With more and more millennials entering the housing market, it’s more necessary than ever before to learn branding for real estate agents. Real estate branding has become vital with so many potential homebuyers using the internet to start their home search. If you don’t stand out, you’ll likely get left behind.
For real estate agents, the move to online house hunting is great news. No longer do you have to send out mailers and use traditional advertising methods. Today’s marketing world is all about real estate branding online.
While you can certainly find customers online quickly, the competition is rather stiff. According to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), more than 90% of real estate firms have websites and almost all provide a way to search property listings.
Stiff competition means you must stand out and proper real estate agent branding will help you do just that. Use the seven tips found below to help with branding for real estate agents.
1. It All Starts With the Website
You can’t compete online without a website and not just any website. You need an awesome website that looks and functions in the most professional way possible. However, it’s not necessary to invest tens of thousands of dollars to get your website created. Many talented website designers can help you out for a price you can afford.
While the website matters, you should also have a great logo to go with the website. The logo should be consistent with the branding on your website and the overall design. Having the same designer handle both tasks is a smart idea.
In addition to the website’s look, you need a website that loads quickly and provides an easy-to-navigate set-up. Of course, it should also be fully optimized for mobile use and for search engines.
2. Add Blogging to the List
This next tip is the long-term marketing solution some of the most successful real estate agents have used to create passive leads. Adding a blog to your website and consistently posting to it has the ability to generate leads for years into the future.
You don’t even have to do the writing yourself. Many professional real estate writers can help provide content for your blog. Compared to traditional advertising, this inbound marketing strategy allows you to cast a wider net and gain more return on your investment.
When you pay for an ad on Facebook, for example, you have to keep spending money for each click on your ad. With a blog post, you can gain visitors through proper SEO and social sharing time and time again with just the one time investment of time or money, if you hire a writer.
In addition, your blog provides a great opportunity for real estate branding. You’ll be able to introduce yourself to several potential clients by providing useful content they can find through Google, Bing, and other search engines.
3. Social Media is a Must
If you want to compete online and truly build your brand, this tip for real estate branding cannot be ignored. Too often, agents get a great website designed and start writing for their blog, but they neglect social media.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and many other social media sites are great for real estate agent branding. Not only can you build a network of followers/friends, but you can also share your blog posts, listings, and more. With the right strategy, you can gain countless leads from social media.
If you want to compete online and truly build your brand, this tip for real estate branding cannot be ignored. Too often, agents get a great website designed and start writing for their blog, but they neglect social media.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and many other social media sites are great for real estate agent branding. Not only can you build a network of followers/friends, but you can also share your blog posts, listings, and more. With the right strategy, you can gain countless leads from social media.
4. Professional Photography Makes a Huge Difference
You can have the best website and great blog posts, but low-quality images can diminish your brand quickly. When someone finds one of your listings, a headshot, or other images you’re using, they need to represent you properly.
Hiring a professional photographer to take your listing images and headshots just makes sense. High-quality images help sell properties and improve your real estate branding. In addition, consider paying for high-quality images to use within your blog posts.
5. Be Authentic
The worst thing you can do is start a real estate branding strategy that doesn’t represent you. Clients should see your online branding and want to hire you because you’re authentic, not because you used some tactic others say works.
When you have your logo designed, your website created, and your blog posts written, they need to represent who you are and what you stand for. An authentic real estate agent will attract the right clients, which will lead to more referrals and more business in the future.
6. Build an Email List
You already have a website, a blog, and social media profiles, so why not capture your visitors by building an email list. So many real estate agents neglect this part of the online marketing process and you can put yourself above the competition by implementing an aggressive email list building strategy.
Maybe you’ve already set up your website to collect an email address, name, phone number, etc. if someone visits and looks at a certain number of listings. That’s great, but what about the visitor landing on your blog that’s not ready to buy or sell today?
Instead of letting them go, collect their email address and name by giving away a free guide, such as a community guide or a first-time home buyer’s guide. Then, you can send out a bi-weekly or monthly newsletter to keep them coming back to your blog. When they are ready to buy or sell, they are more likely to remember you due to your real estate branding efforts through email.
7. Well-Define Your Brand
Your brand should be very focused. If you specifically sell historic properties, anybody landing on your website should know this from your real estate branding very quickly.
Even if you specialize in multiple areas, a website visitor or potential client should be able to quickly determine if what you provide fits what they need. A laser-focused brand will succeed, while a blurry brand won’t.
Bonus Real Estate Branding Tip: Consistency is Key
Everything must be consistent when creating a real estate branding strategy. From the logo to the website to the social media to your signs to you, it must remain consistent.
Branding for real estate agents isn’t easy and it can be a very time-consuming process. However, you can outsource many of the tasks to experts in their field, such as website design, logo design, blogging, and social media management. Fiverr and Upwork are great sites for finding help for these items. Regardless if you do the work yourself or hire someone, be sure that you’re following TREC’s advertising rules!
Benefits of Branding for Real Estate Agents
With the right team working for you and a consistent strategy, you can truly cash in on the many benefits of real estate branding, which include:
- A steady stream of highly qualified leads
- Growing partnerships and relationships
- More credibility
- Better overall brand recognition
- Higher perceived value
- And more!
Your brand matters, if you want to be successful in real estate. Make sure you create a real estate branding strategy and implement your strategy to stand out from the crowd.
Thinking about joining a real estate brokerage that encourages you to establish your brand? See what we have to offer with our Agent Sponsorship and LLC Sponsorship plans.
