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Personal Branding Techniques for Real Estate Agents and BrokersDan R. Vella A key principle of marketing is to find something unique about what you offer as the basis of your sales message. Even if what you offer is a commodity, there is always one thing unique in your business -- you. A big error made by many Real Estate Agents and Brokers is to try to develop an institutional image like most big companies. People do not like to do business with institutions; they like to do business with people. In advertising terms, branding is the "image" created in the minds of people when they see or hear a name, product or logo. Companies invest a lot of money in creating and maintaining their brand, but the Internet has sparked a new trend called "Personal Branding". Personal branding isnt only important for promoting a product, business or political cause, but also for promoting yourself for advancement within your own organization. It involves developing your personal reputation. Branding can be done to any product, or any person. Before undertaking an exercise in personal branding, however, consider your distinctive strengths and abilities and what they offer the market place. Traditionally personal branding was for sporting celebrities who gained enormous coverage and following through their sporting prowess. Movie stars have also had celebrity status and association since movies began. A personal brand is about creating strong, favorable associations in the minds of people that you encounter. If you don’t actively do this, they will still make associations. Therefore, it may be better to be proactive and undertake the branding exercise for yourself, you cannot control what they think but can give them some information to assist with the associations. WHY BRANDING OURSELVES
HOW DO WE BRAND OURSELVES Like any branding exercise, the key to personal branding is having a good product, one which you understand and pitch to the right market. The first step in personal branding is knowing who you are, find out what strengths your brand possesses and how these strengths can help you. Personal branding is not about presenting a façade to the public; a poor product will not stand up to market scrutiny. This is also a choice of brand elements, people you deal with, the look that you have, and how you conduct yourself. Once this has been done, determine what you are going to offer. As a product what do you do, what need does the product of you satisfy in the market. Next figure out the position you will take in the audience of your mind. What unique space do you wish to occupy and what unique associations do you want people to recall when they think of you Finally, once you have established the first three steps, manage your brand over its lifecycle. That is keep visible, be consistent and be yourself. According to Montoya, the well-known personal branding guru, the key to managing your personal brand is word-of-mouth WOM, the most trusted form of communication. How does one go about building a personal brand Recognize your personal strengths and gifts! Think about how you best connect with people, consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate in a way that reaches your constituents in their hearts and minds and via the channels that work best for you Functional associations are important such as timeliness, quality, dedication; as are emotional associations like inspiring, leadership, being an innovator. The three C’s of personal branding are clarity, consistency and constancy. Clarity deals with being honest about yourself and your strengths and promises of value attached to your personal brand and being clear in the way you communicate them. Often, for simplicity, you must focus on one or two aspects that are most vital and focus on communicating them. Think about the things you associate with prominent artists or mangers, and they are unlikely to be complicated. Consistency is keeping things consistent for the customers. This does not mean staying stuck in the past, but just not undertaking drastic changes. Coca Cola have had a consistent message for 50 years; the message evolves continuously and is not stagnant but is consistent. Artists like Madonna change every three or four years, but there is a consistency to the change. Constancy means being visible with your brand and maintaining an on-going level of awareness in the marketplace. Oprah Winfrey is visible constantly, and although most of people do not have the visibility or exposure of Oprah, they can still be visible in a smaller audience. There is no point trying to build a brand image quickly to coincide with a new exhibition or performance you may have coming up – brands take time to build in consumers minds. A FREE PERSONAL BRANDING TOOLKIT FOR REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS NetReal.net, a company noted for its template-based Real Estate Web design solutions, offers a Winter Holidays Gift for Real Estate Agents and Brokers – the Personal Branding Toolkit: http://www.netreal.net/personal_branding.php The Personal Branding Toolkit contains the “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals” ebook and 17 Real Estate Reports and the tools to personalize them with your name, contact info and photo. NetReal’s editorial team put together the top 25 highest- rated Real Estate marketing articles of 2004, and created a must-have e-book - “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals”. The ebook covers Marketing 101 , Network marketing, Personal Marketing, Customer acquisition and retention, Telemarketing & Direct Mailing, E-marketing. You can personalize this e-book with your data and send it to your contacts, absolutely free of charge. This is a great way to offer a helpful gift to your colleagues and partners. The “17 free Branded Reports” allow you to create your own branded Real Estate reports for buyers, sellers, investors, movers with your contact info and photo/logo and an exquisite design. Distribute them to your prospects or clients as e-docs or printed materials, or upload them on your website. Show your professionalism with these great tools to acquire new clients. The Personal Branding Toolkit for Real Estate Professionals http://www.netreal.net/personal_branding.php is free for everyone.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Intro to the Traffic Exchanges Even if youve been marketing on the internet for only a very short time youve no doubt come accross traffic exchanges. The number of exchanges out there is staggering, so if you need to know what these things are all about read on. Learn how to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Online Marketing Campaigns. . . in a free PDF download Do you know that according to WebSideStory, an analytics firm, in 2003 medium to large Web sites got an average of 13.6% of traffic from search engines Do you realize the power in that one simple statement “Google Friendly” Solutions to Graphic-Intense Sites We all know that the search engines can’t “see” or “read” the graphics on our pages. We also know that we need to provide text on a page, so the spiders will have something to crawl and index. Targeted Traffic is More Important than Ever! In the early days of web development, business owners had learned the very expensive lesson that a Web site with no visitors is of little value. Once the business owner learned that methods could be utilized to increase their visibility through search engine optimization, it then became apparent that the traffic that really benefited them, was "targeted traffic." It only made sense that if you were selling a solution, the person who will buy the solution are the ones experiencing a problem or challenge. It also became obvious that the best products and services to sell online were niche or specialized markets. Large volumes of "general visitors" general volume traffic may have looked nice on a statistics report but only the truly "targeted visitors" target traffic were usually the visitors making purchases or doing business at the Web site. Direct Mail – Don’t Assume, Just Test and Track Where to Start: Getting Lucky with Systematic marketing In early-August, I got a call from Barbara at the Association of Management Consultants wanting to know whether I was interested in running a marketing workshop for their members. I asked how she had gotten my name; Barbara told me Jeff had referred me. When I mentioned that I had met Jeff over two years ago, Barbara said that I sure was lucky he still remembered me. How to Get the Right Clients and Avoid the Wrong Ones If you are like most service professionals and small business owners one of your primary concerns is generating as many leads as possible. And that may be your biggest mistake, resulting in wasting time on unqualified prospects and working with to many clients you wish you didnt have to. Seminar Marketing: Boost Your Business by Running Seminars All professional practices have the perennial problem of how to attract new clients. The comfortable days that some of us once knew have long since gone and competition is now the order of the day. Professionals who have not been trained in marketing must feel their way towards a solution which will bring them new clients. How "Secure" is YOUR Web Site A few days ago, an incident happened to me that has prompted the writing of this article. I’m sure that if this is an issue for me and one of my Web sites, it’s an issue for many others. Be Image Smarter - Stop Using "Cookie Cutter" Marketing We all know you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture and Wordtracker, Part 1 ...because your online success depends on getting accurate keyword counts! 10 Explosive Ways To Elevate Your Sales 1. Publish an ezine. Which is Better: Digital or Offset Printing As technology continues to improve, the quality of digital prints also improves. Technology advancements have also made it easier for more and more businesses to enter the printing industry. Good digital printers cost a few thousands dollars…good offset printing presses may cost a few million dollars. Sell with KISS, as in "Keep it Simple, Stupid" From “Smart Marketing – What big companies practice and you should learn about marketing branding and business development” by Stan Rosenzweig. What is Search Engine Optimization It is no secret that search engines are the number one traffic generating method for driving visitors to the different web sites.Search engines are very useful in helping people find the relevant information they seek on the Internet.The major search engines develop and maintain their own gigantic database of web sites that can be searched by a user typing in a keyword or keyword phrase in the search box. The Truth About Traffic Exchange Programs and Guaranteed Traffic Its about time someone let the cat out of the bag,regarding traffic exchange programs and guaranteed traffic.I wasnt seeing the truth being written about the subjectanywhere, so I decided to take it upon myself to reveal thetruth about these programs. How To Get Web Site Traffic Web site traffic is essential to having a thriving online business. You cannot have enough web site traffic visitors unless it is the wrong traffic or you do not want to continue to build your business. Your chances of selling a product or service is proportional to the level of targeted and qualified web site traffic to your site. It is not an easy task getting the right kind of web site traffic to your site. You do not get this web site traffic without expending your time, energy and sometimes hard-earned money. Sponsorship: A Key to Powerful Marketing Sponsorship is the fastest growing form of marketing in the U.S. It is still very much in its infancy, especially in the trade show arena. With this in mind, you can find unlimited opportunities to broaden your competitive advantage by increasing your credibility, image and prestige in sponsoring events attracting your target market. Pay-Per-Click Fraud Exposed--Part II According to Andy Jones, a member of the Best Practices Search Engine Forums, fraudulent clicks are just another aspect of the business. "Any of us that use AdWords or any other PPC has to pay for a certain percentage of fraudulent clicks," he said in a forum discussion. "I factor it in as a cost of doing business." Secrets Of Getting Free Advertising The opportunities for getting free advertising for your product or services are limited only by your own imagination and energies. There are so many proven ways of promoting your own objectives without cost that it literally boggles the mind just to think of listing them. |
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