Over the past six years I’ve worked with all sorts of different real estate businesses and groups in creating or redesigning an effective brand. Some of my clients are already successful but want to be more so. Some are just not achieving the outcomes they’re capable of and want to align their brand with their ability.
As time goes by and consumer behaviour evolves, there’s no doubt the on-line component of a brand strategy is becoming more significant. In some areas, on-line is already much more relevant than print.
The starting point for creating any effective brand is a thorough evaluation of all the competitors and their relative positions in the local marketplace. We need to understand where the client’s business fits in to the overall picture currently in play.
Next is a look at the target audience in depth - we need to know absolutely everything about them. First the demographic with the usual things like age, income, education, occupation as well as the psychographic of the area; the lifestyles and behaviours of its residents. We want to get inside the target audience’s psyche, even down to what they like to drink and where they go on holidays.
The other piece of the puzzle is the market opportunity - the gross turnover in the area, the number of transactions and the average sale value, as well as looking for any hot areas. Within any market area, there are often particular streets or segments which are particularly attractive.
The next step is to design a congruent solution. By that I mean the brand strategy and positioning of the business must match. It’s no use positioning an agency as being better than the competitors in a certain way and then failing to deliver; the whole thing will fall over in a short space of time. It seems to be an obvious thing to say, but it’s a mistake I’ve seen many real estate businesses make over the years.
The real key to designing an effective on-line brand is to understand the behaviour of the individual who’s using that medium in their search for real estate. Once you know what they’re looking for and how, it’s easy to match your strategy with their needs.
The internet is a time compressed environment; the average property related visit is just 11-12 mins and the peak days are Mondays and Tuesdays around the middle of the day. People are looking at work in their lunch break and showing their partner a shortlist at night. There is no point in a listing being past page three - any agent not using priority listings and the top spot guarantee are kidding themselves.
Most agents know about the buyer wave, where 70-80% of total buyer activity happens around a property in the first three weeks. Buyers quickly discard properties and move on to new listings. It’s a given that properties have to be well photographed and well presented when they’re launched - there are no second chances.
As well as using portals, real estate businesses should have a great website of their own. We know most people will register with an average of 3-4 real estate websites when they’re looking for a property - that’s generally a couple of the big portals like realestate.com.au or domain.com.au and one or two local agents.
You have to have great search engine optimisation, and if you don’t know what that is, you’d best find out quickly. It’s one of the key ways buyers find you on-line. Behind the website, your database has to be effective and the way in which you communicate with the database has to be carefully planned.
80% of property buyers use the internet at some point in their hunt and for 65-70% of those, it’s their primary tool. I believe you can pick up the rest through a combination of direct mail, signboards and word of mouth.
In my mind there’s no question as to where the future of real estate branding and marketing lies - the answer is clearly on-line. It’s just a question of where your particular marketplace lies along the time continuum right now and lining up your strategy accordingly. Many marketplaces are there now and the need for print in those areas is to all intents and purposes already obsolete.
After a successful international career in advertising sapnning more than a decade, Barney McGrath was second-in-command at McGrath Real Estate between 1998 and 2003. In that time he benefited from working alongside and learning from one of Australia’s real estate greats - John McGrath. Since then, Barney has been an independent consultant specialising in branding, working with businesses and franchises of all sizes including Ray White, Marshall and White, Bradford Pritchard, Toop & Toop and many more.
Very much of interest at this point in time. We are currently building a website, revamping another and is the topic we are researching as the northern rivers zone of RW offices.
Hi Barney
Where is Bradford & Pritchard
Keep well Craig