Branding is important in all forms of marketing. It allows you to control the narrative and give people an established opinion of who you are before they know you. Branding is at the root of what marketing is all about. Consider Mcdonald’s or Louis Vuitton. When you see the golden arches, you think of speed and convenience. When you see the LV logo on a bag or wallet, you think luxury, class, and high costs. That is what years and years of powerful branding can do for you.

For real estate agents, you will likely be doing this at a much-reduced scale, but the impact can still be significant for you. Creating a brand is a way to show prospective clients you are a professional, carve out a niche within the industry, and increase your client base. It is a lead generation strategy that many agents rely on.

Building your brand takes time, thought, and effort. It is a long-term process, but down the road, it can help you showcase the best version of yourself and provide a competitive advantage over your local rivals. It is a marketing strategy all agents, new and experienced, need to consider.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways to set about building a brand if you are a real estate agent trying to establish yourself.

Look Inwards and Define Your Niche

The first thing you need to do when branding is focus on what you want your brand to be. These types of things don’t happen by accident; you won’t likely stumble across a brand identity. You need to do some planning and reflecting first to find the right brand for yourself. Some of the important things to consider are your goals. Who do you want to be selling to? What kind of property would you like to specialize in?

You can look at your previous clients and the type of people you connect best with to get a sense of who your image and brand have worked with in the past. Consider the niches you want to target. Don’t be afraid to get specific. Do you want to sell luxury real estate? So does every realtor. Narrow your scope. Potentially look at selling luxury homes to families upgrading from smaller properties. Think of how you’d brand for that. You could also consider selling luxury condos to empty-nesters who are downsizing space.

The more specific and focused your niche is, the better you can tailor your brand to it. Vague niches can still be effective, but starting small and expanding is always a good starting point. You can consider various niches and consider which fits you best.

Focus on Content

Content is where you can start really filling out your brand. It is all well and good to say you are a real estate agent specializing in selling investment properties to international buyers or an agent who sells specialized commercial real estate, but you need to make it known to the public for this to come true. Content marketing helps you do this.

Content allows you to build your brand in a long-form way. You can write articles, create videos, pictures, or any other way to get your message across. Your options are limitless in this regard. Content marketing is a form of inbound marketing that brings prospective leads to you by providing them with something of value: entertainment or information.

Your content marketing strategy can consist of YouTube videos, a LinkedIn newsletter, a website blog, or a photo series. There are no real boundaries to this, and the more creative you get, the better. The key is to stay on brand. Center your content around the type of client you are trying to reach. Factor in things like design and aesthetics into your content. You should be specifically tailoring the way you talk, dress, and what you discuss in your content to the brand you are trying to build.

Utilize Facebook

Social media is a real estate agent looking to build a brand’s best friend. You can carefully construct an image of yourself that you want your prospective clients to see with social media. When you’re picking the social media channel you want to focus on, Facebook makes a lot of sense.

It is the most used social media platform, according to Data Reportal, with just under 2.9 billion monthly active users. It has Facebook Ads, which are a hugely popular, proven form of marketing that disperse your content to a targeted group within a location and demographic. You can also create a Facebook Business Page, a public-facing page that showcases your real estate marketing content. It is the perfect site for building your brand.

If you’re looking for a leg up on your Facebook lead generation, StreetText is for you. StreetText is a platform specifically for real estate agents looking to passively generate high-quality new prospects. StreetText allows agents to easily connect with new home sellers and buyers in areas of their choosing. It has helped thousands of real estate agents generate over three million leads and has a comprehensive lead capture system that will help you fill out your appointment calendar. 

Start a seven-day trial today if you want to see what StreetText can do for your lead generation.