Transform marketing from task-based to scalable systems

As the number of agents in the industry increases through mergers and acquisitions, companies are faced with the pressure to support hundreds or even thousands of agents as they scale and build their brands, modernize their marketing, all with leaner teams and tighter profit margins.

I recently sat down with Christie Clark, director of marketing for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Properties Group, and Glen Wellbrock, senior director of marketing for BHHS California Properties, to talk about the evolving role of marketing departments and marketing technology, or martech.

Both painted a similar story, strategically moving their marketing departments away from discrete production tasks and toward scalable systems that enable agents to build their brands within the larger umbrella of agent brands.

The creation and revision bottleneck that stifles marketing

For real estate agents and teams looking to provide marketing services to their agents, changing minds and changing circumstances pose significant barriers to effectiveness and productivity. Marketing departments are drowning in an endless back-and-forth of edit requests, often for minor changes to fonts, colors, or layouts.

The answer? This gives agents the ability to customize their marketing materials without all the chaos. “We wanted a way to empower them,” Clark said, “and ensure that our brand remains consistent and an easily accessible resource that the agents can use without having to pay extra to go somewhere else.”

Modernizing marketing for real estate professionals

The real estate industry is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies in what has historically been a paper- and process-heavy business. “Agents have been doing business the way they have been doing it for a long time,” is how Wellbrock describes the prevailing attitude.

To encourage adoption, Clark’s Florida team approached the rollout of their favorite design hub, MAXA’s agent-centric marketing platformas a complete marketing campaign of its own, creating hype-building moments with teaser videos, cross-training, internal documentation, and early hands-on wins in the room during onboarding sessions.

“From the resources available to training our trainers first… it really was a case of all hands on deck [to] make sure everyone knew the platform,” Clark said.

Clark’s team creates momentum through recurring collateral drops on a structured, ongoing content release schedule to keep agents actively engaged in the system and to support consistent prospecting, social media management and print marketing.

While MAXA templates remained unlocked so agents could use their individual brand elements, some essential elements were locked to ensure compliance.

What happens to the marketing team when agents start creating?

Once marketing staff are free from production duties, they have more time to focus on higher-level brand development and consulting work with agents. “It’s really about developing brands for the agent and then executing a strategy,” Wellbrock said, “rather than acting as order takers within the department.”

Now that officers have more powers, involvement is high. Marketing support is more valued and agents are eager to build on their successes, with nearly 50 percent adoption of monthly active users on Clark’s team.

With broker margins shrinking, resulting in smaller workforces and smaller budgets, marketing automation is no longer optional, Wellbrock said. It is necessary to maintain the level of service.

“We are able to provide the highest level of marketing services, advice and products through the use of technology, which is important,” he said, “and [helps us] to stave off our competition.”