If you have a real estate brokerage firm or are thinking of branching out and starting one, get up to speed with what’s necessary to keep your agents happy nowadays.
Happy agents equal more business for you. Simple, right?
Sometimes agents are looking to align themselves with a big brand name, and other times they are just seeking support and access to other tools they can leverage.
Recently, the push has been for agents to favor smaller boutiques. These firms know the area and can react quicker to change. Another reason for their rise is the more aggressive marketing approach they execute.
But if you want to attract agents to your boutique brokerage firm, you will have to provide your real estate agents with a broad range of marketing support.
1. Website presence
All agents want a place (that features more than some bio information) where they can direct their prospective buyers and sellers.
They want their website to showcase their current listings and recently sold listings. This way, they don’t need their own site and feel confident about sending potential clients to their dedicated page.
2. Strong listing presentations
If your competitors bring boxes, books, samples and more to meet with sellers, your agents need something that gives them the edge. Give your agents a listing presentation that they can be proud of.
3. Social media guidance
While some agents live online, others aren’t sure what to do with their Facebook page.
Providing agents with advice on how to use various social media platforms is a must, not only for your agents but for your brand as well.
If you aren’t knowledgeable on that end, bring in an expert to give them some training.
Having occasional social media training will help your agents develop a keen understanding of the latest tips and tactics to use social media to their advantage — and yours.
4. Expose your brand
Agents want to work for a broker who has a presence in the community.
If they’ve never heard of you, they will be less likely to have an interest in joining your firm. They will also interpret it as a sign that you aren’t investing in your own marketing, a red flag for any agent looking for marketing support.
Agents don’t typically want to be marketers; they expect their brokers to be.
5. Advertising tools
Agents shouldn’t have a difficult time advertising their listings or what makes them leading agents. This should be provided to them in an easy-to-use format.
Agents should, without fuss, be able to order postcards, collateral materials, listing presentations, brochures and quarterly marketing reports.
What does this mean for a broker? Partner with an advertising agency or have an in-house marketing team. Agents want to know that they’re being advertised, thereby generating their own leads.
Any agent who joins a brokerage expects to pocket a healthy amount of leads.
That means a firm must be marketing not only for brand recognition but also for leads. Lead generation, an integral part of any successful marketing campaign, is a full marketing plan that gets people to register, sign up or otherwise become a client.
7. Marketing insight
When agents join your firm, what can they expect regarding marketing support and insight?
Will you keep them posted on the latest marketing trends? Will you provide insight on what they should be doing to market themselves?
Agents will rely on you for guidance. If you can’t offer this, they will find a broker who can. It should not fall on them to have to source their marketing.
Typically, the smaller brokerage firms are better equipped to provide exceptional marketing — allowing their agents more freedom but also more support for creating their own brand presence. This is one of the main reasons that an agent would seek out a boutique real estate broker versus a more bureaucratic firm.
Not surprisingly, the larger brokerages have caught on and are working hard to build their own marketing departments or team up with large ad agencies.
By doing this, they are giving their agents access to professional marketing and advertising at a low cost, at the same time that they are giving them the power to have their own brand that folds into the larger organization.
This is what real estate agents are looking for nowadays, and they will go wherever they can find it.
If you intend to keep your agents or start a new brokerage firm, consider how you can give your agents what they want: more business. There is definitely room in the marketplace for a brokerage that does things differently.
Laura Ure is the CEO of Keenability, a marketing agency specializing in lifestyle marketing that targets the affluent buyer. Follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
