Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Irina Kim Sang, a Realtor Associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Miami Beach on marketing your brand.
In the real estate industry, everyone has a unique personality with a different educational background and professional experience. Agents are primarily taught sales skills, which are based on a numbers game, but very few marketing skills, which are based on strategic approach. The challenge is how can you sell if you’re unable to continually generate quality, targeted leads? Therefore, the Realtor’s business isn’t only about sales but even more so about marketing yourself and your brand.
As professional marketer with 15 years of corporate marketing experience I have realized that in order for any agent to be able to break through into the industry and build sustainable business one needs to recognize the ever-growing need for marketing oneself and the unique challenges faced by Realtors in differentiating themselves and their brands in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven, competitive environment.
I have created my “7 Ps” Personal branding model based on specific marketing knowledge and skills needed to launch or reposition your realtor’s business on a fast, direct track for success by saving you costly, time-consuming trial and error. My “7 Ps” are:
1. Product: Knowing Yourself – The beginning of the branding process is a detailed product assessment; in this case the product is You. You need to take time and be honest with yourself about your potential.
2. People and Place: Knowing Your Niche – Are you interacting with and trying to promote yourself to the right people? This chapter helps you to categorize all potential customer profiles and target audiences to communicate your brand.
3. Positioning: Aligning Yourself with Your Niche – What is your value proposition? What differentiates you from your competition? All the information collected in chapters 1 and 2 prepares you to be able to develop your personal profile and your unique promise of value, your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you don’t have it, potential customers don’t have any reasons to choose you. You blend in with the other thousands of licensed real estate agents.
4. Packaging: Designing Brand Identity – Package yourself, from your personal story to all visual components of your brand.
5. Promotion: Communicating Your Brand Online and Offline – Brand your traditional real estate communication tools. Brand your online and offline Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). Your goal is to express your personal brand in all marketing materials, self-expressions, and best expressions. Create a communication plan, formed by marketing campaigns and your unique series of messages. You need a communication plan so that you’re sharing your brand on your own terms—not leaving anything to chance.
6. Platforms: Building and Nurturing Your Relationship Network – Real estate is a “People Business,” and building long-term, loyal relationships is the key to a real estate success.
7. Projection: Pursuing the Future with Persistence – Personal Branding isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing endeavor that has to be managed over time.
A native of Kazakhstan, Irina is fluent in English and Russian, and has positioned herself as the go-to Realtor for consumers looking for homes in South Florida. In March, she published a book on branding based on 15 years of professional marketing experience: Realtor Branding: Marketing Yourself for Real Estate Success.