In an age of personal branding, intense competition, and lots of potential options for buyers, building a brand as a real estate agent is now more important than ever.
Let’s be honest. Building a strong brand in any industry takes time and commitment. But the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Building a strong real estate brand in any industry takes time and commitment. But the benefits far outweigh the costs.
If you’re not convinced yet, here’s what you need to start thinking about when it comes about real estate branding
1. Nail Down Your Name & Logo
Notice how these big real estate companies use different colors and styles in their branding in order to stand out from the competition.
In addition to a name, you may also want to consider a logo. There are a ton of options out there to getting a logo from hiring a designer, holding a contest, or even trying to design one yourself!
Our service provides a relatively fast option to get a professionally designed logo in minutes. We collaborate with top class designers who upload their work to our site and then we screen all incoming logos with our team of trained professionals. This ensures a high level of quality for all of the logos on our site, made instantly available to business owners. This quick video explains a bit more about what we do at New Glue.
2. Create a custom and strong real estate online presence
Never-mind not being online, if you’re not killing it on the internet then you’re plain and simply getting left behind! Let’s break this point down into two smaller ones, both of which are extremely important for your brand and part of the online marketing set of tools:
- Your website
- Social media
Your Website
According to the 2017 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, over half (51%) of home buyers found the home they purchased on the Internet.
Generate Leads In The Long & Short Terms
Having a strong website creates a foundation for your brand and business and when run effectively, can generate an insane amount of quality leads.
Keep in mind that it can take a lot of time and effort to rank in Google and reap these benefits- but if you’re in it for the long run this can make a huge difference!
SEO (Search engine optimization) is a very detailed subject in and of itself which details the art of how to rank, get traffic, and get plenty of potential buyers coming to you essentially on autopilot. If this all sounds foreign to you, check out this beginners guide to SEO.
In some cases it may be worth teaming up with a digital agency to nail down a killer SEO strategy and help your site rise to the top.
If you’re looking for results in the short term, you can use paid marketing to drive traffic to your website. Targeting specific groups of people and bringing them to specific pages on your site has the potential to yield strong results when well thought out.
Increase Credibility
In addition to lead generation, having you own website increases your credibility and is great for branding. Although many agents partner with larger firms, this can be limiting as the agent won’t have as much control when working under an umbrella company.
In some cases agents under the same umbrella company may have to compete with one another for the same potential buyers. In addition, if an agent leaves, they’ll have to start all over! Although it takes more work up front, you can never go wrong with building up your own online presence.
Provide Valuable Information
Social Media
Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world so it goes without saying that you’ll want some kind of presence here. Start by setting up a dedicated page for your real estate business (separate from your private account). From here you can share content and start to build an audience. This Forbes article recommends that 80% of your posts are customer centric where as 20% are about your business. This community minded approach helps to build trust and can help people to see you as the expert in the field.
On Instagram there is a large focus on beautiful imagery so sharing high quality photos is king. Although we recommend using professional photos when sharing listings, even most mobile phones can take capable images in this day and age. Just don’t overdo it on the filters.
We go into much more detail about Instagram in our post about social media branding.
3. Business cards, promotional materials, and signs
The online world aside, as a real estate agent there are also a lot of opportunities for branding in the offline world through promotional products or office supplies and accessories.
Business Cards
Promotional Materials
Signs
Key Takeaways
Most important things to always look at:
- Branding in housing helps make a good first impression
- It communicates who you are and your story
- Real estate branding creates trust and a feeling of reliability
- Branded realtors create loyal customers
- It adds a layer of professionalism
- It helps great ROI on branded advertising
- Branding adds to the overall value of your business and closed deals.
For more details on why branding is important, click here.
