Here’s a not-so-wild guess: It probably took you about three seconds in real estate to realize that successful real estate involves a lot more than real estate. It goes beyond people skills, great negotiation, and networking. This beyond is precisely where comes personal branding for realtors into play.
Branding yourself as a realtor is all about dominating social media and crafting an unforgettable narrative, about writing dynamite listings and creating a solid business plan… and then, there’s a whole lot more. But that “whole lot more” can quickly become overwhelming.
So, quick question: What if there were an easier way to dominate your real estate market?
An even quicker answer: There is! We’ll admit that it’s not simple or fast, but it is easier. It’s about doing the work, cultivating patience, and remaining committed to yourself and your brand. After all, you are more than the face of your personal agent brand. Your brand is you and you are your brand.
So if you’re ready to be the go-to real estate professional who clients find – and follow – both regionally and online, then it’s time to get started on these 7 easy (but not quite simple) steps to creating unforgettable, personable, share-worthy personal branding for realtors that will change everything for your business.
Stage 1: Initial Behind-the-Scenes Work
“Stop!” is a hard word to hear. But when it comes to branding yourself as a realtor, it’s maybe the most important one we can say.
Here’s why: Whether you’re launching or relaunching your brand, the very first thing to do is stop and assess. Because before you can start, you have to do some serious behind-the-scenes work – you have to build a foundation before you begin to stack the bricks.
While so much of branding, marketing, and beyond “depends on you” (we know, we say it a lot!), this is the one phase that doesn’t have quite as much wiggle room. Again, this is your foundation; it’s worth the work and your patience. Here’s what it involves:
- Nail Your Target Market: A helpful rule of thumb is that your brand can maintain your values while adjusting to client needs and expectations, but your clients will not adjust their needs and expectations to your messaging. So, we strongly recommend starting with your target market.
- Define Your Unique Selling Points (USPs): This is your competitive advantage – those few specifics that really spell out your winning difference. Your USPs are one of those things whose final product is deceivingly simple, while its development can take weeks of hard work.
- Do a Competitive Deep Dive: Before you define where you’re going (and how you’ll get there), it’s important to understand where your competitors already are, both locally and online.
- Create a Business Plan: From the services you offer to the markets you serve, your business plan acts as a central hub for your strategic approach to business success.
- … And a lot more! That’s a start, but there’s still a lot more to this phase, including creating a Welcome Kit, developing your project management strategies, setting up your online real estate, and more.
At Peak, this entire phase falls under the umbrella of consultation. It’s the beginning of it all and the groundwork for everything to come.
Stage 2: Develop Your Personal Brand Identity
If the behind-the-scenes stuff forms the foundation, then your personal brand identity builds the first layer of bricks. At Peak, we consider developing your identity as the all-important first phase of personal branding for realtors.
Think of brand identity as the way your business presents itself. And we know: Personifying something as inanimate – and simultaneously, as intimate – as your realtor personal brand is a challenge. So, think about it as brand awareness: the face of your company, paired with how the public sees and relates to your brand and services.
Here’s why it matters: A strong brand identity sets you apart from your competition. It’s what makes people remember your name. Here’s what it entails:
- Who you and your company are, at your cores
- What you say
- Why you do what you do (in other words, your company values)
- Where your values lie
- How you communicate your services and USPs
- How you want people to feel when they work with your company
- What you promise to your clients
This is also the moment to develop your brand visuals, which include your:
- Custom Signature Logo
- Color Palette
- Style Guide
- Brand Typeface
- Mood Board
- Business Card(s)
- Personal Brand Photoshoot Guidelines
- Custom Presets
- And more!
Stage 3: Build Your Personal Brand Narrative
Within the overall framework of personal branding for realtors, your narrative has several crucial components that you’ll pull together into your Brand Book. These include your:
- Brand Tagline
- Elevator Pitch
- Mission & Vision Statements
- About Your Brand
- Brand Architecture
- Brand Personality & Voice
- Core Values
Like your brand identity, your realtor personal brand narrative will live within your Brand Book, which you can reference and re-reference whenever needed. Because – and this is the key – you don’t want to deviate from this identity or narrative. This is how your public, your clients, and even your own team will get to know you. Flipping the script is confusing at best, alienating at worst.
Stage 4: Create a Personal Branding for Realtors Marketing Kit
Today more than ever, your success relies on strong marketing and the kind of social media presence that people want to save, follow, and share.
If you’re ready to be the go-to real estate professional – and we’re thinking you are, if you’re here! – then it’s time to revolutionize your marketing through an educational, sharable, and personality-infused content strategy. This includes your goals, audience analytics, competitive analysis, a social media audit, account setup, and optimization of current accounts, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
In this phase, you’ll create your:
- Content Marketing Guide
- Content Calendar
- Content for your Conte Pillars
- Custom Hashtag Strategy
- Social Media Do’s and Don’ts
- Launch Posts
- Social Media Bios
- Quick Reply Copy
- Story, Sold Listing, Carousel & Other Post Templates
- Reel Covers
- … And a lot more!
In other words, this is the phase where you get your social media ducks in a row. It’s a lot of work, but again – it’s foundational. Only now, it’s about your brand’s social media foundation, which forges the key to getting recognized as your region’s go-to real estate professional online.
Stage 5: Hash Out a Social Media Marketing Strategy
As a successful realtor, you’ll require a cohesive and carefully crafted social media strategy across your personal brand – from sold listings to new blog posts, from video launches to informative reels – to engage your audience, outclass your competition, and spread the word, while engaging cutting-edge tools, technology, and analytics to track your success.
It can be a tough pill to swallow – after all, you already have so much on your plate – but social media is about consistency. This means:
- Planned Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly Content
- Custom Social Media Graphics
- Reel Videos
- Informative Carousels
- Interactive Stories
- Insights Monitoring
- Cohesive Content Placement
- Tailored Presets (to heighten brand aesthetics)
- Intelligent SM Targeting
- … And a lot more!
Stage 6: Launch Your Brand
The culmination of every preceding phase, this is Your Moment – your time to launch (or relaunch) your personal brand, connect with your audience in new ways, grow your online presence, and carve out new opportunities.
If you’ve made it to Stage 6, then you now have the essential elements necessary to launch what you love and make a lasting impression.
Stage 7: Build from There!
After the pomp and circumstance of crafting and launching your personal branding for realtors, it’s still not time to rest on your laurels. (That’s for retirement!) Because there’s a lot of ongoing work required to build success, keep your audience engaged, and continue building a brand that dominates regionally and online.
We don’t want to overwhelm you – there’s already a lot to chew on in this post – but ongoing brand building and brand management can include:
- Branded Photography & Videography
- An SEO-Optimized Website w/Mobile-Friendly Design
- Monthly Blog Posts
- Real Estate Listing Copy
- Ongoing Search Engine Optimization
- Email Drip Campaigns
- Lead Magnets / EBooks
- Email Newsletter
- Brand Management & Monitoring
- Advertising
- … And a lot more!
How to Build the Go-To Realtor Personal Brand – WITHOUT the Overwhelm!
So, about that quick question: What if there were an easier way to dominate your real estate market?
Look – real estate is a demanding industry and your time is a finite resource. We’re here to optimize the former and minimize demands on the latter.
Chances are, branding, marketing, social media, and ongoing business management aren’t your passion or your wheelhouse. (If they were, you’d be in the marketing industry, not real estate). And at Peak, we believe that we should all love what we do and do what we love.
That’s where we come in. At Peak, we work on 6-month contracts based on the services you choose and the elements that will have the greatest impact on your personal brand, network outreach, brand awareness, and your bottom line.
We also promise to give you the knowledge, the tools, and the means to measure your efforts and usher your brand to peak success.
So if you can say “YES! I’m ready!” – ready to create an unmistakable agent brand and connect personally with your market – then we’re ready to help you revolutionize your realtor personal brand, level up your social media, and make you the go-to agent for your region and online. Make today Day 1 of Month 1.
