Lock-In: Property Branding

It’s good to be back and see everyone after our summer break. It’s always difficult to start a new season, you have the hype, hope and haste all wrapped into one.

And what better way to make a great first impression than to kick things off with Oliver James of Property Branding – master of all things first, last, and lasting impressions.

Digital Age

But before we got to Oliver, we had our Marketing Director, Anthony Bailey-Grice, kicking off season 5 with a shiny presentation. He got into the swing of things straight away like a seasoned pro and drilled down into what has happened over the few last weeks with our digital transformation.

Many of you have seen our previous website and noticed it was a little clunky at the best of times so a refresh was long overdue.

The big lesson we learnt was the amount of people who browsed by the products menu. In the office we would search from partner to partner – but over 90% of our user journeys looked for products by using the products menu instead, so it was clear we needed to improve the usability of this journey and score a quick win for the membership.

Our new website has been built with an emphasis on usability, mobile-friendliness, and scale. We have made several tweaks to improve your journey on our website, made the menus simpler to use and added more relevant and up to date content, all aiming to improve your experience and comfort.

What is a Brand?

Back to Oliver now with an age-old question: which comes first the chicken or the egg? In this case however, we’re talking about brands and logos.

A logo is often considered the essence of a brand, but it’s not everything. The full brand is the complete spectrum of emotional qualities that fuel the perception and personality of a product, service, or individual – that’s Oliver’s thoughts at least.

A logo on the other hand is an emblem of the company – something for your customers to immediately recognize and associate with you and your business. To put it simply, where branding is the personality, the logo is the face.

The key to effective branding is to keep these two elements – along with everything else that goes with branding – harmonious. Whether they know it or not, customers and investors will expect everything you’re putting out as a business to fit together, otherwise alarm bells start will start to go off.

Adding Value

Apart from making your business look good and your customers feel good – there’s more to good branding than unmeasurable marketing fluff. And this is where things start to get interesting.

Have you ever wondered how Starbucks can get away with charging £4.20 for a regular Cappuccino that would cost half as much a little further down the street? Even more, why their customers would queue for 25 minutes and share it all on social media after the fact?

The answer is – and stay with us here – that Starbucks don’t sell coffee. Starbucks sell the Starbucks coffee experience. And since no-one could possibly do that better than them – they get to charge for the privilege.

Translating this back to property and you’ve got to ask the question, what can you offer that others in the industry can’t? The answer is staring you in the face: yourself.

Done right, and you could be on your way to 31% higher returns, 3 times faster profit, and 39% revenue growth (Source: Lucidpress).

Small Fishes

One of the biggest questions from the whole webinar, at what point do I need a brand, if at all?

It can be easy to dismiss things like branding as something you only need when you’ve got however many more properties than you’ve got right now, but branding is about growth. Whether you’re a Rockefeller or a Rodney Trotter – if you want to grow your business you need to start acting like a business, and that means laying a solid foundation to build upon.

To start with your brand, simply think about what impression you want to leave after you’ve left the room and let it affect your decision-making. What is it about you and your business that gets people engaged? What gets them excited about doing business with you?

Your perception is your reality – and if you begin acting like someone with a million-pound property portfolio, soon enough you will be.

What Difference Does It Make?

Hopefully you’ll be sold on the importance of a good brand by now – so the question is, why Property Branding?

In testament to his own branding skills, Oliver has made the answer as obvious as possible for us:

1. Oliver himself is a property investor actively managing a small portfolio of his own – so he knows the market, the strategies, and the challenges.
2. Property Branding only work with property clients – so the focus is always there.
3. They have served nearly 100 clients so far – and the feedback they’ve received has been phenomenal (this is why we brought them onboard in the first place).

With expertise in both property and branding – Property Branding as a business just makes sense. Not to mention as the latest LNPG partner, you can get a little extra off as well!

And that’s your lot! You can learn more about Property Branding here.