Does Your Agency Have a Serious Case of Mixed Message Madness?

Whenever I take on a new retained client I do a review of their local competition as a starting point.

Part of that process is the agents I’m working with send me as much marketing materials as possible from their rivals.

If you are not keeping an eye on what your local rivals are doing, you should start now. Because if they are smart they’ll sure as hell be watching what you are up to.

Remember it’s often the person who executes the idea best who benefits from it most rather than the idea’s inventor / creator.

I’d spent an hour wading through the usual newspaper stock adverts, half hearted blog attempts and ‘We’ve hundreds of people waiting to buy homes like yours’ (really? I mean seriously?) fliers.

Then I saw something which struck me as madness.

A corporate agency had produced a double sided mail shot (at least they used both sides, some agencies don’t). They included photos of the local office team, with brief bios. So far so good.

PR is all about image building and profile raising and this kind of approach using team photos and brief biographies plays a part in doing this.

But, and this was a but of Kim Kardashian proportions (before the PC police call me a woman hating sexist I use her ‘but’ as an example of ‘but what on earth is she famous for?’ rather than her ample posterior).

This agency used photos of a senior manager in his 40s, that’s ok. Then his team were all obviously late teens or early twenties, again, ok.

The trouble was this mail shot was trying to sell this youthful looking team as ‘experienced, seasoned professionals.’ It’s a totally mixed message bordering on madness.

I showed the mail out to my designer without saying a word. From a design point of view he had no problem apart the photos were too small but he did say ‘The older guy looks like he’s running a crèche.’

I asked my wife’s opinion of it. Again not saying a word about what I thought. Bang, First thing she says ‘they look too young to be experts.’

This mixed message showed a lack of thought had gone into the mail out. People make snap judgments. They do judge books by their covers.

I showed the mail out to six people, they all said the same thing in one way or another that the manager aside, all of the other team members looked like junior staff.

Not for one second am I suggesting young people in the industry or any workplace can’t be fantastic, of course they can. But in this example the agency were trying to ‘sell them’ as being experienced experts. The photos and main message were at odds.

It would have been wiser for the mail out to focus on the manager’s experience and then his youthful colleagues’ energy and enthusiasm.

I’ve seen it before. Agencies pitching themselves as bespoke, ‘top end’ companies then in the same breath promoting a 0.5% fee sale. Madness as they are conflicting messages. ‘We’re top quality but cheap!’

Anyway that’s enough from me, so wishing you all a fantastic 2016, be clear about your agency’s message and here’s to your next instruction.

Jerry

PS – We only have one Blog in a Box for Estate Agents Volume 1 – left. 30 professionally written blogs for agents for just £123.00 + VAT. Visit http://www.propertyprexpert.co.uk/estate-agents-blog-in-a-box/ to see why it’s an offer that’s been so popular.

To bag the last one email me: at Jerry@propertyprexpert.co.uk now.

Alex Evans

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

UK monthly property transactions for May 2025

Headline statistics from the latest transactions data include: the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in May 2025 is 81,470, 12% lower than May 2024 and 25% higher than April 2025 the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in May 2025 is 80,530, 13% lower than May 2024 and…
Read More
Breaking News

Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) shows the Government has a plan

The Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) held its first board meeting today (26 June 2025), where it set out a roadmap for recruiting 100,000 more construction workers a year by the end of Parliament. Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said: “The Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) is a recognition…
Read More
Paint Stripper Tools
Estate Agent Talk

5 Strategies to Optimise Your Warehouse for Real Estate

The term fixer-upper can mean many things, from ‘slap some paint on the walls and it looks brand new’ to ‘will this building collapse if we open the front door?’ Indeed, in the dicey world of commercial property acquisition, each warehouse you buy will probably fall into both camps. Thinking about the viability of warehouses…
Read More
Breaking News

HMOs sell for up to 50% above market average

New research from Excellion Capital, the boutique debt advisory and investment firm, reveals that HMOs sell for as much as 50% above the average house price, further increasing their investment potential after it was revealed that HMOs also create rental yields of up to 12.5%. After previous research from Excellion Capital recently showed that the…
Read More
Breaking News

UK buyers struggle while 50,000 homes sit empty

As the UK housing crisis deepens, new analysis by Open Property Group exposes a worrying surge in so-called “zombie homes”- properties that sit unoccupied and deteriorating while millions struggle to access affordable housing. Key insights: 50,000+ long-term vacant homes in England alone 23,000+ of these have been empty for more than two years Estimated £13.6…
Read More
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 26/06/25

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.   The UK is Europe’s second most distressed market despite headline GDP growth Retail and Consumers Goods has emerged as the most distressed sector in Europe, with distress levels now the highest since the global financial crisis, according to the latest Weil European Distress Index (WEDI). The…
Read More