estate agent

November 2, 2012

Letting agent marketing strategy

Back to strategy today and a very important topic about letting agent marketing strategy. Terence Shimp is a widely renowned expert in the area of marketing communications and branding for companies and a lot of these thoughts are adapted from his work.

So firstly; a brand is name, term, sign, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates goods and services of one letting agent from another and also communicates a particular set of values for that agency.

No branding is something that would be more focused on goods and products. However, more and more service providers are gaining a competitive advantage through creating unique brands for their companies. This applies to letting agents also, they want brand equity, a letting agent that customers are familiar with and believe in, known for letting property quick and known for providing quality rental accommodation with excellent management staff etc. What do you want be known for?

What is your brand?

So, what are the benefits of having a strong brand equity behind your property services? You can increase your market share, increase loyalty with current clients and look into premium pricing for certain services you offer due to the reputation you have created for the brand. If we take a familiar product for Irish lets thing alcohol. Bulmers for example, you think summer, socialising, beer gardens, fun etc all in their adverts . What happen’s when you head to the pub on a hot summer’s day- you buy a bloody pint of Bulmers! So start getting an image, message, meaning behind your agency and what you stand for!

Letting agent marketing strategy

OK so you choose the brand now how to you develop it and sustain it for your agency. Well you can use brand positioning , which is basically influencing the attitudes of what landlords and tenants think of your brand through you marketing and advertising – that’s another days writing but you know what I mean!

The second area you want to focus on is the integration of your brand messages throughout all areas of marketing for your agency. From your ad’s on the front window of your agency to your social media pages be consistent with the messages and values you are putting behind the brand! Letting agent marketing strategy should be well thought out.

by Rentview

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July 25, 2012

Internet Marketing for Letting and Estate Agents

Hi guys Cormac here with a new blog on some creative and effective marketing tips for agents. During my year writing a dissertation on viral marketing and social networks I’ve picked up some useful tips on their purpose for businesses online strategy. The attitudes of the consumer (for example your targeted landlords/tenants) are completely different to what they were five years ago. The way i like to describe it is the hunter has become the hunted. What I mean by this is that no longer are we standing still and brands/marketers/companies shout their marketing messages and push advertisements in our faces but we decide exactly what we want to engage with. The power of TV and newspaper continues to fall as we spend more time online and become more attached to hand held devices.

What does this mean?

So the consumer is now the one looking for the brand, once they decide what they need they will go online and start researching what available, they wont be listening to the radio when they have the I-pod blaring and they wont be seeing your ads when there reading the news on their latest phone app. So what an agency needs to do is increase its presence online. There is a wide range of areas you can engage in when implementing an online strategy as you can see from the infographic below complements of alltopstartups.

Today i’m gong to discuss part one of the online marketing strategy which is search engine marketing. Search marketing is broken into two areas SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Pay Per Click advertising. This is one of the number one ways to market your agencies website as your targeted audiences are heading to Google every day to search for the services they need such as rented accomadation and letting or management services

Many of you will be aware of the Google Adwords platform as it is the main money making facility for Google so its marketed heavily to everyone and anyone on the internet. It is what really kicked off the online marketing buzz but in my opinion its benefits are slowly stagnating as more and more companies use its service. Why is it losing its appeal? Well you have to pick ‘keywords’ related to your industry for where you want your ads to appear, for example your doing a campaign targeted to Landlords you may choose ‘property management Dublin’ , ‘letting services in Cork’ etc , the more specific the better. However since the influx in companies using the services the costs of using such popular keywords are rising as companies bid against one another for the most common searched terms.

In reality there is only so many words that are relevant for an agent so it may get to the point where you are bidding more then you should or choosing ineffective search terms. What this means is you need to focus on natural search marketing known or as i referred to above SEO , search engine optimisation, Avril Fagan the head of Digital marketing at Sage Ireland describes this as the holy grail of search. It involves creating content relevant to your industry, website optimisation of key-words, meta-tags and much more that I will cover in the next blog.

by Rentview

July 19, 2012

NPSRA Licensing

As most of you are aware by now the NPSRA (National Property Services Regulatory Authority) took over the licensing of property service providers on July sixth 2012. This includes auctioneers/estate agents, letting agents and property management agents. So the NPSRA is now a body who has the ability to legally punish those who provide such services. This blog runs through the nine key steps you need to take to register with the NPSRA if you haven’t already done so! In our next blog on the topic we will detail the requirements outlined in their codes of practice. Until then enjoy and click the ‘like’ to share!

by Andreas Riha

June 19, 2012

Information Systems Planning for Letting Agents Part One

Back again to discuss the process of software adaption for Letting agents and planning its incorporation into the organisation. Some clients I have dealt with over the previous months have found it difficult in getting up and running with the use of Rentview property management software and this series of blogs will look to guide agencies on there planning and integration of software solutions such as the cloud based property management system we offer. Firstly i want to point out the illustration below which shows different levels of IT focus and planning in organisations, these survey results are taken from Gabriele Piccoli.

What this illustration shows is that a strong focus on the use of IT and software programs and long term planning is essential to achieving a competitive differentiation in your market, whether you are a Letting Agent or a large Multi national company, the opportunity is there. They have classified IT into three stages supplier, aligned with business and competitive differentiation. If you think about some of the most successful companies in Ireland such as Tesco or closer to the property industry Daft.ie we can see how their use of IT and software has allowed them to differentiate themselves. Who is to say that you cant allow software to take a pivotal role in your agencies strategy and long term goals.

Before I get into the planning process (the next blog) which will help you understand and establish the role you want IT or software to play in your organisation its important to note some of the main reasons or benefits of creating the plan.

#1- Unity of Purpose, businesses achieve their best results through planning with a clear strategy/goals in place. The deployment of software can allow people to take responsibility with different roles specified to staff members. Using Rentview as the example you may request different property managers to partake in different tasks, one may be responsible for managing the schedule and statements to mark money coming in and out while someone else may be responsible for uploading all let only clients onto the software to market your management package etc

#2 Simplifying decision over time, without a plan in place on the use of software in the company there is no context then for future decision making. Any potential project selections being made as part of a yearly budget process will then have little sense of overall direction or meaning.

Information systems planning for letting agents part two

by Rentview

March 13, 2012

Rental property – Fake landlord scam

Following on from the cheque cashing scam its important to remember that not only the agent / landlord who is the potential target in property rental scams. Through out my career within the lettings industry I have spoken to numerous tenants who have experienced such a scam. The fake landlord scam is where tenants hand over a deposit and possible rent upfront to a fake landlord. This scam normally happens as follows.

A home hunter responds to an ad normally on a free advertising website but could also be on a property portal, local paper etc. The home hunter arrives to view the property which is priced below the norm in a well sought after area. The tenant very much interested and in assuming they are getting a bargain is convinced to hand over a deposit. So what is wrong here you ask? Well this landlord is doing this to every set of tenant who has called to view the place. The landlord could do this for the whole day in 30 minute intervals or even a couple of days. The first time anyone is made suspicious is when the phone number the tenant contacted the landlord on is no longer reachable. Here is the story of a particular case in Dublin of such incidence.

In some cases the brazen fake landlord will also arrange to meet, sign a lease, hand over keys and collect the rent in advance perhaps in a hotel lobby or coffee shop. When the home hunter arrives with lease and key in hand at the dream property the key does not work. There might even be a queue of new tenants looking to see if their key works. Here is such a case where once again the con man was caught.

So as you can see just because someone has possession of a property it does not mean they are the owner or acting on the owners behalf. It is ever so important to know who you are handing the deposit over to. Bank draft & cheques are always the best way to give a deposit as they are traceable. Under some genuine circumstances a property may require something to hold it for a night. Perhaps until you can get a draft and if you are placing a cash deposit it should be only a token amount to show you are serious. I would say nothing more than €50, this should be ok for one evening. Most if not all professional agents and landlords will be fine with this and if they are not it might be better to walk away.

The above incidents happen to a very, very, very small percentage of rental properties. But it can happen and it is always better to be safe then sorry.

Other blogs which may interest you are The Rental Property Scam & Property Rental scam cheque cashing

by Andreas Riha

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