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When it comes to interacting with a real estate agency, this brand adviser shares that it’s important to be able to pinpoint where a prospective client sits in relation to your business.
According to Steve Osborn, head of Identity Marketing, there are three main phases to the real estate journey, and every person in the community will sit somewhere on this path at any given time.
As he explained on a recent episode of Secrets of the Top 100 Agents, the first is the awareness phase.
Osborn suggested that businesses should first consider the simple question: are community members aware of the business or not?
Of course, there will not be a blanket answer, but increasing visibility is the first step to winning over potential clients. Making sure that your real estate business and its associated members are a firm, established, and known presence in any community is a third of the battle to winning new business.
“If they are aware of the company, then they are at that next stage: consideration,” Osborn explained.
Consideration is often the phase that dominates real estate professionals’ focus. And with good reason, because it’s the moment when the customer decides: will they use your services or not?
But Osborn reminds that customers need care at more points than just this one. The final phase, advocacy, is also an integral hand-holding moment, as it’s what generates new leads – or potentially damages reputations.
“This is the final stage where customers are asking, did we have a good experience with the company or not? And if they had a good experience, they’re going to refer people. If they didn’t have a good experience, they’re going to post about it on social media and they’re going to tell everyone,” Osborn explained.
The major thing that Osborn feels is not understood about the client journey, however, is that these three phases – awareness, consideration and advocacy – are not linear, but rather cyclical. After the advocacy phase, businesses need to make sure that they stay on top of the awareness list, and the cycle starts again.
“Once you get to the advocacy part where people are referring clients, the work isn’t done, like, you need to keep that brand awareness.”
It’s an element he feels some agents forget, and ultimately blame the consumer for a lack of loyalty when they decide to go with someone else in their next real estate transaction.
But businesses should really be asking themselves: did they win in the awareness rankings over the years – or maybe even decades – between those interactions?
When agents have repeat clients coming back time and time again, Osborn believes it’s testament to their work, pure and simple.
“They’re calling them, they’ve got some really good content going out on social media, they’re having some really good client events. They’re getting face to face with their client. They’re doing the annual checkup and they’ve got a proper plan around that just to keep that happening,” he said.
In Osborn’s view, the concept of “brand loyalty” is somewhat misunderstood, because it puts too much responsibility in the relationship down to the customer.
In reality, it’s the brand’s job to give people a reason to stay loyal.
“Brand loyalty only exists if you’re relevant to the client,” he stressed.
The job for real estate agents is to show that they’re always relevant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
