In March’s Marketing and Branding Month, we’ll go deep on agent branding and best practices for spending with Zillow, Realtor.com and more. Top CMOs of leading firms drop by to share their newest tactics, too. And to top off this theme month, Inman is debuting a brand new set of awards for branding and marketing leaders in the industry called Marketing All-Stars.
Adfenix, a Sweden-based digital advertising and branding company that made its way into the United States in early 2022, has given itself a marketing makeover with a name change to Realforce.
The company said two recent acquisitions precipitated the rebrand, according to a March 20 announcement sent to Inman.
Realforce bought two companies in the last 18 months, a data company called Quedro and Brandkeeper, a media management services provider. Going forward, Realforce will expand beyond its initial focus of social media advertising, the company said in the announcement.
Adfenix can no longer represent what the platform now makes possible, Realforce co-founder and CEO André Hegge said in a statement.
“Realforce will enable one real estate marketer to support an entire team of agents, with a concierge marketing service, delivered at scale through software,“ Hegge said. ”We witnessed, first-hand, the challenges faced by agents equipped with marketing tools that took them away from their skill set. Our goal was to stay focused on delivering the best of breed in advertising, customer data, and brand management.“
Upon its launch stateside last year, Realforce developed intricate strategies to promote its clients’ online presence, using data-backed social media and website traffic-building campaigns. It also created and managed listing display ads. The company calls Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach, Corcoran, Warburg, Intero and a number of other companies under LeadingRE as customers.
Realforce also said it wants to give agents more control over their own property data instead of allowing portals to manage the message and seize the majority of a listing’s web traffic.
Sweden’s primary property portal has historically cooperated with its data providers, sending lead data directly back to the listing agent in exchange for a fee to be advertised. The relationship is easy to understand for agents and homeshoppers.
About the name change, the brand is part of an effort to “future proof” marketing for the U.S. real estate agent, and while digital advertising remains the core value-add, agents can benefit from more, Hegge said in an email to Inman.
“For us, the mission is to help organize the chaotic world of real estate marketing,” he said. “We also consider all marketing activities in real estate to be within the scope of our vision. If it works for agents, it will work better if it were part of a more comprehensive, thought-through strategy set by a professional marketing team.“
Marketing tools and tactics customers can leverage will include email campaigns, sms notifications, direct mail, video creation and marketing solutions bought through partner vendors, according to Hegge.
Marketing is more critical during market periods that are tough to define as buyers and sellers need a more definitive consult. It’s easy to recognize a hard downturn or upward swing, but today’s market is opaque, something Hegge said agents need to find ways to leverage for future business.
“Uncertain markets tend to consolidate agent count and move market shares to the agents the market perceives as leaders and the most stable choice,” he told Inman in an email. “The key word here is “perceive” and intelligent, cost-effective marketing investments help drive and amplify that perception. “You can no longer afford marketing that isn’t effective. But neither can you afford to deliver a worse service to sellers or let the market forget that you exist.”
Realforce has an office in Phoenix and has plans to expand, Hegge said in an email.
