ESTATE AGENTS – Wasting £9,500,000 a year
Well that was a fun Friday wasn’t it! Mow let’s get back to work and many of you will wondering, if there is going a to be a period of uncertainty .. stock will dry up (although let’s be frank .. its been pretty tough for a while to get more stock.
Time for marketing….
Across the offices of Estate and Letting Agents today, you will hear ….
“We need to get our name out there”
Many estate and letting agents believe the biggest challenge they have is creating more brand awareness. If you could only get on the radar of potential homeowners and landlords, then many of your problems would disappear… wouldn’t they?
And yet very well known companies/brands like Austin Reed, JJB, HMV, Comet, Nokia Blockbusters, Woolies and BHS that had built awareness for decades struggled to remain viable and went bust or were gobbled up by their competitors.
These companies’ biggest problem wasn’t getting on the punter’s radar, it was keeping the punter on their radar.
Companies/brands like Virgin, Apple, Aldi, Lidl, John Lewis, Dyson and M&S have thrived and become important to us in recent times. They have kept us, the punter, in their mind .. not the other way round. These companies/brands remain relevant because they see us as people, not because they made us more aware of their company or brand.
Leaflets through the door or newspaper advertising saying ‘Hi we are an agent’ ..ie brand awareness is quite frankly a waste of time, money and effort in today’s 21st Century British society .. let alone in estate or letting agency.
As Estate and Letting Agents .. we will only succeed in the 21st Century by understanding how to be more relevant to our potential clients (landlords and house sellers).
To be more relevant, we need to create stuff that is so good, so interesting, so intriguing and most importantly, helpful to all the home owners, (ie potential property sellers) and landlords (ie our punters – the ones that pay the bills) in our town, they will take us to their hearts like the John Lewis’s and Apple’s of this world.
… and people wont take us to their hearts by simply being more visible.
So if any of you are doing any form of marketing to get you ‘brand awareness’ .. then ask yourself .. does it really work? is it money well spent? .. because whilst that type of marketing worked 5 or 10 years ago .. it doesn’t work today and it certainly wont work next year or the year after … because just being more visible wont get you the free vals, the listings, the sales, the lets you need to survive
.. but I will tell you what will get those free vals, those market appraisals, those landlords walking through your door … all you need to be as estate or letting agents is to be more relevant.
Want to know what is relevant .. then you should have been writing articles like this on your town .. a Town Specific article on the Brexit .. this example on Grantham .. click on the graph to see the full article
If you want to know how to be more relevant as an estate or letting agent in the 21st Century and how that relevance will, I guarantee it, get you loads more free valuations, lots more market appraisals, more landlords and more managed properties on your books .. you might this article of interest? (click on this link to go to an article on Linkedin)
kind regards
Christopher
PS Not many of you will read this, but if you do, I make you this offer. If I haven’t got a client in your town, I would be more than happy to write the same article for you with number specific to your town homeowners, landlords etc) .. at no cost or commitment. The offer is only open today (Monday 27th June 2016) and all you need to do is email me with the name of your town. If I already have a client in your town, I will email back an politely refusal – otherwise you get a lovely article you can use on social media, newspaper etc
Christopher Watkin
Ghostwriter and Freelance Property Market Journalist
07950 147572
christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk
PS .. The £9,500,000 figure was a very basic assumption that the 19,000 estate and letting agents in the UK all spend £500 a year in marketing themselves (excluding portals costs). To be honest .. I think that figure could be a hell of a lot higher that £9,500,000 – but I would rathe robe conservative (with a small ‘c’)
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