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Brand

It’s your key advantage in tough times. Says Giles Redmayne, Business Director of Purpose Limited.

PROPERTYdrum

brand imageI will attempt to avoid pointing out too much of the blindingly obvious regarding the economic situation we currently all find ourselves in and cut straight to the point.

Difficult as things are, the climate is presenting big opportunities for those who are forward thinking, bold and move first. Uncomfortable as it can seem to invest at the moment, putting your head above the parapet now could prove to be perfect timing for you to drive your business above – and beyond – the competition.

Stock is fundamental and vendors and landlords are increasingly focused on making the ‘right’ choice when selecting an estate agency.’

In the majority of the UK, avoiding the exceptions to the rule for now, there is property to rent and sell and buyers/tenants interested in transacting – just a limited number of both. The key is for you to have enough of both in your local area. Stock is fundamental and vendors and landlords are increasingly focused on making the ‘right’ choice when it comes to selecting an estate agency. But what criteria is important to a vendor or landlord making this decision? Aligning the type of property with the appropriate agent will continue to be a factor, as will the previous experience of an agency, the fee levels involved and perhaps most importantly of all – the reputation of the business. In other words, its brand.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Completely London car imagePurpose has worked on branding projects with estate agencies of different sizes from London to Lincolnshire, including the largest independent agency in London and a single branch start up business in Leicester. We recognise that there are key differences between large groups and small local agencies, but ultimately many of the key rules around building and maintaining a strong brand remain the same, whatever your size, sector or ambition.

The most important first step is getting a really clear understanding of what the word ‘brand’ means. Somewhat surprisingly, this can be a rare thing in many sectors and the property industry is no different. In the majority of cases there is still a basic misunderstanding of what your brand is and what is essentially just a manifestation of it.

Completely London branded windowMany estate agency websites refer to their brand where in truth they are referring to the visual application of their logo, name, company colours and strapline etc. A brand is not a logo, some ‘about us’ text or a strapline – it is quite simply, your reputation. Your brand is what people think of and associate with your business and it’s what sets you apart from your competitors. When branding is done properly it becomes hugely powerful and valuable to all areas of a business – done poorly, or misunderstood, it is just a kit-of-parts to help produce marketing materials.

CONCEPTS AND DELIVERY

A consultancy shouldn’t impose a branding decision, it is there to help you to identify your difference, your values and the key ingredients of your brand. They can help to articulate it fully and of course, ultimately guide you on how it should look, sound and behave – but it is the estate agency that is actually delivering it in every aspect of the business that will start to build a consistent, strong and valuable brand.

Completely London chef imageYour brand should affect much more than simply the marketing of your company – it should drive the service and products you bring to the market, the people you employ, the culture within your company, your supplier choices and relationships and ultimately should represent a large percentage of the overall value of your business.

This treasured brand shouldn’t be something that is solely looked after by the marketing department; it should be understood and nurtured at the very top of the company and delivered by everyone in the organisation.

It is the estate agency that is actually delivering the brand that builds it.

Consider it from a more strategic business point of view. Many UK estate agencies are named after the people who founded the business and it is their reputation that currently forms the opinion of the market. When those people first established that brand, it may have been enough, but should the longer term plan be to sell the business then those individuals will, sooner or later, no longer be part of it and the reputation gained will quickly be eroded. Few buyers will want to consider a purchase where this is the case – they will want to invest in a business where the reputation is built on far firmer foundations – amongst these, a strong brand.

HARNESSING POWER

The array of challenges facing the UK property market is leading to all sorts of businesses reaching for the latest marketing tools to try and give them a competitive advantage.

brand brainstorming imageFor example, many rightly want to better understand and harness the power of mobile marketing and social media channels. There is clearly sound reasoning for this but ultimately the strategy and the content for all the marketing you consider should be informed by a really strong and clearly defined brand. Get this right and all the other parts will fall much more easily into place.

Kinleigh Folkard and Hayward, one of the best known agencies in southern England, has worked hard to build and really harness the power of their brand. It has played a key part in the company’s growth in more buoyant times and has served to protect their market share in the leaner times everyone is currently experiencing.

A real brand is something that is manifest throughout its business. It’s not just part of the culture – it actually drives the culture.’

‘Foul’ I hear you cry. ‘KFH is a London based agency and any fool will be aware that the London residential property market is not a fair reflection of the wider UK market’. I would agree – but their brand still represents a key part of their advantage and the same would be true – in or out of London.

I work in London, but I live a stone’s throw from the very middle of the country so I am not blinkered in my views.

As part of penning this article I visited my two nearest provincial towns to take a closer look at what the estate agency landscape looked like and to challenge any preconceptions I may have had. I found fourteen separate agencies in one town with a population of only 21,000 and nine agencies in the other town which has a population of less than 10,000. Is this really sustainable longer term? I poked and prodded almost all of them and could find little evidence of any real differentiation or what would be truly described as a brand.

Possibly the best known example of branding in this sector is one that strongly divides opinion – the iconic Foxton’s minis. Seen by some as the very antithesis of what the industry has been battling to avoid – and by others as a brilliant piece of branding. In my experience, the reputation of Foxtons remains divided but it is unquestionably strong and their brand will have been a major factor in the successful sale of the business in 2007.

Your brand and your branding needs to be very carefully managed as one false move can erode a huge amount of hard work and investment but the upsides of a strong brand, in every area of business, are there for all to see.

EVOLUTION

The powerful brand that Kinleigh Folkard and Hayward has today was not an overnight revolution – it has, like many of the best examples, evolved over a period of time. The pivotal moment for the KFH brand came when they identified a wholly ownable and differentiating brand position in ‘Completely London’. London born and with over fifty branches it was a position the business could really live up to and use to drive, not just its knowledge of the wider London market but to reinforce every branch’s local passion and intelligence. The ultimate expression of this brand position is its magazine – also entitled Completely London. Far from following the predictable formats and content in this sector, KFH set out to break the rules by providing Londoners with something that was much more than simply a few interesting articles followed by list of properties. It’s a magazine about London, by Londoners, for Londoners – it celebrates the place that is the lifeblood of KFH and intrinsically links one to the other. It positions and reinforces the KFH brand in the mind of its customers.

The upsides of a strong brand, in every area of business, are there for all to see.

KFH looks well beyond innovative or more standard marketing materials to deliver its brand. They recognise that the people who represent the business are key to the success of the brand. This is vital but is often under invested in, poorly communicated with or, worse still, so totally overlooked by many businesses. Brand building is not about simply broadcasting communications from a marketing department.

A real brand is something that is manifest throughout its business. It’s not just part of the culture – it drives the culture. If you really have a brand at all, a simple test is to ask those around your business what it is. If you are met with a sea of blank expressions or conflicting answers you have to question what it is that you really have. If those inside the business don’t know, then the ones you want to engage with outside of it have next to no chance.

September 27, 2012

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