What is real estate in marketing?

Real estate marketing is a marketing strategy that involves promoting your unique value proposition to the general public to establish a brand, gain customers, increase sales & revenue by closing real estate transactions.

What is Real Estate Branding?

Buyers are cautious when it comes to investing in different types of real estate assets. This is because they not only have to pool their lifetime earnings on a particular project but also on their dream home or office. This is where branding helps. Real estate branding is a way of explaining how your visions match the services you offer, and how those services can cater to the client requirements.

Why is the need for branding in real estate?

By building a favourable brand for your business you will build trust and drive authority, as well as you will build brand loyalty with the customers. By positioning the brand correctly, you will be able to reap all of these benefits and achieve higher prices and repeat business for your services.

Well-established brand go beyond the conventional brand logo and colour palette theory. They focus on narrating the brand story and setting a tone that defines their goals in a unique and lucid way. This is what makes them different from others.

What is the Importance of Real Estate Branding?

Branding acts a key of security for customers. A good brand in real estate is one that people can rely on, trust, and recognize. Buyers and sellers both need that, and so do the home inspectors, title companies, mortgage lenders, and others you interact with. If you want to be the “go to” person who gets recommended to others, you have to be worthy of it

A strong real estate brand goes beyond industry and implements techniques that can help the consumer visualize their dreams. This creates an expectation in the customer’s mind that the company offers valuable products in comparison to competitors. Here is how your business can benefit from an impeccable real estate branding strategy:

• Branding builds a strong online presence and identity.
• It helps in justifying premium prices which in turn leads to higher profits.
• It makes it easier for established brands to launch new services or products.
• It saves time and resources in the long run.
• Branding allows you to generate more leads by marketing your credentials.

Elements of branding

A logo is your brand’s identity. It should encompass your vision and goals through an attractive image.

The colour palette depends on the type of service you offer and your target audience. For instance, if you are targeting the younger generation then green, coral, or yellow palettes can work well. However, if you are offering consultancy or property management services, then blue or black gives a subtle look.

The “About Us” section is a longer version of your brand slogan or tagline. It should specify the brand objectives, the services you offer, and the value proposition.

Steps in Real Estate Branding

here is a step-by-step guide that will help you reach your target audience with ease. 

STEP 1: Understand Market Dynamics

The very first step in building a real estate branding strategy is to understand the market trends and requirements. It helps in minimizing risks and helps in identifying the target audience, pricing strategies & investment areas. More importantly, it helps you identify the loopholes or missing services in the real estate industry. You can then come up with customer-centric and engaging solutions.

STEP 2: Define your USP( unique selling point)

The next step in developing a real estate branding strategy is to highlight your strong point and define the services you offer. This will help you in building your brand as a credible name in the market. For instance, real estate agents focus on sale, purchase, and leasing properties while consultants specialize in asset valuation. You have to brand yourself as a specialist in the selected domain. some points that you need to highlight:

• Your area of specialization. For example, commercial property investment, sales and purchase, consultancy, valuation and development, etc.
• If you are into sale and purchase of real estate assets, then specify which properties you are experienced in. For example: office and co-working space, condominiums, single-family homes, malls, apartments, etc.
• The states, countries, or cities you work in.

STEP 3: Design Brand Elements

This includes various component, but is not restricted to, logo, brand story and tone, website design, slogan, and colour palette. Pick a brand name which is short and resonates with your goals. Lay emphasis in creating an impressive brand story. It should be able to effectively communicate how your company ads value to the lives of clients.

STEP 4: Identify Marketing & Advertising Mediums

The 4th and most important step in real estate branding is to select the online and offline mediums. While social media platforms are the most popular sources for creating brand awareness, you cannot ignore the efficacy of paid Google or Facebook Real Estate Ads. These ads help you target a specific audience at the right time, which will create brand awareness and generate more leads.

STEP 5: Create Website and Social Media Profiles

With close to 700 million active internet users, having a fully-functional website has become more than important for real estate branding. Apart from the property and brand details, you also need to focus on website speed, performance, blog content, and testimonials.

There are more than 300 million active users on Facebook and close to 130 million users on Instagram in India. This proves why establishing a strong online presence is a necessity. Apart from posting property information, you can also share infographics, neighbourhood details, and humorous content. Here is an example of how PR opacity has highlighted its services through an Instagram post.

STEP 6: Make your Website SEO Friendly

The primary objective of optimizing your website for search engines is to increase your visibility. And this is possible only if you implement the right SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. Creating brand awareness by targeting niche-specific keywords or phrases, improving domain authority (your website’s rank in comparison to your competitors), and improving the ROIs are some of the advantages of implementing SEO for real estate. 

STEP 7: Create Compelling Content

Although content forms an integral part of real estate branding strategy, the tone and format will vary based on the services you offer. For instance, if you run market research or a consultancy firm, market insights, case studies, and research reports will consume most of your content. However, if you own a real estate brokerage firm, then property listings, client testimonials, local activities, etc will be content which you can focus on. A content type that works wonders for all real estate business is Video because it allows you to elucidate the specifics of your brand within minutes. Some other examples of real estate posts for social media include Instagram reels, infographics, and memes. 

STEP 8: Refine and Restructure

Recently, Google transformed G Suite to Google Workspaces. Along with it, the company rolled out new logos for all its apps after 7 years. While some liked the new logos, it gave a hump to the others. A brand isn’t built in a day, but continuous improvements make a successful brand. However, the offline and digital real estate branding strategies have to be tweaked in such a way that it doesn’t overshadow your brand goals and objectives. 

Hence, developing a real estate branding strategy requires a multifaceted approach. A careful mix of several marketing methods and persuasive content will help in connecting with clients positively. Implementing the above-listed points will create a unique positioning for your company and will make you stand out from the crowd.

STEP 9: Promote the town, not just the house.

Homebuyers want to know the good, bad, and ugly of each town to which they’re considering a move. Yet, most real estate blogs simply give buyers basic demographic statistics and perhaps some flowery language about the area. Instead, use your social media channels to provide potential clients a far richer understanding of the markets you serve, letting them know the pros and cons of each neighborhood.