July 13 2017
The greatest benefit of becoming a Local Market Master is having a brand that is recognized in – and that resonates with – your ideal customers.
Your brand's meaning comes from the promises that you (and your agency) commit to honoring, which creates a superior customer experience.
These promises, or brand messages, need to be continually communicated and reinforced across all of your marketing and customer interactions. This starts the process of developing and establishing you as a Local Market Master.
Once you've defined your brand, you'll want to start using digital tools that allow you to promote your messages and build your brand identity in the easiest, cheapest, and most effective ways.
There are three phrases of crafting your brand messages
Let's go into more detail on the three phases below.
Whether you realize it or not, and whether or not you created it intentionally, you already have a brand. There is a message you send to potential clients in every communication you have with them. You need to take the time to craft that message to ensure it resonates with your audience.
To start, you need to get to know your local area market, your potential customers, and their lifestyle.
To get to know you audience and their lifestyles, ask the following questions:
This information will give you the knowledge about your market that you can then demonstrate to clients and prospective clients. You are becoming the local area master!
To gain further traction in your neighborhood market, plan the following activities:
Use this information to evaluate who your audience is (Phase #2), what your market wants, and as a result, determine what messages are relevant to them.
The local market audience is who you want to connect with; you may have more than one audience, but start by defining the customer you want to attract in your local market area. Use your market research from Phase #1 to do this.
Many times, we make assumptions about what we think our audience wants and therefore our brand messages miss the mark. We might even think that everybody is a potential customer, but there are only a certain number of people in the market for your products and services.
The better you understand your customers, the more likely you are to produce the right message that attracts them and the more likely it is that they will respond to your offer.
When you have an effective brand, and marketing that reinforces brand message, your customers will already know that you are right for them. They are aware of you and they know you have a service that they want.
To truly uncover your ideal client, ask yourself:
By answering the questions above, you will be able to make generalizations about your local market: who are the typical customers that are buying and selling real estate in your area.
Garry Wise, co-founder of GoodLife Realty and The Paperless Agent, and his team created this Local Audience Discovery Worksheet for their Austin, Texas local market area (we'll use these responses to show you how to create the Brand Message in Phase #3):
Now that you have conducted your Market Research (#1) and have taken steps to get to know your local area Audience (#2), our next step is draft a clearly defined brand message.
In a few sentences, summarize your customers' profile. Depending on the area you wish to serve, your profile might look a little something like this:
Business professional, late-career, lives with spouse or partner, has older children or is an empty nester. Works a lot, but wants to enjoy the downtown lifestyle. Interested in finance, entertainment and luxury goods.
Based on this customer profile, are there elements that you would you like to add or remove from your brand? Are the FIVE words used to describe you in Phase #2 included in your brand (or should they not be excluded)?
For example, the words "urban," "hip," "trendy," and "up-and-coming" wouldn't resonate with the particular audience we described above, so if that description had been used in the brand messaging, they should be left out!
Take time to consider what your competitors (their websites, social media pages, print marketing) are saying and promising.
Your reputation needs to be synonymous with what is reflected by your ideal customers in that particular market area. Is that luxury condos in the downtown area? Family ranch? Hip and trendy? Be sure you are reflecting what your customer wants.
Use what you have discovered about your ideal customers and what they want to craft your promises.
List the promises that you make to your potential customers that would differentiate your agency from the competition.
Here's an example we put together for GoodLife Realty:
"Use real market knowledge to valuate homes, not cheap, inaccurate algorithms"
"Use entrepreneurial spirit to create new possibilities for your next move"
"Use our investment background to get you a great deal"
Now we craft the brand message using the promises above (which were taken directly from the answers we generated in Phase #2).
Luxury real estate sales and investment for downtown Austin area. Entrepreneurial spirit and local market expertise to deliver the good life you deserve.
Your Brand Message doesn't come from a blank sheet of paper, it is a process. Don't rush; go through each Phase step-by-step to craft your the brand message.
To view the original article, visit the Paperless Agent blog.