With artificial intelligence being one of the major developments in characterising the marketing environment in 2023, should ChatGPT and other AI applications be part of the digital marketer’s toolkit?

Nelly Berova Managing Director, Art Division

For some, AI was a positive force, automating tasks to boost efficiency. For others, it meant a worrying shift from humans to machines. As for the role of AI in SEO, in our experience, automated tools can help – and hinder – SEO strategies for estate agency businesses.

ChatGPT and the like are undeniably helpful in speeding up your systems and processes – in subject matter research or writing numerous property listings, for example.

Help or hindrance?

Where AI can actually harm marketing efforts comes with misuse or relying on it too heavily. The thinking that ChatGPT is all that’s needed to write blogs will invariably lead to a massive influx of content – but it won’t necessarily be high quality or the best response to searchers’ intent.

While the chat bots can generate content quickly and easily, they lack the human touch. AI content can suffer from a bland tone of voice that isn’t relatable. And without proper fact checking there’s a risk of inaccuracies.

Remember that key to your digital marketing strategy is your analysis of your ideal customer – the first-time buyers, second-step sellers, confused new landlords and those looking to move agent that your business needs to target, right now. Success comes when your brand connects with these customers, responding to their wants and needs in a personal and local way.

As such, SEO for agents is about addressing the pain points, problems and questions these customers are asking of Google every day. AI generated content can answer some of these queries but will lack the nuance, depth and understanding that keeps people reading and responding to your brand.

AI generated content can answer some of these queries but will lack the nuance.”

It’s important to remember too that there is more to SEO than content production. Before you write a blog, you need do the leg work that involves keyword research, looking at what your competitors are doing, planning and scheduling your posts, building links and aligning what you write to customer intent. While AI can help with some of these areas, handing over your whole SEO strategy to automated systems isn’t quite there yet.

If you’re wondering how to navigate a future increasingly dominated by AI tools, our advice is to embrace it, while being aware of its limitations and retaining a critical eye and a level of human input.

Five steps for incorporating AI

When it comes to SEO strategy, it’s worth following these five key rules about incorporating AI:

1. Put your customer first – remember everything comes back to your ideal customer profile and their wants needs and paint points.
2. Have an open mind about AI – try out different uses for ChatGPT and any new applications that come down the line. You might find great ways to save time and boost efficiency – but understand their limitations.
3. Remember there’s more to SEO than content production – you need to focus on the whole process or know someone who can. There isn’t a tool to do this all for you yet, that we know of.
4. Continue to prize high quality written and video content that really responds to the things people are asking of Google in a human and relatable way. As time goes on, the internet will be increasingly flooded by AI generated blogs – make sure yours will stand out from the crowd.
5. Design with mobile in mind – most property searches start on mobile devices and this can only increase as time goes on.

As we’ve said, the past year has brought immense change to the real estate marketing sector. AI is definitely a force to be reckoned with, but that doesn’t mean SEO for agents is in terminal decline.

AI has impinged on many areas but, according to commentators, it is unlikely to create a massive shift in the way we use Google any time soon. Keeping ahead of the game is about maximising the benefits of AI while retaining human input, combining efficiency with authenticity – and remembering at all times to put the customer at the centre of your SEO strategy.

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Nelly Berova Managing Director, Art Division

It’s your reputation, your presence and how you stand out from the busy real estate crowd. You’ve probably worked hard to establish the brand you have, perfecting everything from your logo and visual style to your written tone of voice and how your staff present themselves to customers.

But, until you start measuring brand awareness, you’ll never understand exactly where you sit in the consciousness of your potential buyers, vendors and landlords.

We can’t deny that brand awareness is hard to quantify, however, there are some key performance indicators that you can pull in to understand how you are perceived. If you’re not measuring agency brand awareness yet, here are the measures you should consider.

Mentions and share of voice

You need to know who’s talking about you on social media, blogs and forums and whether those mentions are positive or negative. Then you need to see how they fit alongside your competitors – your share of voice. Doing this yourself would be a bit of a slog, but there are tools out there for you to employ. Having this information can help you set targets for increasing your share of voice on certain channels.

Social media reach and engagement

Next, delve a bit deeper into the social media element of brand awareness, measuring post impressions and followers for each platform. Look at engagement too, measuring likes, shares and comments. Use a social media platform such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social – we covered these in a previous article – to automate your posting and help your evaluation so you can concentrate your time on creating content that gets users engaged.

Web traffic

How well your website is performing is also crucial to brand awareness, so monitor all the key metrics like traffic, new and returning visitors, bounce rate and time spent on your pages. To get these metrics for your site, you need to be up to speed with the new version of Google Analytics.

Search engine visibility

How well you rank on Google for property industry keywords is also central to your brand’s impact. Give some thought to the specific keywords you want your business to rank for in your local area. If you don’t appear high enough on the search pages, adapt your SEO strategy to improve your visibility, taking the right advice about this crucial area.

Reviews, surveys and testimonials

Reviews on Google, Trustpilot and other sites give you a quick snapshot of your reputation locally, so encourage these, then interrogate them to see what people are saying about you. You could also use regular surveys to get honest feedback of how your brand is perceived and what you need to do to boost awareness.

Reviews on Google, Trustpilot and other sites give you a quick snapshot of your reputation locally, so encourage these.”

Five tips to raise awareness of your brand

1. Be consistent

Does your agency have a cohesive brand identity that follows through in all your channels? Make sure you are consistent in your use of colour, your logo and visual style. Ask if a potential vendor or landlord looked at your website, advertisements or print materials, whether they would know instantly who is behind them. Does your brand shine through too in the tone of voice you use in emails, newsletters and on your blog?

2. Look for user-generated opportunities

Engineering ways to get ordinary home buyers and sellers to endorse your brand on social platforms is great for building recognition and trust. Think of ways to inspire people to share their experiences of working with you.

3. Don’t ignore traditional media

Though traditional local media outlets have dwindled, if newspapers, news websites and local blogs have a good following in your area, don’t ignore this method of boosting visibility and profile. Pitching ideas to the media, taking part in local events or putting forward a spokesperson to comment on the local housing market can all have an impact – by giving you authority.

4. Watch your competitors

Don’t just concentrate on your own metrics, it’s worth keeping an eye on your competitors too. Look at their websites, social feeds and advertising to see how they engage with audiences. This will give you an idea of tactics that you might adapt in your strategy as well as helping you identify how you might position your own brand as unique.

5. Be memorable

Finally, if there’s one key takeaway from your work to measure brand awareness it should be how much you stand out – in a good way. Look at what you are doing best to make you memorable and build on those strengths to really hone the success of your brand.

Got a question?
Need help with your digital marketing?
Visit www.artdivision.co.uk

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Nelly Berova

It’s also likely they will visit the website of, or make a call to, one of the top three local companies whose Google entries they see. To manage and control your businesses presence on the top search engine, you need a Google Business Profile account, which you monitor and update frequently. If you’re not sure what this is, how you get one or why it matters, we shall explain.

What is a Google Business Profile?

Google Business Profiles are the listings that appear alongside a map when you search for a local organisation. They are so important because they are highly visible and directly respond to the user intent when someone searches for a service in their local area. You can set up a listing for your estate agency – and add it to Google maps. What you may not realise is, so can anyone else, whether they have a connection to your business or not.

You can optimise your profile to rank higher.

To be able to manage and update your listing you need a Google Business Profile account. Without that, the information in your listing will be pulled from elsewhere on Google – it may not be up-to-date, accurate or presenting you in the right way for the customers you want to attract.

How do I get a Google Business Profile account?

The Google Business Profile account is free to use. Access it via google.com/business and create your account using the ‘manage now’ menu. If your agency doesn’t already have a Google listing, you’ll need to create one. Connect the two by locating your company on Google Maps then selecting ‘claim this business’.

What are the benefits of having a Google Business Profile account?

There are four ways that a fully-optimised Google Business Profile account can boost traffic to your website and brand awareness.

1 It’s great for customer engagement

A Google listing allows users to leave reviews of your business. These are hugely important to your reputation as they are one of the first things other customers notice. Linking your listing to your Google Business Profile means you can respond to reviews, answer questions and direct message customers. You can even post to your account in the same way as with other social platforms. This is all good for showing the human face of your brand, creating dialogue and responding to negatives if you need to.

2 You control how you showcase your business locally

By controlling the information contained on your listing you can make sure everything fits your brand and key messaging. You can add great photos and ensure information about opening hour etc is up to date. You can also tweak the information to suit current campaigns – if you are running a promotion or local event, for example.

3 You can optimise for search

As with your website, you can optimise your business profile to rank higher in searches. Business profiles are dynamic, meaning which ones you see and how highly they rank will depend on what the searcher is looking for. As with the search engine results page, Google will prioritise the listings that respond to keywords in the search and for the quality of information you provide.

To make this work for you, be sure to incorporate the keywords you’re trying to rank for into both your business description and your response to reviews and questions.

4 You’ll get insights about your audience

Google Business Profile comes with analytics so you can see how your agency performs. Use the dashboard to find out what questions customers are asking when they see your listing, and the actions they are taking. You can do this on Google Analytics too. As with any part of your digital marketing strategy, analysis and measurement are key to understanding your customers and boosting awareness of your business.

How else should I get the most out of Google Business Profile

Our main advice is to keep on top of your listing – don’t just set it up then ignore it. When you create your profile, fill in every section as this will help you rank. If things change, such as hours, contact details or what you’re offering, update these regularly. This is crucial to building trust in your brand – among customers but also the Google algorithm. By posting and continuing to respond to reviews and feedback, you’re signalling to Google that your business is alive, active and responsive.

Got a question? Visit www.artdivision.co.uk

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It’s never a good idea to rush things with a client.”

Nelly Berova, MD, Art Division

For many industries, conversion equals a sale, it’s that simple. But for real estate it can be more nuanced. Yes, ultimately conversion for your estate agency business means turning prospective vendors and landlords into instructions. However, there are steps along the way that are important too – getting your prospect to book a call back, arrange a valuation or join your mailing list could be considered conversions too. As we’ve said in many of our previous articles, it’s never a good idea to rush things with a client. Building up slowly generally produces a richer and more productive relationship. Based on our recent experience, there are three things you can do now to boost your conversions.

1 Improve your CTAs

The last vital step in getting customers to convert, your Calls To Action are probably the most crucial part of your messaging. Here’s how you can up the impact:

• Size – if you’re using buttons, flashes or banners on your website for your CTAs, make them visible for anyone scanning the page, but not so big that they overwhelm the reader, making your site look cheap and spammy.
• Frequency – think about more than one CTA per page to attract attention through repetition. Again, don’t over-egg it, but give people plenty of opportunities to interact. Include one CTA ‘above the fold’ or high up the page for people who won’t read the whole thing.
• Colour – use this carefully. You want your CTA to stand out while blending with your brand. Make sure there is enough contrast for it to be readable.
• Voice – be clear about what you want people to do. Use active sentences not vague or passive suggestions. Make it sound urgent and appealing but not desperate.
• Be consistent – use the same messaging, images and colours across your platforms so the CTA is easily recognised, processed and understood by your audience.
• Links – check your links are working, taking people straight to your CTA page. Be careful to make sure the page is quick to load. You can link to the page from places other than your CTA button too – images, headlines, your logo, for example.
• Make it mobile friendly; with so much property interaction taking place on phones and tablets, having your CTA display property on all devices is a must. Check your website has the right plugins to do this.

2 Use technology to automate the process

To some extent, AI and other new tech has made it easier for agents to speed up the conversion funnel. By automating some of your functions you can respond to customer queries or book calls and appointments instantly, meaning people don’t need to wait for you to get back to them. Instant scheduling software for booking viewings and valuations is especially useful, meaning potential customers can move themselves down the sales funnel without having to pick up a phone.

3 Use YouTube remarketing

Remarketing is about getting your content in front of people who have previously shown some interest in your brand. While we all know about remarking via Google, YouTube is a great but often overlooked alternative.

YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine and a platform loved by billions worldwide, but it also allows to you to remarket your business in your area, based on location and the type of content viewed. This means you can target your ads to your niche audience, whether second stepper sellers or portfolio landlords looking to expand.

There are many benefits to YouTube retargeting including good return on investment rates. However, the main thing to consider is that video’s star is still rising when it comes to digital marketing. Statistically, viewers spend more time on sites with video, meaning YouTube content consistently boosts engagement rates, and increases brand awareness. YouTube ads also give you more time and scope to get your message across.

Finally, always remember the last stage of the customer relationships journey. It’s not just about one time conversion but creating loyal customers, who will stay on your books or sell with you again, as well as enthusing about you via word of mouth. Post-conversion follow-up emails and incentives can all help with this.

Got a question? Visit www.artdivision.co.uk

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What else does this agent have to sell – this time, within my budget? And if the agent’s videos are this good, I had better line them up to sell my home, too… Welcome to the world of social media videos, which are rapidly becoming the mainstay for canny estate agents looking to hook new buyers – and sellers. Short, professionally produced video clips of high-end properties on platforms like Instagram and TikTok catch the eye, and lure people in – and if you’re not using them, you probably should be.

Doing it in an authentic way and not trying to ‘sell’ people all the time is the way to go. Social media is quite hard to quantify – you won’t always know if it’s worth your time. Jack Holman, Co-founder, Agent Extra.

“Video walkthroughs of new instructions are really catching on and the quality is really rising,” says Jack Holman, co-founder of digital marketing agency, Agent Extra. “If you can get lots of potential buyers and you are marketing properties at a slightly higher price range than what a first-time buyer might be interested in, then you are also likely to uncover vendor leads by doing that.”

Property ‘suited to video’

Pernilla Tweddle, Marketing Director of marketers Property Stream, agrees. “Property is a sector that goes very well with video content. Things like property tours, virtual tours are obviously great for use on social media, as opposed to just placing them on your property listing, on your website and on the main portals, which is where they would traditionally be used.

“There has been a huge increase in video usage across all channels. People like to see property, they like to view photos and even more so they like to see videos. That is hitting the buyers. What agents have to do is be a little bit clever with their video and property posts to hit the vendors.” TikTok has been one of the main drivers in the adoption of video content by agents, she says.

TikTok has very quickly evolved to become almost an all-age platform. It’s not just capturing the young audiences … it is quite quickly capturing audiences of all ages. Pernilla Tweddle, Property Stream.

“TikTok has very quickly evolved to become almost an all-age platform. It’s not just capturing the young audiences. No doubt it will be primarily young people but it is quite quickly capturing audiences of all ages. I’ve been quite surprised to see agents jumping on that, which is quite interesting. TikTok is the platform that has spurted that need for video. Because that’s become so popular, video is now being used across the main platforms.”

Nelly Berova, Managing Director of digital marketing agency Art Division, has seen a big rise in the number of people in their 30s and 40s using TikTok, which used to be seen as the home of Gen-Zers.

“On Facebook, to post something on your page and for it to be seen [organically] by lots of people is almost impossible, whereas on TikTok it is actually easier for your free content to become viral and to reach more people without you having to pay,” she explains. “This is why a lot of people have migrated to TikTok from Facebook, because they can find it easier to reach more people.”

If you don’t have a follow-up system driving people from Facebook to your website, it is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole – everything is going to escape the other end. Nelly Berova, Managing Director, Art Division.

Despite the rise in the age of TikTok users, it is still a sub-40 demographic, but Berova says you can’t expect to hit all age groups with just one marketing tool. “You are only ever going to reach a percentage of your prospects on any given channel,” she emphasises. “The main difference is that on TikTok you have to start producing video content, and that’s harder for a lot of agents because you have to put yourself in front of the camera, have something to say, and film it in an engaging way. This is why I am seeing the slightly bigger agents doing that, because they have the ability to buy the equipment or have a full-time, in-house marketing person that does those videos for them.

Facebook gets more leads than Instagram, but we still run ads on both because it’s very good brand awareness.

“That’s the biggest hurdle – anyone can benefit from having TikTok channel if they can invest the time and effort and money to create that kind of content.”

Social media content

Video content might be the most glamorous tool in an agent’s marketing armoury, but to get the best results, you need a fully-fledged social media campaign to cover every base. Jack Holman points out that some of the best content doesn’t cost a penny. “With the free stuff it’s about posting content which are gentle reminders about who you are and what you do to people who follow you,” he says. “If you’ve got 2,000 homeowners following your social media account and you post regular content which reminds you that you are an estate agent, you are a nice person and you’re trustworthy, hopefully when the time comes to choose an estate agent to come and do a valuation you are one of the people that pop into your head.

“Doing it in an authentic way and not trying to ‘sell’ people all the time is the way to go. Social media is quite hard to quantify – you won’t always know if it’s worth your time, you won’t know because a phone call came because someone followed you on social media. Some people don’t see the benefit of investing in it, but I invest time and resource on it for my own business.”

Free tools

Holman points out that one of the best free tools on the internet, while not strictly social media, is Google my Business, which is the organic listing that pops up when people search for something online. You, as the business owner, have to provide all the information and content. The key is getting into the top three that appear in the initial search box, before you click on the ‘More businesses’ button.

Take a tour around the properties that have been marketed and sold successfully.

“Being in that top three spot is key,” he stresses. “There are various different weightings Google puts on various things, but the biggest one is reviews. How long you’ve been in business is another; the other one is keeping your profile updated regularly. It’s a little bit like a social media profile.

“The other thing you can do on there which you can’t do on social media is you can see how many phone calls you’ve had, how many people have clicked on your link. You can see tangible results, whereas on social media you can’t.”

Tracking campaigns

Tracking the success of social media campaigns got much more difficult a couple of years ago, when Apple created a tracking opt-out option that has seen a huge take-up by users. “Facebook used to track stuff on income and job title; you could target particular roads in your area – you can’t do any of that any more,” says Holman. “You have to draw a big nine-mile wide circle in your area, you can’t go smaller than that and you can’t target people in the way you used to. Three years ago you could get sometimes over 100 leads in a month spending £5 a day; today it’s more like 15 or 20.”

Nelly Berova says that when planning a social media campaign, you first need to ask who you are trying to attract. “This is genuinely where most agents fail, because instead of asking ‘Who am I looking to attract to my business?’, they start with ‘What channel should I be using and what should I be posting?’, but you can’t answer that question unless you have answered the first one. If I am looking to attract people approaching retirement because they are looking to downsize, posting things on TikTok might not be as efficient or impactful as it might be on Facebook.

“Our starting point is always the ‘who’ – who are we looking to attract. What is it that matters to this person, where does it hurt the most? Is it a vendor? If a vendor, who is the vendor – is it a family selling because they want something bigger, landlords selling because they have had enough of the lettings market? Depending on the ‘who’ we dig further into their pain point and then we produce content that appeals to them.”

Making posts interesting

Pernilla Tweddle says it’s important to make social media posts interesting and engaging. “Take a tour around the properties that have been marketed and sold successfully,” she explains. “Create little reels or videos around how successfully they have sold. Maybe include things like text or audio; have some talk about how quickly something sold – sold in three weeks, had four buyers, sold at 97% if asking price – that kind of content is great to include. You are demonstrating success, just as with your ‘Sold in your street’ cards.”

However, she emphasises that your campaign should go much further than just advertising properties.

“You need to nurture potential vendors with relevant and engaging and personalised content that they are far more likely to engage with. They are in a position that they are going to sell, they are going to think about instructing an agent, they want to get to know that agent a little bit. More personalised content about your team, your office, videos interviewing customers – that is probably what they are going to find of more interest.

“It’s having a balanced content mix that is going to be the key to any social media marketing success. By ‘balanced’ I mean mixing up your properties with your sales messages, mixing it with local messages about things that are happing with you and the team and the local area, and also including things like property knowledge and data that you know as an estate agent. Being able to present yourself as the go-to agent, the voice of reason if you like, a thought leader in your market, is critical.”

Tweddle believes agents should not be shy about what is happening in the market, because ultimately that is what their customers are interested in. “Not spinning those stories, but posting a really decent realistic and honest piece around what’s happening in the market,” she says.

“The best way to do that is to get up-to-date market information from people like Dataloft which you can share on social media. You can also write blogs, which are a great way to get the message out and should be a key part of your content marketing strategy. Talk about what’s happening in the market, give the pros and cons, and ultimately your customers will value you for that.”

Paying for content

However, Nelly Berova stresses that ‘organic’ use of social media doesn’t work in isolation. “If you look at estate agents posting organically on those channels, they have very low levels of engagement, very few likes, very few comments, very few shares. It isn’t an industry that will get a lot of traction and go viral.

“Facebook doesn’t show organic content to more than five per cent of followers. So, if your page has 100 followers, only five will actually be shown your post. You need to have quite a lot of followers for your posts to be seen by a decent number to have any impact, so you have to put your hand in your pocket and pay for it – and that’s what Facebook wants you to do.”

Because Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, advertising on both is as easy as clicking on a button – the two platforms are tightly integrated. “You don’t have to choose between the platforms,” explains Jack Holman. “When you are doing social media posts or running ads, the default is that they will run on Facebook and Instagram at the same time.

“What you find is – and you can see this from the stats – most leads come from Facebook and mobile. People use Instagram more for watching videos and looking at pictures, where Facebook is treated more like a website, and people are more inclined to submit leads and go on to do things like filling in online valuation forms than they are on Instagram.

“Facebook without question gets more leads than Instagram, but we still run ads on both because it’s very good brand awareness.”

Google Ads should not be overlooked in the marketing mix, he adds. “The behaviour of someone going to Google, thinking about something they want to choose, typing it in, going to the website, sending an enquiry – that series of actions leads to a much more motivated and receptive phone call with that person as opposed to getting instant online valuation leads and trying to call them up from a Facebook advert. “You can run ad-word campaigns on Google for £10 that will get you decent results.”

All of these campaign ideas will be pointless, however, if when someone lands on your website they don’t know where to go or what to do, as Nelly Berova explains.

“When you drive traffic to your website you need to maximise your conversions. Not everyone is ready to book a valuation – some might just want to have a chat, some might want to consume something.

“Social media is just the cherry on the cake. It’s not the core. If your website is rubbish, if it’s call to actions are rubbish, if you don’t have a follow-up system driving people from Facebook to your website, it is going to be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole – everything is going to escape the other end.”

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Nelly Berova

Brand relationships are more than the look and feel of your logo and design materials. Your brand goes to the heart of what makes you … you – and is the driver behind the customer loyalty and engagement that will define your success.

Your brand is what makes you… you – and is the driver behind customer loyalty and engagement.

Often hard to define, the strength of your brand includes a range of factors, but at the core is your reputation and how you are perceived. Essentially it is about your customers’ overall experience and how likely they are to stay loyal – in the case of landlords. And whether they’ll sell with you again and spread the word, when it comes to vendors.

According to the brand experts there are four key principles for boosting your brand relationships:

1 Awareness

As with many aspects of marketing, you need to start with awareness – so has anyone actually heard of you? Think about how visible your brand is to your target audience compared to the rest of the agents out there and use a simple audit to find out. Analysing organic searches for your name along with social media mentions, comments and content shares, will give you a good idea of your audience’s awareness level. Building awareness isn’t just about plastering your name everywhere, however. It’s about giving your company the brand personality that places it in potential customers’ memories.

2 Reputation

building It goes without saying that for any business a good reputation is crucial – and it’s not something you can create overnight. Lots of elements go into building reputation – your core values are important, but how you demonstrate them every day really counts. This means how well you communicate, how good your customer service is and, crucially for local agents, the community projects you choose to support.

3 Loyalty

Loyalty is a bit of a holy grail when it comes to success. In most sectors, if you can achieve brand loyalty, your customers are five times more likely to buy from you again. Apart from property developers and people who move a lot, this is harder to achieve in real estate but you can rely on loyal customers to spread the word about you. The trick to encouraging brand loyalty is to really interrogate customer behaviour, tracking and analysing the messages, content and methods that resonate and personalising your tactics accordingly.

4 Equity

Creating equity involves boosting your brand’s perceived value. Do this by really homing in on those niche audiences you want to attract to your business – maybe second stepper sellers or accidental landlords, for example. Once you’ve identified your audience, demonstrate how your brand assets align with them. Think about how you demonstrate your brand values in practice, through the personal stories you share, for example.

How to do it in a few simple steps

1. Create a clear brand identity strategy that aligns to your business goals.
2. Make sure your core brand assets – your logo, slogans, tag lines and other parts of your identity – reinforce your values. Spend time developing these as they are supremely important for communicating your brand.
3. Prioritise stories – as we’ve said, narratives are an increasingly important way for organisations to communicate, whether customer testimonials, user generated content, profiles that humanise your staff or your company’s personal history. Use these to encourage emotional connections with your brand.
4. Don’t forget your internal audiences – make sure employees understand your brand and are fully signed up. Create a clear internal branding guide to explain it.
5. Make your brand central to the customer journey – how you take people from being unaware to advocates. Take the time to understand how your customers are interacting with your brand at every stage for deeper insight and to enrich your connections.
6. Remember, the importance of personalisation. Put in the work to analyse your customers’ needs and preferences: how they like to be contacted, which messages and content interest them most; so you can personalise your interactions and make them count.
7. Be responsive – analyse how well your brand strategy is working as you go, making adjustments where needed. This means tracking everything from customer feedback to web traffic and social engagement.
8. Finally, it’s important to be consistent with your brand and don’t miss those finer details that do count. If you have a clear brand strategy from the outset and good branding guidelines, it is much easier to get this right.

Got a question?
Visit www.artdivision.co.uk

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Whether we choose to believe it or not, how people find brands (including property), consume messages, build trust and make purchases is heavily influenced by the internet – chiefly social media. It’s a generational shift and agents need to shift with it.

In researching this article, one thing was astoundingly clear. Agents need to be in tune with Millennials (that’s those born between 1981 and 1996, to save you Googling) and all the generations below. The oldest Millennial will be 42 this year – an age by which many have bought their first and even second home. Then there’s Gen Z, which encompasses people in their early 20s – those in rentals and saving for a deposit. These are your current and future clients, who can’t be ignored.

Being in tune means understanding where Millennials and Gen Z browse – specifically for properties. Those already feeling uncomfortable with the new demographic lexicon do need to stay in touch an.

New research by property communications agency Oracle, in partnership with YouGov, found just 28% of 18-24 year olds (Gen Z) cited property portals as the information source they most trusted when looking for a home to buy or rent. When it came to Millennials, the figure was an average of 44% – not even half.

Oracle said the statistics reflected a wider trend among Gen Z – a group of consumers who tended to ‘be wary of traditional advertising and product campaigns, instead preferring influencers, social proof and personal recommendations’. When the agency spoke to one 20-year old, she said social media and influencers are ‘more favourable’ than Zoopla, for example, and that she has learnt about shared ownership and Help to Buy from Instagram and TikTok.

Is time ticking for property portals?

The Oracle Group’s Caroline Coskry says its research indicates that disruption is on its way. “Websites, such as Rightmove and Zoopla, have been central to British house-hunting habits for around two decades now but that dominance could soon be disrupted. Gen Z places far less faith in portals than the generations that came before, opening the door for new forms of property marketing to win their trust.”

Gen Z places far less faith in portals than the generations that came before, opening the door for new forms of property marketing to win their trust. Caroline Coskry CEO, The Oracle Group.

So where does this research leave property listings? The portals won’t disappear overnight but there is the suggestion their power will ebb as the years pass and Gen Alpha (those aged from 0 to 9 years) mature and become movers. It’s a notion that was discussed on a recent ‘Pass The Syrup’ property podcast. One guest christened social media as the modern-day branch window, where the online content attracted passive movers in the same way as a printed listing would stop a pedestrian in their tracks.

Taking the tour

Someone who is already dialled into the habits of younger generations is Andrew Nicholls at EyeSpy360 – a creator of virtual tours, 3D models, floorplans and teaser videos that are advertised as perfect for Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. “We know that more than 80% of Millennials would like to view virtual tours and digital floor plans when shopping for a home,” says Andrew.

80% of Millennials would like to view virtual tours and digital floor plans. In fact, 54% of these buyers will not even look at a property unless it offers virtual images. Andrew Nicholls, EyeSpy360.

“We know that listings with a virtual tour get 87% more views than those without one, and that customers in the 18 to 34 year-old age group are 130% more likely to book a viewing based on a virtual tour. In fact, 54% of these buyers will not even look at a property unless it offers virtual images.”

Despite this knowledge, Andrew highlights how the UK has fallen behind when it comes to listing assets, finding only 5% of UK agents consistently offer virtual tours. That figure, however, can be an advantage, with home movers prioritising listings with a virtual tour over others.

Screen time is up

Video is another asset that agents should be embracing when it comes to listings, as the return on investment when filming is generally excellent. As well as being able to extrapolate high quality stills from footage – ideal for those who produce printed brochures and also perfect for portal listings – video is the content both social media and Google loves. Simply uploading a video to Instagram, Facebook or TikTok and pasting the wording used on Rightmove won’t cut it, however.

There are trailblazers who agents should look to for the right way to use videos in listings, especially in the Build to Rent sector. Here agents have flipped from traditional marketing to content creation. Head to Moda Living’s Instagram feed and choose the reels tab for enlightenment (@livethemodalife). Its breezy property tours are set to trending music, feature captions in that oh-so-familiar Instagram font and have snappy, hashtag-laden listing copy, such as ‘we’re just gonna leave this one here.’

Video is currently a major trend that increases visibility and engagement over both still images and the written word. Peter Burnham Managing Director, Nichecom.

Just as important is the Instagram account structure: brand description, linktree and the tagging of tenants: aspirational yet relatable and full social proof. It’s the cutting-edge reincarnation of a printed property listing. Yes, this style may feel very uncomfortable to the traditional agent – but a video of a one-bedroom flat near Leeds coach station has thousands of views.

When asked what combination of assets an agent should use when preparing listings for social media, Peter Burnham at Nichecom says it can be hard to know what might get engagement and results during any given week. “It can be difficult to pin down a set formula as each social media platform has a unique algorithm that rewards the right combination of digital media assets. These algorithms are constantly evolving but video is currently a major trend that increases visibility and engagement over both still images and the written word,” says Peter.

Not just aimlessly scrolling

It’s important to stress that many agents are starting to realise the synergy between video-based listings and social media consumption. “Agents are requesting shorter, more creative video bites in portrait format over landscape,” adds Peter (portrait videos are what Instagram and TikTok prefer but agents will need to pay attention to platform-specific aspect ratios).

“With home movers getting younger and often listening to content with sound off, headers, labels and text overlays are becoming essential for conveying vital information. A brief agent intro and outro is a popular formula, especially now there is less demand for lengthy walkthroughs with detailed explanation of each room.”

Not convinced when it comes to creating a TikTok property listing? Tom Durrant at DCTR draws attention to the platform’s location and behaviour targeted adverts. This function allows agents to hone in on users in desired postcodes or perhaps those who have already watched property videos. A combination of an engaging video and pin-point geographical targeting is definitely something to explore, especially given Oracle’s findings.

The right orientation and ratio for each social media platform is now paramount, and we’re leaning towards short lifestyle clips – they type that stop people scrolling on past. Tom Durrant Director, DCTR.

DCTR’s use of HDR produces one balanced photo from multiple bracketed shots.

Set the wheels in motion

There is a happy medium for agents who want animated listings in order to enter into the TikTok and Instagram fray but don’t have the time, money or nature of stock to capture an entire property in its full blown technicolour glory. As Peter alludes to, bite-sized clips, animated elements and even still images stitched together with music and captions all qualify as a video.

High Dynamic Range photography relates to image bracketing – when multiple photos of one room or scene are taken at different exposures, allowing views out of a window to be visible.

“We’re seeing a new focus on snappier, shorter animations, especially for the new homes sector,” comments Tom. “The right orientation and ratio for each social media platform is now paramount, and we’re leaning towards short lifestyle clips – they type that stop people scrolling on past.” DCTR is commonly asked to animate CGIs to promote new developments and can also produce films that splice interviews, local area footage and still images together, and create CG animations that blend a virtual world with the real one.

Virtual reality versus virtual insanity

And there we have. A mention of virtual reality (VR) and it would be remiss to leave out this and AI (Artificial Intelligence) when discussing listing. Did you know there’s AI interior tuning that adjusts how a room looks in the same way face tuning modifies noses and jawlines?

The digital manipulation of listing assets isn’t a new issue in property and as a result, misleading images, video clips and floorplans constitute a breach of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Ryan Al-Sharieh at Giraffe360 says agents tempted to take advantage of more sophisticated image editing and even AI-powered deep fakes should be wary. “Property listings are already synonymous with being misleading, such as the inclusion of fish-eye photographs. If deep fakes do hit the agency sector, they will just be an evolution of what we’ve all seen before.”

Property listings are already synonymous with being misleading. Agents who establish truth and trust early in the listing will be the ones who succeed. Ryan Al-Sharieh VP Product, Giraff360.

A click away from misrepresentation

“AI is a tricky one,” says PlanUp’s Steven Flatman. “The new Photoshop (Beta,) with its AI-powered generated fills, allows anyone to replace the sky behind a property, for example, but you have to be careful. It can also remove or alter elements that could lead to a property being visually misrepresented, such as deleting a tree or electricity pylon.”

The floorplan is still king. This gives home movers the best gauge of how big a property is and what the layout is in its truest form. Steven Flatman, PlanUp.

PlanUp’s floorplans give an instant impression of a property’s interior.

It’s a fear shared by Mitch Handley at Inventory Hive. “There’s still a long way to go in terms of AI and property listings – everyone involved has to be aware of representation. Videos can be too polished, too edited and too tweaked,” says Mitch. “It’s the whole ‘Insta versus reality’ situation. In contrast, using virtual tours across social media helps grab attention and give a true representation of a property.”

There’s still a long way to go in terms of AI and property listings – everyone has to be aware of representation. Videos can be too polished and too tweaked. Mitch Handley, Inventory Hive.

Ryan says that as with celebrities who peddle fake levels of beauty and thinness, home movers will eventually see a property in person and the myth that is a manipulated image will be shattered. “Agents who establish truth and trust early in the listing will be the ones who succeed, especially in a more challenging market.”

The AI attributes we should welcome

That’s not to say AI doesn’t have its place in property. Giraffe360 prefers to fine tune its AI models to increase the speed of content production, with the aim of getting virtual tours and videos back to its clients even faster.

At DCTR a new launch will see HDR photo enhancing included in every image edit as standard, at no extra cost to agents. HDR – High Dynamic Range photography – digitally enhances a photograph using AI algorithms. Its property application relates to image bracketing – when multiple photos of one room or scene are taken at different exposures. Without bracketing, windows can appear white and blown out but with a simple DSLR camera setting, a set of photos is taken. When these are uploaded to DCTR, the team will use HDR to produce a balanced image where views out of a window are visible.

Floor fillers

Are we saying the most traditional of listing assets are dead in the water? Definitely not. “The floorplan is still king,” says Steven. He says they are a gateway to clicking on the other assets featured in a listing. “You can’t beat looking at a floorplan. This gives home movers the best gauge of how big a property is and what the layout is in its truest form.”

Steve describes an asset hierarchy when it comes to property listings – photographs, floorplan and then a video or a virtual tour. “On a search results page, good photos help people narrow down what properties they will click through to, then browsers will study the floorplan. If people don’t like what they see on a floorplan, they won’t click on a virtual tour or watch a video.”

Even with AI snapping at its heels, PlanUp is close to launching its biggest update in 10 years, with an Android compatible version of its software, a floorplan vault that will include 1,000s of agent-accessible plans and an improved synergy with domestic energy assessors.

The not-so secret code

QR codes had a false start in property., but the pandemic changed all that. Mitch says QR codes now provide an important bridge between printed and digital property listings.

“QR codes are now essential, especially if agents want to promote virtual tours in their print marketing, comments Mitch. “When an agent uses Inventory Hive to create a virtual tour, the publish button now creates a QR code as well as a url link”.

“Agents have to think about return on investment when commissioning a virtual tour. A QR code that leads to a digital asset can be included on a printed brochure, leaflet or letter as a way of maximising the audience and getting someone’s attention. By using this method, agents could reach home movers who maybe aren’t in the Millennial or Gen Z category but are familiar with QR codes thanks to the Covid crisis.”

The language of listings is changing. Photographs, videos, virtual tours and floorplans. It’s not so much what you have but where you publish it that will shape the listings of the future. The question is, are agents up for the content challenge?

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Now people can circumnavigate the landline by emailing, texting or instant messaging but before you think I’m calling the death of the phone call, I’m not. I conducted a quick straw poll to establish when someone might pick up the ‘phone and the answers included ‘for something really important’, ‘when I want to speak to a human’ and ‘when I don’t want anything misinterpreted’.

Moving home is loaded with the above intentions and quite frequently, time is of the essence. Emails, instant messages and even enquiries sent via portals have a huge weakness. Although they are sent immediately, there’s no guarantee when they’ll be read. They may sit in an inbox until the end of the working day – even the end of the working week.

All agents using our answering service have a decent flow of calls… and require careful handling, especially as we find high-end property buyers only do business on the phone. Peter Radcliffe, Founder, Office Front.

Speaking on the telephone, however, gives someone certainty that their decisions, requests or feelings have been processed in the moment. Peter Radcliffe, the founder of Office Front, says the ‘phone –and the person answering it – are a major part of the home moving process, even if the enquiry started online.

Calls carry a premium

“All agents using our answering service have a decent flow of calls from prospective and current clients,” comments Peter. “The calls tend to be ‘high value’ – people making offers, booking valuations and instructing agents – and require careful handling, especially as we find high end property buyers only do business on the phone.” Peter also adds that calling is still the preferred way of agents contacting other agents, which is vital when it comes to sales progression.

Like many of the call answering services now available, Office Front allocates a team of receptionists to an agent, ensuring the ‘phone is always answered. As well as notifying the agent that they have taken a message, by either SMS, email or a call to the agent, Office Front can ‘patch’ a call. This means the receptionist will take details of who’s on the line, put the caller on hold and give the agent the choice of whether to accept the call or not. It’s the closest match to employing an in-house receptionist, at a reduced cost, and patching acts as a great filter when it comes to prioritising time.

Hanging on the telephone?

We’ve established that telephone calls still convey the most important news, so are agents prepared for the shrill rings? While analysis from Arlington Data showed 17.5% of calls within the property industry go unanswered, an independent OnePoll survey commissioned by AnswerConnect revealed a more worrying trend in lettings.

Of those questioned, 84% of renters preferred speaking to a real person, not an automated ‘bot, and 94% cited the ‘phone as the most popular means of getting in contact with agents. Despite this, 31% of tenants who tried to contact their letting agent with an out-of-hours emergency didn’t receive an immediate response.

AnswerConnect’s Angela Fee says that in an era of instant gratification, clients can interpret unanswered calls or having to leave a voicemail as a lack of attentiveness and commitment. “Not answering a call impacts a client’s perception of an agency’s reliability and responsiveness.”

Intelligent call routing allows our handlers to transfer calls directly to specific people based on caller intent, ensuring any queries are handled efficiently and minimising wait time. Angela Fee, Head of Marketing, AnswerConnect.

“In reality, however, property professionals answer as many calls as they can,” she says, “but between hosting viewings, listing properties and dealing with tenant enquiries, there’s rarely enough time to answer every call. That’s not to say property professionals avoid calls. Our research shows the average estate agent spends three hours on the ‘phone every day.”

Taking telephony to the next level

Thankfully, the crossover between outsourced telephony and technology offers a highly sophisticated experience that a caller would find difficult to distinguish from an agent-employed receptionist.

Video chats blend features from traditional phone calls – like instant availability and call transferring – with screen sharing.

Frustrations born out of not speaking to the right person the first time can be mitigated by using today’s telephony services. “AnswerConnect’s intelligent call routing allows our call handlers to transfer calls directly to specific people based on caller intent, ensuring any queries are handled efficiently and minimising wait times,” comments Angela.

Agents can also take advantage of AnswerConnect’s software integrations, which allows their telephonists to book appointments directly on behalf of callers – made possible thanks to scheduling tools that sync with agents’ diaries.

Turning mobiles into landlines

James Routledge at Global 4 Communications says his job is to empower agents to be able to support home movers from anywhere, not just from the office, using tech as the facilitator. “With the inevitable arrival of internet telephony as a nationwide standard in the near future, agents can take advantage of the additional features it offers,” says James. “This includes the capability to consume telephony service across a multitude of interfaces, encompassing mobile and desktop applications.”

Our user-friendly on-hold feature plays a pre-recorded message to the caller, detailing other services the agent offers, such as conveyancing or finance partnerships. James Routledge, Sales Director, Global 4.

Technology of this nature is invaluable when the office is light on staff, whether that’s due to workload, resources or annual leave. For example, Global 4’s feature-rich smartphone app routes an agent’s landline extension to their personal mobile. It also allows them to make outbound calls from their device, displaying the agent’s business phone number on the receiver’s screen, and not their personal one.

James also highlights that telephony features can assist in customer satisfaction and cross-selling. “We understand that market conditions are challenging and it’s critical that clients are fully aware of all the services an agent offers – this helps them maximise additional revenue per transaction.”

“Our user-friendly on-hold feature plays a pre-recorded message to the caller, detailing other services the agent offers, such as conveyancing or finance partnerships,” James adds that ‘press 1 for sales, 2 for lettings’ greetings menus can also be used to funnel calls to the right department, rather than the caller being passed from person-to-person.

While the nirvana may be answering every call that’s made to an agent, how the call is answered is also part of achieving stand-out customer service. James adds that many of Global 4’s clients use its call recording facility to assess staff performance. “Our agency customers can filter telephone calls based upon a host of parameters, including date, time, caller telephone number and specific agent. From there, agents can listen back to and export calls to aid in their evaluation process, which helps agents improve the client experience.

Outbound calls covered

So far the focus has been on agents and their availability to take a call but the telephone has proactive uses as well as reactive. Moneypenny has carved a successful name for itself as a call answering service but, excuse the pun, it has dialled up its services to include outbound telephone marketing.

Sharon Boyle is head of the property sector at Moneypenny, which works with more than 2,500 estate agents, commercial agents, housebuilders and housing associations across the UK. She feels outbound calling is a crucial part of agency life, whether that’s prospecting for new instructions, following up valuation requests, checking that databases are up to date or simply keeping in touch with historic home movers.

We can work with prequalifying questions, such as whether the buyer has a property to sell, if they’re a cash purchaser and whether mortgage advice is required. Sharon Boyle, Head of Property, Moneypenny .

“We launched our outbound service in partnership with Area because agents were telling us how time poor they are. More than ever, agents need to have the flexibility to outsource tasks so that opportunities don’t fall between the cracks.”

Leads on speed dial

Sharon says that when leads management is done badly, it can result in a leaky sales funnel as well as irritation from people who feel they’ve been waiting too long for a call back or follow-up. “By outsourcing this function, Moneypenny can call prospective buyers and sellers on behalf of agents while their interest is high, maximising an agent’s proactive sales efforts.”

The Moneypenny outbound call team can identify the most valuable opportunities and escalate them accordingly, as well as converting cold leads into prospects and even keeping in touch with past clients by ‘phone. The latter nurtures long-term leads and ensures the agent is at the forefront of movers’ minds when they re-enter the buying and selling cycle.

“Our outbound call services are seamless,” adds Sharon, as when one of our team calls, the agent’s branch telephone number is displayed. “We’re ready to be fully briefed by the agent and can work with pre-qualifying questions, such as whether the buyer has a property to sell, if they’re a cash purchaser and whether mortgage advice is required.”

The call about the call

Ahh the phrase ‘never miss a lead’ is a classic but agents do. So, Callwell has developed a service to ensure agents are alerted with a ‘phone call every time an enquiry is submitted via a portal or the agent’s own website.

The service is in response to dire figures surrounding response rates. “In a pre-pandemic mystery shop among agents, responses to enquiries was as low as 33%,” says Callwell’s Lesley Weatherhead. “Additionally, if you have ever mystery shopped branches or taken part in some of the leading industry events, you will know missed opportunities is an ongoing problem.”

Once the agent answers the phone, we play a message saying the name of the applicant, where the lead is from and what type of lead it is. Lesley Weatherhead, Sales Director, Callwell.

Lesley says leads are missed for a variety of reasons – staff shortages, inefficiency within systems, poorly managed leads coming from multiple sources and even apathy towards new business – but in today’s market, any glimmer of an instruction needs exploiting.

The phone is at the heart of Callwell’s lead management service. It collects leads from the portals and an agent’s own website, and automatically calls the agent within 45 seconds of the enquiry being made.

“Once the agent answers the phone, we play a message saying the name of the applicant, where the lead is from and what type of lead it is. The agent is then asked to press 1 to connect with the applicant. This gives you time to look at the Callwell inbox to see the most recent lead and read any additional information,” says Lesley. “The system is very flexible and you can specify whether the call goes through to an agent’s landline or mobile.”

Red alert at the right time

Lesley adds that the speed at which an agent can call a lead has clear advantages: “Evidence shows that when an agent presses 1 to be connected to the applicant/vendor, there is an 80% certainty of the applicant answering. With valuation leads, 70% of calls finish with an appointment being booked.”

“Timing is everything and if you’re in a city centre location, larger agents will ensure their speed of response is 10 minutes or less. If you’re not responding that quickly, you could be missing out on business.” Agents can also see which member of staff has claimed the enquiry, what action was taken, whether the call was successfully connected and also view a call history log.

THE HYBRID IS HERE

Video chat is the hybrid communication tool that fits in the gap between phone calls and face-to-face meetings. While video chat has been embraced socially, thanks to FaceTime and WhatsApp, its role in business – specifically property – has been less clear.

That’s up until Crave developed an easy way for clients to start an instant video chat with agents. A live chat button or QR code can be added to email signatures, property listings, web pages and even a sign board. When a client clicks/scans this, it starts an almost immediate video chat with the designated agent – no app or extra software required.

“From experience so far, agents have conducted video chats at the initial interaction stage, when vendors are instructing an agent and when someone’s enquiring about an available property,” says Crave’s Gareth Hughes.

“Video chats blend features from traditional phone calls – like instant availability and call transferring – with screen sharing (allowing the agent to show the caller other details while connected) or flipping the camera for a walk around (ideal if the agent is at a property). Of course, unlike with phone calls, you’re able to actually see faces, which we know cements trust and develops relationships. Personally, I think the quicker you can build a personal connection, the less likely a vendor is to use the competition.”

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