Launching a real estate business under your own brand or building a personal brand that stands heads above your competition is exciting. Don’t let inexperienced digital providers burst your bubble. Talk to me before engaging freelancers—your time and budget will thank you!
The more time you spend setting up your new venture, the less time you have to go out and secure property listings. Without all those important commissions coming in the door, you won’t be able to hire people and grow.
Establishing your new real estate agency becomes a chicken-and-egg problem. You could focus on all the things you need to do to get established, but you won’t make any money while doing so. You could also focus on bringing in listings, but it’s hard to gain trust if people can’t see an established brand and a quality website.
Over the years, I’ve witnessed newbie real estate agency owners do one of two things when launching their own brand and website:
- They either outsource their branding and website to someone who is extremely cheap, like an offshore team or freelancer.
- Alternatively, they attempt to build their website themselves and lose a great deal of time while focused on this task, only to end up with a basic templated solution that looks inferior to an established competitor’s site.
Cheap is not always the best option because even though you save dollars, you waste time and don’t get the desired end result.
Digital freelancers often make empty promises and take forever to deliver a logo and website. When they do eventually arrive, you’re usually disappointed with the outcome. You then have to go elsewhere and start over, wasting precious dollars and time.
Until recently, the only other option was to go ‘all in’ and pay tens of thousands of dollars upfront to engage experienced brand and website agencies. But for many real estate principals who are just starting out, a large budget outlay simply isn’t feasible.
Real estate websites: A cost-effective solution
After many years of supporting real estate agents and agencies with holistic marketing solutions, including real estate branding, custom websites, content marketing, and social media campaigns, I recognised the need for a more affordable solution for real estate professionals branching out on their own for the first time.
This got me thinking about a ‘starter’ solution that would deliver a premium brand and website without significant upfront investment.
As a marketing agency that exclusively supports real estate industry professionals, we’ve built dozens of real estate agency websites over the years. My background working for Domain.com.au, alongside my history building websites since the late 90s, puts me in good stead to know what is needed, at minimum, when launching a real estate business.
Taking this low-budget, high-quality, fast turnaround challenge to my team, we invested several months working on a solution for newbie real estate agency owners or individual agents looking to establish their own online presence. We condensed the best of what we do, with our high-end solutions and custom projects, down to a budget package that includes Lite Branding + Starter Website to help launch a real estate business (or agent website) in a matter of weeks rather than months.
The best part is that, as a client of ours, you’re freed from having to figure out how to invent a brand and engage a website development team (trust me, managing technical people is harder than you might first think). You also have the benefit of my full breadth of talented creative staff at your fingertips. My team includes the full gamut of marketers, from copywriters to visual designers and technical digital staff.
We negate the stress you’ll face dealing with a raft of freelancers who, in most cases, do not have all the skills you need and, even more importantly, are limited in bandwidth. In my experience, a freelancer may be able to build you a website, but they will go missing in action when you come back months later, ready to add new features to your site. Too many of my clients experienced this scenario before engaging my team to look after their digital needs.
Now, let’s meet two Hoole clients who have engaged us to help them launch their brand and website presence with pleasing results.
Case Study #1
KL Property Property Group
Kristy Lord from KL Property Group took advantage of my free one-hour session to discuss her situation and learn how Hoole could help her launch her new property management agency.
The problem
When I first spoke with Kristy, she’d already commissioned a logo design and website from a freelancer and had been waiting an extremely long time (4 months) to see the first iteration of her website. When she finally received the logo design and website, she was gravely disappointed. The site was poorly thought out and clunky. It did not convey the level of professionalism she had hoped for, and she was concerned that it would not put her in good stead against her real estate competitors.
This situation is not uncommon and highlights a common problem with low-cost service providers: They are still learning and developing their skills but use their clients’ budgets, i.e., your money, to learn as they go, hence why they are cheap.
Kristy was so disappointed with her logo that she tried rolling up her sleeves and designing one herself using Canva. That’s frustration for you!
A little tip: If you feel embarrassed to launch your real estate brand or website produced by a low-cost provider, don’t sit there in silence; ask for your money back. To avoid this scenario, do your due diligence and find a marketing agency that specialises in real estate to help you launch your brand in its entirety from the get-go.
What Kristy wasn’t aware of is that Hoole can help with branding and websites, as well as ongoing marketing like content creation and social media advertising. During our initial chat, she realised the value of working with a team that understands the nuances of real estate, websites, search engine optimisation, and digital marketing.
Launching a property management agency
The starter website we launched for Kristy is beautifully branded, easy to navigate, and includes beautiful photos and well-written copy that speaks directly to her audience—landlords and tenants.
The brand design is unique to her business, making her website ‘one of a kind’.
Kristy had spent a lot of time waiting for the low-cost freelancer to deliver her website, and she was feeling overwhelmed. She shared with us that she was taking over a rent roll in less than a month and needed to present a legitimate presence in order to retain the landlords as clients.
The Hoole team kicked into action. By engaging the Hoole branding and website teams, we were able to reduce the time it took to launch her business from eight weeks to three. While we got to work designing and building her website, Kristy was able to focus on other business setup activities and welcome and onboard her incoming clients.
Part of our service included our ‘Lite’ Branding Package. This involved creating a fresh logo and ensuring all her colours, fonts, and other brand elements would bring her business vision to life. When you are launching a real estate business from scratch, you can not skip past branding. A logo and colour palette on their own will not suffice. You need to consider both the print and digital applications of the brand, i.e. where it is going to be used. This includes email signatures, signage, printed brochures, social banners, your website and property listing pages. Your brand needs to look highly professional at each of these touchpoints.
Rolling out a real estate brand in record time
KL Property Group’s online presence was created in three weeks. By assigning three Hoole teams to the task at the same time, we were able to develop her brand, update her social media and portal pages, and launch her website. We also set her up with a marketing system to manage email campaigns.
We were able to deliver a solution so quickly for Kristy because we specialise in real estate branding, marketing, and websites. It’s what we do, day in and day out. So, we were able to take the best of what we know and apply our expertise to get KL Property Group launched in record time.
You can think of our Lite Branding + Starter Website Package, like buying a house and land package. You are not delving into the depths of designing a dream home from the ground up (which will take months); you are purchasing a ready-to-go solution, i.e., an off-the-plan home that can be built quickly, is high quality, and, most importantly, that you can move into straight away.
By applying our experience, our team was able to take Kirsty’s ideas for her business and help them come to life. We helped her realise her company vision and launched her business with a professional look and feel that she was ecstatic about.
Kristy is proud of her business presence and couldn’t wait to share it with the world. You can check out Kristy’s property management agency at www.klpropertygroup.com.au.
Case Study #2
A website for Kate Ashton, ‘Real Estate Kate’
Increasingly, real estate agents are establishing a personal brand that exists in parallel with the agency they work for. By investing in their own brand and marketing assets, they gain more control over their marketing presence, can differentiate themselves from their competitors and win more listings.
A country Victorian real estate agent and client of ours, Kate Ashton, handles an impressive 100+ property transactions each year. Not only is she the leading agent within the independent office network with whom she works, but she is also a director of their Maryborough office and the number one sales agent in her region.
Kate is high-energy, innovative, and hard-working. She has historically been hands-on with her own website, building it using a WYSIWYG builder through Go Daddy. She has spent countless hours setting up and populating her website herself, but she has reached a point where she is too busy to handle the technical aspects of website maintenance.
Building a real estate agent website
It is no mean feat to create your own real estate website, and Kate has rolled up her sleeves and learned a great deal. However, she had hit the limit of her capabilities and realised she was losing time that could be spent focused on finding her next listings.
If you’re sitting there thinking you can barely turn a computer on, let alone build a website, the good news is that you don’t have to be a web developer as well as a real estate agent!
Just as your expertise helps your clients prepare and sell their homes using real estate industry best practices, I have a dedicated website team that has created dozens of websites for agents and agencies. They’ll achieve a better result for you with less stress than going it alone and trying to do it yourself.
When Kate was finally ready to relinquish the reigns and let my team create an agent website for her, we used our Starter Website solution to give her a far more premium-looking website, personalised with photos of her in action and highlighting the awards she has won, alongside the personalised approach she takes with each client.
The squeals of excitement that came down the phone as I told Kate to click the link I had sent her and view her new website made my day. It’s so rewarding to hear the reaction someone has when they see, for the first time, what we have created for them.
Kate’s website is as unique as she is. The branding was inherited from the agency under which she works, but all the content (images and copy) is about her and has been crafted to elevate her marketing and messaging in the minds of prospective sellers.
She also has several content pages that are unique to her on her site, such as information that she collated about her community. This shows you that even with our Starter Website solution, you’ll have the flexibility to incorporate additional features and functionality specific to your needs.
You can take a tour of Kate Ashton’s agent website yourself. Visit www.kateashtonrealestateagent.com
Starter websites from Hoole
Our real estate business starter packages cost around a quarter of the cost of a custom branding and website project. Plus, we stagger the payments so that you can pay back your website over an annual subscription. Better still, we bundle all the ongoing services that you’ll need to keep your website alive and kicking, such as property data feeds, website maintenance and hosting, into one monthly fee. This saves you the headache of worrying about all the associated costs that come with managing your digital shopfront.
Here’s what you get when you engage us to launch your new real estate agency:
- A specialist team of real estate creatives
You’re not only getting the experience of someone who has been building websites since the late 1990s (me), but you’re also getting my entire team of brand designers, content creators, and web developers. You gain a team of real estate industry creatives who know how to get a new venture off the ground without a hitch.
A freelancer may say they can get the job done, but it’s unlikely that they understand the nuances of real estate. They are probably ‘flipping’ a basic brochure website, and they will lack the skills to link your site to your CRM so that your property listings flow straight through from one system to another.
- Support with real estate branding
A successful real estate agency requires more than a basic website and logo. In addition to web developers, the Hoole team includes branding experts who can help you complete the full spectrum of visual elements required to develop a more impactful and instantly recognisable presence.
- A purpose-made business starter solution
You may notice your CRM offers a web-building platform. The problem with this is that you are purchasing a site from a system provider, not a team of web experts.
CRM companies are software providers; their systems are largely operational in nature. Many elements are missing from a CRM website. For example, it can be difficult to build the site so your content is easy to surface on Google through search engine optimisation (and yes, this is important!).
- Tried and tested software solutions
The real estate agency websites we deliver as part of our starter packages take the best of what Hoole Marketing has created over the years. My team and I have removed the need to ‘reinvent the wheel’, taking away the headaches and heartaches of building a site from scratch.
You’ll get a high-quality solution, even if you have a modest budget, and you’ll gain a brand and/or a website you’re excited to share with your clients.
- But wait, there’s more – end-to-end creative support
Hoole Marketing is a full-service marketing agency that works solely with real estate or property businesses. We can support you by creating insightful articles for your website, an email and social media strategy, and lead generation campaigns. You can talk to us about your budget and immediate needs, and we will help you achieve the early wins you need to establish your business. We will then help you start targeting prospects and win listings.
A better solution for startup real estate businesses
A starter website package gives you ‘what you need right now’. It allows us to provide a first-class service in a tight turnaround time for a palatable budget without overwhelming you with decisions or breaking the bank.
My team and I will handle all the creative thinking and apply our years of digital expertise to give you a sophisticated brand and website. With Hoole Marketing’s Lite Branding + Starter Website Package, every box is ticked.
Choose this solution, and you will be saved from engaging a series of individuals who don’t have time to understand your brand truly. With us, you gain the benefit of an entire team of creatives and digital technicians working together from one place. As a result, you’ll pay less and have a better outcome than the ‘patchwork’ solution you get from engaging a series of disparate providers that drain your budget and take months rather than weeks to launch your real estate business online.
Start simple and grow as your real estate listings grow
Having a simple website to begin with doesn’t mean you can’t grow and evolve. The subscription model included with Hoole’s starter websites covers you for ongoing maintenance and support. What’s more, you are never left in the lurch or hung out to dry; if you need a new feature, you can pay to add it. This could be a blog or a series of landing pages to publish your latest property market report or a home price guide widget. Additional features can be switched on as needed when you have the budget to add them.
Your website is ‘living and breathing’ and evolving. When you’re ready to embark on marketing and advertising activities that will drive prospects to your website, we can help. We offer you an exciting partnership that will serve you for many years as your real estate business grows.
Ready to launch your own real estate business?
When you are ready to take control of your destiny and launch a digital presence as an agent or agency, get in touch. Most importantly, you should talk to me before you engage a brand or web designer. We can discuss a brand and website package to suit your budget, and we can even handle a rapid launch time.
Ready to take the next step now? Book a time to chat with me, Melanie Hoole, about your specific situation.
Written by Melanie Hoole
My team and I specialise in helping real estate and property professionals perfect their personal brand, build a first-class digital profile and implement inbound marketing activities to attract leads. If you are unsure which direction to take with your digital marketing contact me for help.
