So often you see agencies with very few listings advertising heavily for buyers. While I have nothing against advertising, I do believe that you should advertise for what you want – if you want buyers, advertise for buyers; if you want listings, advertise for sellers.
Advertising is of little use, however, when it comes to building a brand. If you want your agency to be seen as the agency in its service area, advertising is not the most cost-effective way to achieve this.
In their book, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, Al and Laura Ries argue that advertising tends to be doubted by consumers because they perceive it as being biased.
When you advertise that you are the best, consumers doubt that message because they know that you paid for the advertising. Therefore your message should not be believed. This means that if you want to create a brand using advertising, be prepared to throw millions of dollars at it.
Al and Laura Ries say that if you want to increase brand awareness that you should use Public Relations. I agree.
In our Real Estate Agency Management Program we argue that leaders should focus on building a REPUTATION, not a PROFILE. I believe that if you take care of creating a reputation as a competent and caring agency that gets results and delights its clients, your profile will take care of itself. The added bonus is that you will have the best kind of public relations working for you – word of mouth.
Advertising does have a place – that place is to protect your brand from attack from the number two competitor, but this can only occur after you have built the brand.
Do you want to know how to market your agency cost effectively? Then consider joining us at our next presentation of the Real Estate Agency Management Program.
Not only can I promise you plenty of great ideas to market your agency, in these five days you will be shown how to find and keep a winning team, how to position your agency in consumers’ minds, and how to achieve long term predictability of the agency’s results. That’s just to name a few.