Brand Your Real Estate Business in Just Ten Steps

As in every business segment, real estate too is crowded with multiple businesses, many of them similar and offering similar products. Differentiating your brand from the rest is critical to distinguishing your company and generating interest among your potential customers. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the training or experience to do what it take to develop your brand; this article shows you how you can build a meaningful brand in just ten steps.

Understanding the concept of ‘brand’

Before we jump in, let’s understand what exactly is a brand?

A brand is basically a connection between a product and its consumers. This connection is not just emotional, it is also a rational promise manifested by the actions the business takes. A brand by its communications and actions tells its audience what it stands for, what its goals are, and how it plans to achieve them. Thus brand equity can be measured by the trust you generate with your customer. In other words, your reputation is of paramount importance. Over time communities build around brands. Where real estate is concerned, this drive to build reputation is vital, given that property purchase is the single biggest investment many of us will make in our lifetimes.

How does branding help real estate businesses?

Branding makes everything easier. It consistently and persuasively communicates the benefits of buying your brand to homebuyers, which strengthens sales performance and makes marketing easier. This is because when a brand is well-understood, recognized, and its promise, consistently communicated, it simplifies the task of real estate buying – makine it easier to choose, save time, and save money.

Strong branding reduces marketing costs and increases ROI sales and marketing investments.

Internally, branding clarifies who the brand is, what it represents, and what it expects of its people. It provides a strong understanding of the company’s work culture. Understanding the essence of the brand, makes it easier to hire individuals who embody the brand, and can improves teamwork, which, in turn, leads to higher job satisfaction and productivity.

Step 1:

Define your purpose

Every business exists to make money, but in order to be successful businesses need to realize that this cannon be their core purpose. For one thing, no customer want to be reminded that with each purchase they are adding to the coffers of the company. Apple and Google are two of the richest companies today, but by focusing more on their core brand promise, they have managed to take the attention of profit maximization. Businesses need to realize that customers care about companies that are driven by more than profit. Idealistic motivations, a core purpose reflect the difference you are trying to make in the world. Tapping into this sentiment motivates people to align with companies that share their belief system.

How to craft your purpose.

Consider the following questions to help identify your business purpose:

What is the thing that drives everything you do as a business

What aspect can help you move the needle on your performance

When the marketplace becomes turbulent, what aspect holds you steady?

What aspect of your business draws passionate people

What is it about your business that you believe instills energy and dedication to the job at hand?

Step 2:

Why you do what you do

To answer this properly, you need to go beyond the face value of what you do, for instance, ‘build homes’. Instead think deeply about the emotional value your business initially set out to provide—for instance: create spaces where children can experience the real meaning of childhood. So, go beyond the hard facts; think about the deeper value you want to provide, and it will show in how you go about doing it, too. This step is not easy, we understand. But it holds the key to creating a great brand. Remember to make your ‘What’ as descriptive and process-oriented as possible.

Step 3

Identify your ‘how’.

This goes to the heart of your business, it will guide your employment strategies  and inform your value system and by extension your brand personality. How you go about your business is the most meaningful way to stand apart as a business. Understanding and defining your ‘how’ will also define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP). In other words, capture the attention and interest of potential employees. And it’s not just for employee hire and retention, customers, and vendors too, want to do business who cleave to a demonstrably positive value system. More on this later.

Step 4

What’s your Vision? And your mission?

Your vision statement describes a future desirable state of success for your business. One way to understand this is to think about what your organization should look like 10-15 years into the future if it achieved its goals.

Vision statements are usually short but they need to be inspirational as well as achievable. Stating a lofty but unrealistic vision will prove counterproductive, corroding belief in it as well as ongoing actions.

Here are a couple of Vision Statements to ponder over

Disney: To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds, and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company.

LinkedIn: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

If your Vision statement is a future-looking concept, your mission statement describes how you intend to achieve said mission. This includes your reason for existence and current state.

It is quite normal for a mission statement to change over time. But the overall objective is to be in sync with your goals. It should reflect your priorities and how you will fulfill your vision.

Here are a few examples to inspire:

IKEA: Offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.

Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.

Nike: Create groundbreaking sports innovations, make our products sustainably, build a creative and diverse global team, and make a positive impact in communities where we live and work.

Step 5

What are your values?

In a previous step we spoke about defining your ‘how’. Well you values are a key part of how you go about doing whatever it is your business does. Your values tell the world what your business believes it; it guides your people’s behaviour and reassures your customers and vendors.

Having a defined and enforced value system creates a moral compass for your people. It guides the decisions they take, even if the situation is one they’ve never encountered before.

How to create a value system

It’s easy to merely adopt the best set of values you admire. But you also need to check whether these are all true to what you believe as an organization. Foisting a set of values that run counter to your belief system, makes it impossible for your people to achieve both.

Values that align with your potential hires make it easier to recruit talent too. Surveys show that people whose own values resonate with a brand are more likely to work harder towards the brands own goals.

Step 6

Identify your brand personality

 To understand your brand personality, answer this simple question: If your brand were person, which words would describe them best? Think of your brand as a living entity and you’ll be better able to visualize its personality.

Here are some more fun questions you can ask.

• If your company were a celebrity, who would it be? Think of people who possess the values, drive and passion you aspire to?

• If your company were a car, what would it be? possible answers include: Jeep, Ford, Mercedes, Tesla of real estate branding?

• Similarly, if your business were an animal, which one would it be: Elephant, lion, tiger, deer…

Another activity you can conduct is to create your brand persona by shortlisting the characteristics that are the essence of your brand. Below you will find a list of words encompassing a broad range of personality traits.

Spend a few minutes underlining each word that you think represents your brand. Then go back to the list and further narrow it down to five of the traits that you think most closely represent your brand. Conduct this exercise with as many of your people—up and down your organization hierarchy—and you will be surprised how closely they agree.

Smart	Accessible	Caring	Cool	Proud	Careful
Authentic	Vibrant	Genuine	Distinctive	Refined	Surprising
Reliable	Unique	Comfortable	Progressive	Professional	Classic
Elegant	Exciting	Spontaneous	Strong	Alluring	Original
Integrity	Diverse	Casual	Family-oriented	Efficient	Leader
Simple	Versatile	Honest	Connected	Competitive	Conservative
Beautiful	Proactive	Confident	Timeless	Friendly	Steadfast
Memorable	Trustworthy	Sustainable	Successful	Artistic	Inspiring
Experienced	Resourceful	Sophisticated	In-the-know	Flashy	Delightful
Relaxed	Focused	Luxurious	Convenient	Humble	Charming
Independent	Innovative	Enthusiastic	Talented	Happy	Persistent
Fun	Driven	Adaptable	Respected	Real	Fresh
Charismatic	Unconventional	Responsive	Down to earth	Fast	Traditional
Creative	Committed	Honorable	Inclusive	Hard-working
Soulful	Passionate	Wild	Welcoming	Thoughtful
Endearing	Visionary	Dynamic	Active	Untamed

It is normally difficult to get a group of people to agree on anything, but for some reason, when it comes to brands, patterns emerge that describe the brand—this is true in both established and newly formed ones. Maybe it is an extension of the founder/s’ DNA or learned behaviour, but it deserves attention.

Step 7

What’s your core emotional benefit

There’s a popular advertising motto, which goes: Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle. What this simply means is that your property buyers aren’t really buying a villa with a garden, they’re buying into quality time with their children playing catch or playing with the dog or hosting open-air barbecues. What this means is that you can now connect with your potential customers by pitching advertising that shows them how they can be great parents or superb hosts.

Remember: homes aren’t just a safe place to lay your head, they are canvases on which your customers can paint memories to treasure.

Here’s a tool to further help you understand the emotional value—or the benefits behind your features: the Brand Pyramid. The brand pyramid connects product and brand attributes to factors about your customers’ lifestyles. The brand pyramid consists of four parts stacked one atop the other.

Attributes—these form the base of the pyramid and include points of difference

Functional/Rational Benefits—this section comes next. It’s basically your Unique Selling Proposition—which, as the term suggests, needs to be functionally different from the competition

Emotional Benefits—the third segment of the pyramid looks at the positive emotional aspects your brand delivers. These could be a sense of security, purpose, etc.

Social Benefits—this is the top of the pyramid, and similar to Maslow’s pyramid, in that it considers how your product affects your customer’s sense of self. i.e. status.

Step 8

Who are your customers?

Now that you have a clearer understanding (we hope) of who you are as a brand, we need to move on to the next phase of this exercise: defining your audience—the customers you want to be there for. There are many terms to describe your Target Audience—target market, personas, customer profile, etc. Whatever term is used is fine, as long as you accurately break down the various factors that make up your customer. Two accepted categories to segment your customers are Demographics—age, gender, income, and location—and Psychographics—how they feel, what the react to, how they behave, etc. In addition to this, you can categorize your customers by some other key factors pertinent to real estate, such as

Product: This could include budget, size, location

Lifestyle:

Status. Don’t think of this as class but by factors like: are they first-time buyers, investors, joint families, etc.

All these attributes will give you the details you need to build personas, which will give you many insights as to who you’re engaging with, what they really want, and how you can delight them.

Another way to look at it is that these details will give you empathy, allowing you to intuit their needs and desires.

Step 9

Write your brand positioning statement

There are tomes of content on brand positioning on the internet and you can explore them all. But in a nutshell, your positioning statement describes your customer’s mind-space you want your brand to occupy. The brand positioning statement functions as a guide to such actions as: your marketing strategies, communication messaging, and tactics across media.

The positioning statement should:

Be brief and memorable

Articulate your core values

Define your target audience

Clarify what the brand offers its customers

Differentiate it from your competition

Be jargon free

Here’s a simple template you can use to write your own brand positioning statement.

For <describe your target audience>, looking to <pain point or customer need>, <name of your brand> offers the ability to <point to difference> because >reasons to believe your claim>

Step 10

Write your tagline (encapsulate your Brand Promise)

This is what it all boils down to: what’s the inherent promise behind your brand, is it desirable, and is it differentiated. If the answer is yes, you have what you need to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage. If the answer is no, it’s back to the drawing board!

There are two aspects to a brand promise—one inward-looking, the other outward.

First, the brand promise gives clarity to your stakeholders, employees, and associates, giving them a consistent way to think about the brand, introduce it, and discuss it. The stronger the brand promise the stronger the brand identity

Second, your brand promise positions the brand, occupying desired audience’s mind space, building recall, and assuring them as to what they can expect from the brand. This promise should be implicit or explicit in your messaging across all touch points.

Here are some memorable examples

Nike: Just Do It

Apple: Think Different

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine

Mercedes-Benz: What Makes a Symbol Endure

HSBC: The World’s Local Bank

Need a hand?

Given the cliched advertising that real estate players indulge in, it is imperative that brands differentiate themselves and articulate this differentiator to their target audience. This article seeks to demystify the process and should set you on your way. But if you need additional consultative assistance, reach out in the form below.