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 these are marketing tactics — activities that support a specific strategy. If you’re a real estate agent, you don’t have to overthink the strategy to drive deals.
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When you’re a real estate broker, supporting your agents’ efforts with these transactional marketing efforts is an integral part of the value proposition you bring to them. The time you devote to this component of the business is critical.
But next-level marketers also spend time thinking at a higher level. This level involves thinking about the strategy behind the company’s marketing needs. We often talk about supporting agents in building their personal brand.
This is important to the company’s bottom line because when our agents succeed, the company does too. Next-level marketers understand that building, reinforcing and elevating the company’s brand is additive to the agent’s brand. They also know that this requires a well-thought-out strategy and related tactics.
So, where to start?
The first step is to evaluate your company’s existing brand by conducting a brand audit. This involves understanding how current and past clients feel about you, which can be done through client surveys or by analyzing reviews. You should also see how your brand is showing up in the market by seeing how consistent your presentation is across all public touchpoints, such as your website, social media, collateral and even community events.
Is the logo the same? Is there consistency in your color palette? Are the brand fonts deployed 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 offerings. Are there any gaps that you need to shore up to be on 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 company.
- You can play to your strengths as a way of differentiating yourself in the market, as well as address your weaknesses so that you don’t lose potential business.
- When I look at opportunities, I use a blue sky approach — meaning all ideas are good ideas, no matter the cost or challenges in executing. If there is something we can be doing as a company 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 business?
Once you have completed this comprehensive audit, it’s time to develop a strategic plan.
Putting information into action: A case study
My brokerage dates back to 1966 — older than me! With over 25 offices throughout Northern New England, we’re the largest residential real estate firm north of Boston. A lot of our growth has come through mergers and acquisitions. As a result, we have incorporated many different individually branded companies into The Masiello mix over the years.
Discovery phase
When we conducted our brand audit, we realized there was an apparent lack of consistency in how we were showing up to the public across our vast footprint. That meant there was a lost opportunity to present the strength of a unified brand.
The challenge for us was how to drive home the importance of a consistent company brand. When you’re involved in the churn of a transaction, it’s just easier to use the marketing materials that are available, rather than take the time to update them to a brand standard.
To that point, we weren’t really enforcing a brand standard — a definite weakness and lost opportunity.
Leveraging opportunity
When the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand launched its 2025 “We Know” campaign that included the tagline “Nobody Knows Home Better,” we realized we had a key moment in time, and a very visible one at that, to capture the entire company’s attention.
As we considered how to deploy the national campaign in our service area, we realized we could complement it by introducing our new company branding vision and, in the process, achieve a higher level of brand consistency across the company.
Backing up our words with action
It’s all well and good to say, “Here’s our vision; now you go and execute on it.” Real estate agents aren’t equipped for it or, to be honest, interested in it. So, we put our money where our mouth is by assigning the business support specialists and agent support managers in each office this responsibility. Typically, these roles were focused on coordinating aspects of the transaction, with marketing support as a secondary focus.
As we considered how to introduce the “Nobody knows … ” campaign, we looked at our existing tagline, “Experience Quality.” While it definitely stood for what we considered a very important differentiator for us, it lacked specific details that would resonate with consumers. To make it more relatable to our market, we tweaked the tagline: We Know New England: Nobody Knows Homes Better.
We introduced a second Instagram handle focused on all things New England — not just real estate. We updated all of our brand graphics to be consistent with each office’s scenery. Our messaging is updated to focus on our New England expertise, which has been much easier for agents to use because it’s essentially part of who they are.
Results
The response from our agents has been tremendous: adoption of the campaign assets is high, and we definitely see a lift in collective company pride. And at the local office level, we are seeing increased efficiency in marketing support because there is far less modification of existing templated assets. This lets agents and the business support team spend more time on higher-value tasks.
We also deployed a new sales program called “LIFT | Elevate Your Everyday” at a similar time to this marketing endeavor, and they truly worked hand in hand with a growth mindset and growth tactics, but the new messaging definitely added confidence to any “sales pitch.”
Other key metrics:
- We increased our website visits month over month.
- We tripled our presence among younger followers on TikTok by creating a new profile.
- And we have increased our confidence in our value to customers and recruits by being relatable and making conversations so much easier!
With consistent messaging and branding, our recruiting efforts have been energized, and we are also having a much more streamlined onboarding experience for new agents.
Measuring results
As a seasoned marketer with experience across a variety of industries, including aviation, architecture and fintech, it’s been so gratifying to see how a strategic marketing approach — one that is aligned with the overall business goals and backed by leadership — can have such an impact. Despite what many people may initially think, real estate marketing is way more than a new listing flyer.
Cara Tachibana is the Chief Marketing Officer for Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate The Masiello Group. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram.
