Your real estate brand is shaped every day by the thousand small gestures clients get from your company and staff. A gesture might be an interaction with one of your agents, a post on your real estate agency’s Facebook page, or a direct mail postcard received.
Since all these elements contribute to building your real estate brand, it’s vital to be consistent with the brand message that each gesture is communicating.
So what impact does real estate brand consistency (or inconsistency) have on your property business? Here are the main areas to think about when considering your brand consistency:
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Brand Compliance
- Nearly 90% of property professionals agree that it’s important to present their personal property brands consistently in all the places clients might encounter them, but less than half of property agents are actually doing it.
- An alarming figure, is that less than 10% of property agents say that their real estate brand presentation is very consistent.
- Almost all property companies have branding guidelines, but only a quarter have brand guidelines that are consistently enforced.
- Over 60% report that materials are always, often or sometimes created that don’t conform to real estate brand guidelines.
Brand Impact
- Real estate companies with brand consistency issues estimate, on average, a 18% increase in revenue if their property brand was always presented consistently.
- Consistent property brands are more visible, and highly visible property brands act like magnets, attracting clients while conveying the agency brand promises, reinforcing value, and encouraging loyalty. Careless or inconsistent presentation of your real estate brand robs it of these powers, and as a result, you miss out on clients, sales and revenue.
- Managing a real estate brand well by presenting it consistently has a real impact on growth. Imagine driving a 18% lift in revenue just by enforcing real estate brand compliance. This metrics alone should compel any real estate agency to make brand consistency a high priority for their company and staff.
But before your property agency can improve its brand consistency, you have to understand where you are at today with your property brand. And when it comes to creating branded content, most agencies tend to fall into one of two traps: The Wild West and the Brand Prison.
1. The Wild West of Brand Consistency
This is what happens when there’s no formalised system of property brand guidelines for agency or team, but even if those brand guidelines do exist, they’re not actively practiced or being enforced. If your property agency doesn’t have a designated agency brand champion, then it’s up to each agent to make sure the real estate brand is represented consistently to clients.
In other words : If it becomes everyone’s job, it becomes no one’s job. This is the perfect recipe for disaster and poor brand consistency. Is your property agency going through the Wild West? If so, you’ll notice these characteristics:
- No real estate brand guidelines (or brand guidelines are not enforced)
- Everyone creates their own content without guidance or direction from leaders
- Brand presentation is highly inconsistent and different from peers.
It time to change this mindset ASAP, because if it continues it will be detrimental to your brand in the long run.
2. The Brand Prison
On the other side of the coin, the brand prison is complete and total lockdown on your agency. You have to leave your pens and papers at the door, because in the brand prison, only the guards have the right to be creative. Hope you didn’t have any big creative ideas.
This is what happens when no one can create real estate branded content except for principles or design teams. And while that might have worked in the old day, and for certain types of brands, today it’s a real burden for modern real estate brands. Which agent has time to wait 1 week or more for an updated brochure design, property flyer, or Facebook image? Not only that, but agents usually enjoy adding some personal flair to their marketing collateral. Unfortunately, the company has decided that it’s too risky to trust its agents with any branding whatsoever.
Is your property agency a brand prison? If so, you’ll notice these characteristics:
- Principles creates all content (bottleneck)
- Designers/admin are overloaded and stressed
- Agents often go rogue and create their own content
Now, in contrast to the wild west and brand prison, imagine a world where all property agents, admin, partners & vendors are empowered to create customised and beautifully branded materials all on their own.
These are the agencies that have escaped the Wild West and the brand prison. They’ve recognised and embraced the world of modern branding by empowering their teams with the tools and processes needed to create consistent, on-brand real estate content.
Please stay tuned to the next part of the series where will explore in detail on how to properly manage your real estate brand consistency. Here are the next topics in the series:
- Sales Enablement
- Print Collateral
- Digital Collateral
