When you think of real estate marketing, the first things that come to mind are listing photos and descriptions, virtual tours, and “just listed” or “just sold” flyers. But this is marketing tactics — activities that support a specific strategy. If you’re a real estate agent, you don’t have to think too much about deal-making strategy.
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If you’re a real estate agent, supporting your agents’ efforts with these transactional marketing efforts is an integral part of the value proposition you offer them. The time you spend on this part of the business is critical.
But next-level marketers also spend time thinking at a higher level. At this level, the strategy behind the company’s marketing needs must be considered. We often talk about supporting agents in building their personal brand.
This is important to the bottom line because when our agents succeed, so does the company. Next-level marketers understand that building, strengthening and elevating the company’s brand complements the agent’s brand. They also know that this requires a well-thought-out strategy and accompanying tactics.
So, where to start?
The first step is to evaluate your company’s existing brand by conducting a brand audit. This means understanding how current and former customers feel about you. You can do this through customer surveys or by analyzing reviews. You should also see how your brand appears in the marketplace by seeing how consistent your presentation is across all public touchpoints, such as your website, social media, marketing materials, and even community events.
Is the logo the same? Is there consistency in your color palette? Are the brand fonts used regularly? Does the tone feel unified across all platforms?
Then take a look at how you stack up against your competitors. You can look at market position, value proposition, retention and unique offering. Are there gaps you need to close to achieve a level playing field?
Finally, conduct a SWOT analysis. This looks at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Understanding this in relation to your competitive landscape is critical to developing an appropriate and effective marketing strategy for your business.
- You can leverage your strengths as a way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, but also address your weaknesses so you don’t lose potential customers.
- When I look at opportunities, I take a blue sky approach – meaning all ideas are good ideas, regardless of the cost or challenges of execution. If we as a company can do something to capitalize on an opportunity, we should be aware of it.
- On the other side of the coin, what is currently happening or what is on the horizon as a potential threat to our current and future activities?
Once you have completed this comprehensive audit, it is time to develop a strategic plan.
Turning information into action: a case study
My real estate business dates back to 1966 – older than me! With more than 25 offices throughout Northern New England, we are the largest residential real estate company north of Boston. A lot of our growth has come through mergers and acquisitions. As a result, over the years we have included many different individually branded companies into the Masiello mix.
Discovery phase
When we conducted our brand audit, we realized there was a seeming lack of consistency in how we were shown to the public across our vast footprint. That meant there was a missed opportunity to showcase the power of a unified brand.
The challenge for us was how to communicate the importance of a consistent corporate brand. When you are involved in the flow of a transaction, it is easier to use the marketing material available rather than taking the time to update it to a brand standard.
Up until that point, we weren’t really trying to enforce a brand standard – a clear weakness and missed opportunity.
Seize opportunities
When the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand launched its ‘We Know’ campaign in 2025 with the tagline ‘Nobody Knows Home Better”, we realized that we had a key moment, and a very visible one, to capture the attention of the entire company.
When we thought about how we could deploy the national campaign across our service area, we realized we could complement it by introducing our new corporate branding vision and achieving a higher level of brand consistency across the company.
Our words back up with actions
It’s all well and good to say, “Here’s our vision; now you’re going to execute it.” Real estate agents are not equipped for it and, quite frankly, have no interest in it. That’s why we’re living up to our promise by assigning this responsibility to the business support specialists and agent support managers in each office. Typically, these roles focused on coordinating aspects of the transaction, with marketing support as a secondary focus.
When thinking about how to introduce the ‘Nobody Knows…’ campaign, we looked at our existing tagline ‘Experience Quality’. While it certainly represented what we considered a very important differentiator for us, it lacked specific details that would resonate with consumers. To make it more recognizable for our market, we have adjusted the slogan: We know New England: no one knows houses better.
We launched a second Instagram account focused on all things New England, not just real estate. We’ve updated all our brand images to be consistent with the environment of each office. Our posts have been updated to focus on our New England expertise, which is much easier for agents to use because it’s essentially part of who they are.
Results
The response from our agents has been enormous: adoption of the campaign assets is high, and we are definitely seeing an increase in collective company pride. And at the local office level, we see greater efficiency in marketing support, as far fewer adjustments are required to existing template assets. This allows agents and the business support team to spend more time on higher-value tasks.
At the same time as this marketing effort, we also implemented a new sales program called ‘LIFT | Elevate Your Everyday,” and they really worked hand-in-hand with a growth mindset and growth tactics, but the new message certainly added confidence to any “sales pitch.”
Other important statistics:
- We increased our website visits month after month.
- We tripled our presence among younger followers on TikTok by creating a new profile.
- And we’ve increased our confidence in our value to clients and recruits by being recognizable and making conversations so much easier!
With consistent messaging and branding, our recruiting efforts have gained momentum and we also have a much more streamlined onboarding experience for new agents.
Measuring results
As a seasoned marketer with experience across industries including aerospace, architecture and fintech, it is so rewarding to see how a strategic marketing approach – one that is aligned with overall business objectives and supported by leadership – can have such an impact. Despite what many people initially think, real estate marketing is much more than a new listing flyer.
Cara Tachibana is the Chief Marketing Officer for Masiello Group’s Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. Connect with her LinkedIn And Instagram.
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