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Rebranding Your Real Estate Company |
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Submitted by Linda Johnson
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A new brand could open new doors for your real estate company. As the Internet becomes more central to the industry many well-established agents and brokers are finding that a new image helps them interact more effectively with clients, and adapt to changing technology. But rebranding can be tricky, and it risks diffusing a company's identity, and alienating old clients. To work well a rebranding must be sensitive to the values and services of a company, and pursue a well-defined goal.
The best new brands are eye catching but sensitive to how far the public is willing to follow. For example, when Starbucks and Apple dove into the music industry, the public was ready - but the public might not have been ready for those companies to go into sports apparel. Real estate agents might consider a shift into commercial real estate or vacation homes, and wonder if the public can handle it. The key in these situations is to base the brand on the company, rather than try and mould a company around a brand. This approach requires patience - companies might first have to offer limited services in new areas, as seen in the Starbucks model where cds were slowly added to in-store retail offerings; when the public is finally asked to acknowledge a new corporate identity it will know this identity to a certain extent. By the same token, a rebranding must also show significant change, otherwise it may be viewed as anti-climatic. Getting attention with a new image or idea is a perfect opportunity to unveil a new service, and the public will expect this to happen, to a certain extent. A company only has so many opportunities to have the public reconsider it, so it's important not to waste these opportunities.
Coming up with the brand itself is the hard part, and it can be frustrating. Some of the best brands are picked out of thin air, and many companies try to do this, only to find it doesn't work. That's because impulsive brands, like Napster, are often applied to new companies that have little identity or past history - choosing a brand to represent a diverse and well-known company is a much harder process, but there are a few strategies that can make things easier. One of the best ways to choose a brand is to take an honest look at everything your company does, and write it all down. Being aware of like what goes into your product, what makes you unique, how consumers benefit from your product, and what language usually describes you can help produce a list of keywords to be combined, or searched in a thesaurus to form the skeleton of your new brand.
Once you've chosen a new brand, it's important to market it properly. This process might include a website re-design, an email campaign, or a new logo. Your new brand should also be promoted by the head of the CEO or head of the company to achieve maximum visibility.
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