent may use to win other listings.
Lion & Orb has been doing this kind of media-oriented publicity for years, and in the past has helped generate publicity on high profile homes such as the former estate of weight loss guru Jenny Craig. In the past, however, Lion & Orb catered primarily to brokerages and larger clients.
What makes PressList new, on the other hand, is that it’s geared toward individual agents. The service consequently democratizes what had been a form of publicity that was largely restricted to high-end clients in luxury markets. Chamberlain said that PressList is the first service in the industry to do that.
A screenshot showing a listing that was written up in the Wall Street Journal. Credit: Lion & Orb
PressList is also designed to work with a variety of homes. Of course, expensive and celebrity-connected properties are obvious candidates for media coverage.
But Chamberlain said that his company also recently promoted a listing that sold for less than $1 million. The key, he explained, is finding something interesting — details about the property’s construction, for example, or its relationship to a locally prominent person — then identifying a media outlet that would be interested in that angle.
“It’s always about finding the story,” he said.
In cases where the home doesn’t have a unique story or a viable media-friendly angle, Lion & Orb would decline to take the property on.
An image showing a property that was placed in a story on consumer real estate website Curbed. Credit: Lion & Orb
PressList also comes with virtual tours, which Lion & Orb is offering via a partnership with Toronto-based startup iGuide. The tours are a kind of extra feature that listing agents can host on their websites or distribute as they see fit.
Chamberlain said the feature will be particularly useful right now, with the coronavirus pandemic stopping most in-person tours.
PressList will be available on April 30 in 12 markets including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston and others. Pricing starts at $899 for the most basic option, and has other tiers for more intense and higher-profile campaigns. For more information, visit Lion & Orb’s website.
Chamberlain ultimately said that the new option is a way for agents to get their names and listings in front of the public, and to position themselves as local experts on the market and issues such as the pandemic.
“I think helping more agents get themselves out there is the really exciting thing for us,” he added.
