Portals may have dominated estate agency in the last decade, but their strategic marketing role is to drive sales. There is another layer of brand and marketing that is easy to underestimate in the push for the sale, and that’s the enormous power of brand.
Rightmove, Zoopla and Onthemarket are the greatest drivers for search and for sales – they are so powerful that the there’s pretty much a level playing field for agents selling homes, with the production of quality photos and particulars providing some edge of course.
But what about those looking to sell their home? Still the fundamental route to this process is to appoint an agent.
Starting with a shortlist to provide a valuation followed by the decision on who to entrust with the sale of your home.
Being on people’s shortlist and getting that all-important open door is not based on portals, but rather brand awareness, word of mouth and ultimately trust.
Brand isn’t about a logo or a shopfront – it’s about everything your business says and does. It’s your business DNA – and that’s personal.
The consumer engages with a brand because it resonates with them and their way of life, their circumstances, their values and their ethos. John Lewis and Lidl may be at opposite ends of the consumer spectrum, but we all know what their brands stand for – and respond to that, or not, depending on if it chimes with us personally. It’s about emotional connection between that consumer and a brand.
So what are the emotional motivators for the two key decisions; who to ask for a valuation; then armed with the valuations, who to then instruct?
This is when brand in its widest sense comes into play. Of course it’s dozens of things that together become a force. Mostly these are subliminal – and all about trust and emotional connection.
What does your business stand for, the things that you’re proud of, how you speak, your reputation and reviews, your honesty, integrity and professionalism, your offices, how your people behave, respond and react. You have to ensure all of these elements are the very best they can be.
Then it comes to promoting your specialisms? Do you have a niche, a geographical strength or specific target sector specialisms? Is all of this evident from your brand and your marketing?
How do you look alongside your competitors? Do your shopfronts properly represent your brand, are you active in the community, are you known and respected, are you seen as genuine ‘players’ in the market? If not these need to be addressed as part of a medium term PR and brand campaign.
When it comes to instructing an agent, your valuation will be pivotal of course, along with fees. But instructions aren’t always dependent on these. Here, personality becomes critical. The homeowner is looking for trust, warmth, honesty, a sense of efficiency, professionalism and representation.
All of these decisions can be impacted by your brand representation – and here your website comes into play.
Whites estate agents are a leading agency across Wiltshire – established on their patch for more than six decades. They came to Polymedia for a strategically–driven website.
The strategy was to deliver a website which focused on localities and storytelling. Delivering aspirational, lifestyle content that makes us as consumers feel like they just ‘get’ what home means to us. It’s current and authentic, genuine, warm, and ultimately engaging.
We needed to demonstrate their unrivalled knowledge and contacts across a wide patch, along with evidence that alongside heritage comes a modern approach and cutting edge technologies. Ensuring that they maintained their appeal to existing clients, while appealing to wider, possibly more unfamiliar demographics.
They wanted a website which reflected the enormous knowledge of their geographical strength, their knowledge of the county, its property marketplace and how best to market properties in this area.
Being authentic, demonstrating warmth and personality, doesn’t mean you lose credibility. You can still be professional and knowledgeable, stylish and sophisticated – just in a way people relate to.
Rather than ‘properties’ we talk about homes. It’s all about lifestyle and aspiration, not wealth. Salisbury with its city and surrounding villages is perfect for this.
This lifestyle approach represents a shift away from the more corporate, formal professional style of estate agency that had become the norm but that now feels outdated and sterile.
Focusing on warmth, personality, engagement, lifestyle, families and people. A focus on simple lives, health, balance and a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Demonstrating relevance. These are values which sit with our own homes – and the places we like to call home.
‘Home’ allows you to showcase properties, and ‘the place we call home’ demonstrates engagement with the local community and that Whites are the absolute experts in this market. They live here and love everything the region has to offer. They understand the market intrinsically.
By detailing each and every town and village in their patch, and what makes living there so special, is at the heart of the Whites website and achieves the objective of appealing to all demographics.
With a constant supply of rich, evocative content being added to the site and used through social media – primarily Instagram – more repeat traffic is visiting the site and their profile is being raised – crucial for keeping on vendors’ radars!
Polymedia has a great deal of experience in the property industry, from working with housebuilders and developers, land agents and planners, architects and lawyers as well as of course other estate agents.
For a free consultation about strategically driven websites call 01329 822 866 or email us.
