Whenever engaging in any type of business, the main driver of success—whether measured in dollar bills, clients wins, or products created—is one’s ability to drive public relations. Public relations is the bridge that guides your performance, capacity, and products created into marketing campaigns, awareness, and—most importantly—top and bottom line growth.
Many people don’t realize that public relations applies to real estate as well, but PR plays a major role in real estate transactions and, with the right strategy, can help bring about brand awareness and client wins to help drive your company’s performance.
What is real estate public relations?
Real estate public relations can be any form of marketing campaign to help drive engagement to your brand. In the real estate industry, this generally manifests itself in website engagement, podcasts, publications around closings, and newspaper ads.
Why public relations is essential to building your real estate brand
Whether you’re a real estate agent, investor, or other vendor in the industry, a strong public relations strategy is essential to building your real estate brand. Follow along as we dive into a few reasons why this is:
1. Increases your visibility
Real estate is a game of cold calling, client engagement, brand awareness, raising capital, and communicating with investors. Whether you are a buy side investment shop, a real estate debt fund, an individual fix and flip investor, or a real estate agent or photographer working in the brokerage industry, public relations will drive your business’s visibility.
To name a few examples, this can manifest itself through blog posts, newspaper articles, or LinkedIn images. Although, that is only scratching the surface. There are numerous ways to drive capital and clients to your business with public relations. As you can imagine, with the right visibility comes a strong pipeline of projects and investment opportunities for your company. Furthermore, with the right initiatives, you can increase visibility so that future clients or current clients can become familiar with your brand, experience, and expertise.
2. Reinforces your credibility
The real estate industry is quite saturated. Regardless of your particular niche in the industry, there are undoubtedly other competitors that are fighting for the same clients, properties, or investors. Public relations can help differentiate your business practices with the business practices of your competition. It helps create and reinforce a sense of credibility so that you may be seen as an expert in your area.
One such strategy would be to post your recent achievements, share your knowledge through coursework and volunteering, or simply sending out weekly or monthly newsletters to current or prospective clients to show your strong grasp of the industry and current events.
This can also create top-of-mind awareness or brand awareness among prospective clients so they think of you first when they need your services.
3. Generates new leads
Maintaining your clients and ensuring they are happy with your services is only part of the job of a real estate company. Public relations not only ensures a direct line of communication between you and your current clients, it also can help you generate new leads that you haven’t onboarded yet. In the age of social media, there are so many ways to attract views, clicks, and engagement around the country and the world. Having the right public relations strategy can generate new leads far faster and more efficiently than other modes of marketing.
4. Offers opportunities to create your desired brand narrative
Lastly, public relations allows you, the business owner, to set your own narrative. In the 21st century, news—whether good or bad—disseminates across the globe in an instant. Good public relations ensures that you stay ahead of the narrative and ensure the people only see what you want to show them.
You are the captain of your business’s destiny. It is up to you, and your public relations strategy, to determine how you’d like your competitors, current clients, and new leads to view your narrative.
Final thoughts
Most people don’t realize what impact public relations can have on a business’s success. In real estate, the right narrative, the right client engagement, and the right marketing can come together to drive business success. Those not intimately involved in the industry believe that real estate is simplistic and an antiquated business that is immutable and never changing.
That is so far from the truth.
The difference between a good real estate company and a great one is a great public relations strategy. If you’d like to build brand awareness and have a leg up against your competition, you must have the right public relations strategy to drive the narrative and engagement you want the world to see. Without public relations, your ability to source new leads, increase your visibility, and reinforce your credibility will falter. It’s time to take your PR strategy to the next level.
