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How can you build your brand in real estate?
Building your brand is key for any estate agency looking to stand out and develop long-term success.
In fact, 89% of marketers say that brand awareness is their top priority.
Brand awareness helps build trust and credibility within your community, which can be invaluable to winning new instructions; Selling or renting property is stressful, so vendors will opt for an agent whose brand makes them feel like they’re in safe hands.
The problem is that the definition and measurement of brand awareness can be vague, making it difficult for agencies to determine effective strategies for boosting it and metrics for measuring it.
In this blog, we will explore the meaning of brand awareness, how your agency can measure it, and four effective strategies to enhance it.
What is Brand Awareness?
What does it mean if someone has an awareness of your agency’s brand?
Brand awareness essentially means someone has formed an understanding or perception of your brand.
The more people are aware of your brand the more established your brand becomes, increasing trust and ultimately creating sustainable business.
For consumers to move into the interest, desire and action stage of their buyer journey with you (AKA instruct you as their agent), they first have to be aware of your brand.
In fact, there is a 92% correlation between brand awareness and market share for estate agencies, demonstrating that higher brand recognition often translates to greater market presence.
It’s important to note that brand awareness is more than just brand recognition, it’s a greater connection with your agency’s values and the service you provide.
By ensuring consumers are aware of your brand, you can stay top of mind, so when the time comes for them to sell or rent their property, your agency is the one they reach out to.
1. Be Consistent with Your Brand’s Identity
Before you start running brand awareness campaigns, you need to ensure you have a consistent brand identity.
Brand identity plays a huge part in brand awareness. If you don’t have consistent visuals and messaging, consumers won’t have a stable identity to be aware of.
We can split brand identity into two sections: Visual identity and brand messaging
Brand Identity – Visual Elements
- Logo – how are variations used, what sizes, transparency etc.
- Typography – what are your primary and secondary fonts? How are these used?
- Brand colours – ensure your hex codes are defined. Clarify how your brand colours are used together. Did you know colour increases brand recognition by up to 80%?
- Imagery style – graphics, photos or a mix of both?
Brand Identity – Messaging
- Brand voice – what is your tone of voice, does this vary at all across content or channels and if so how?
- Tagline or slogan – what are they, when are they used?
- Brand story – what is the narrative behind your brand, what is your purpose?
- Value proposition – how do you help your clients? What makes you different?
By clearly defining these elements and ensuring they are understood throughout your company, you can build a strong and consistent brand.
This consistency allows your customers and potential clients to develop a deeper recognition and understanding of your agency.
Brands that frequently change their visual identity or messaging struggle to establish brand awareness, as a shifting identity makes it difficult for consumers to recall your agency.
2. Find and Connect with Industry Influencers
Uh-oh, the ‘I’ word.
When we talk about industry influencers, we’re not necessarily talking about TikTok personalities with a ring light and 6 million followers.
We’re talking about the people, companies, or media outlets who can influence your target audience.
Take the time to properly research your industry and understand who people are engaging with.
This normally coincides with which sources people trust.
If you can partner with your true industry influencers, you’re creating an excellent platform to skyrocket your brand awareness with the people who can impact your company’s success.
Some practical examples of utilising industry influencers are:
Collaborate with Relevant Podcasts: Partner with a podcast that your target audience regularly listens to. Consider running an ad or arranging to be featured as a guest. Did you know podcasts can increase brand awareness by over 89%?
Sponsor Targeted Events: Sponsor events that attract your target audience, providing an opportunity to connect and engage with potential clients directly. Almost one-third of marketers believe events are the most effective marketing channel.
Partner with Influencers: Collaborate with social media personalities who have a dedicated following that aligns with your target market. Their endorsement can help enhance your brand’s visibility and credibility.
Strategic Partnerships: Identify brands in your industry that have established trust and credibility with your target audience. Explore partnership opportunities to gain exposure and leverage their audience to benefit your brand.
3. Try Strategic Content Marketing
(Psst! We’re big content marketing fans at PropertyBox – hence why I’m writing this blog. You can also find blogs on video content, social media content and much more on our resources page!)
Content marketing is basically unavoidable in 2024, and it is an excellent tool to increase brand awareness.
It’s defined as the creation and distribution of valuable content to attract and retain business for your company.
Shockingly, businesses that publish 16 or more blog posts per month receive 3.5 times more traffic!
The chances are you are already participating in some form of content marketing. You almost definitely have a site and you might post to socials.
But do you have a strategy?
To successfully increase brand awareness, you need a thorough understanding of who you want to attract and what you need to post to achieve this.
That means knowing where your audience is, and what they find interesting or useful.
Once you’ve got this figured out, you’ll be on your way to watching your brand awareness metrics climb.
How Does Content Marketing Increase Brand Awareness?
Content marketing increases your brand’s visibility – For example, your content might rank on search engines meaning your site gets more visits. This exposes your brand to new customers who may not have encountered your agency previously.
Content marketing can position your brand as an expert – By creating thought leadership content, you can position your brand as an expert in your niche. This will keep you top of mind within the industry, and likely present you with further opportunities to expand your brand’s reach, such as podcast appearances or PR comments. It will also give people a reason to return to your marketing channels.
Content marketing increases sharing – Content such as blog posts and social media updates can be easily shared by your audience. When engaged followers share valuable or interesting content with their networks, this increases awareness of your brand among new contacts.
4. Use Testimonials and Reviews
Although testimonials and reviews should be part of your content strategy, they are so useful we thought they deserved their own section.
In fact, 85% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family, making them invaluable.
Testimonials or reviews are often content associated with later buyer journey stages like interest or desire.
However, high-level social proof used creatively can also be beneficial in increasing brand awareness.
For example, incorporate storytelling into your testimonial content, and make it engaging for your audience rather than promotional.
A good way to do this is by creating a content series around your client stories.
You could discuss their moving experience, any lessons and advice, and subtly include their review of the experience to make the content less promotional.
How Can You Measure Your Estate Agency’s Brand Awareness?
So we’ve discussed some simple ways to increase brand awareness, but how do we know what is working?
As mentioned, measuring brand awareness can be tricky.
It’s less definitive than metrics such as sales volume.
Additionally, many of the methods used to measure brand awareness have weaknesses.
For example, brand awareness surveys pose problems such as self-reporting reliance and response bias.
This means your brand awareness data is never going to be 100% accurate. But this doesn’t mean it’s not important to measure it.
We can’t suggest one single metric to assess and track your agency’s brand awareness.
Instead, we suggest choosing a few metrics you can track to build an overview of your brand awareness and to use as a gauge.
1. Website Traffic
You can use web traffic to measure your estate agency’s brand awareness in a few ways.
This data is easy to access using platforms such as GA4, Google Search Console or traffic tools like Semrush or Plausible.
Direct traffic – An increase in direct traffic may mean more people are typing your brand name into the search bar, showing an increase in consumer brand recall. Be careful with using this metric alone as direct traffic can sometimes be used as a catchall for unassigned traffic types.
Branded search volume – When more people are searching with your agency’s brand name organically, this shows a greater level of brand recall and awareness. Examples of branded search terms for PropertyBox would include ‘propertybox’, ‘propertybox features’, ‘propertybox reviews’ etc.
Increase in new visitors – A rise in new visitors to your site (people who were previously not visiting your website) is a good indicator that your level of brand awareness is increasing.
2. Social Media
Social media is an accessible way for you to measure your estate agency’s brand awareness.
Here are some metrics you can use to easily monitor brand awareness through your social accounts:
Follower count – An increase in followers means an increase in people becoming aware of your brand, and becoming invested in it.
Reach and impressions – If more people are seeing your content on social, your brand awareness is likely to increase, especially if your content is branded.
Engagement metrics – If your likes shares and comments are increasing this is a strong indicator of rising brand awareness, and it may also indicate progress in brand sentiment.
Brand sentiment is how people perceive and feel about your brand, it can be measured with tools such as Brandwatch.
3. Surveys
Using customer survey data to measure brand awareness is less accessible, and as we mentioned earlier, there is a problem with sampling bias.
Asking people on your mailing list to complete a survey, for example, gives you skewed data. This does not represent the wider population who will naturally have a lower awareness of your brand.
However, if building and tracking brand awareness is a priority within your agency, companies like VisionOne and Mackman Research can conduct brand awareness research for you.
If this falls within your budget, here are some survey questions you could ask:
Have you heard of [your agency]?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how familiar are you with [your agency]?
What brand comes to mind when you think of [your agency]?
How likely are you to recommend [your agency] to others?
What words or phrases come to mind when you think about [your agency]?
4. Brand Mentions
Brand mentions occur when your brand, product, or company is referenced or discussed on digital platforms.
Media monitoring tools like Brand24, Mention, or Brandwatch can help you keep track of these.
An increase in brand mentions correlates with an increase in brand awareness because it means more people are talking about you!
Setting up a Google Alert for your brand can also help you keep on top of brand mentions for free.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are numerous ways you can increase and measure your estate agency’s brand awareness.
It’s a little more complex than other business objectives to measure, but it is the vital first step of the consumer journey that you should be monitoring.
By implementing these methods for increasing brand awareness, you can effectively enhance your brand recall, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately drive growth for your agency.
