Real Estate Branding in the Luxury Home Market

These days, virtually every buyer starts their home-buying journey online—which is why it’s more important than ever to pay attention to your online presence. With most luxury home marketing happening online, sellers want to know that their agents have a strong online presence to market their home to a big enough audience. 

Having a cohesive online brand as an agent shows prospects that you’re professional, self-aware, and detail-oriented. They may not realize it in so many words, but your brand sends the first subtle cues to your prospects about what to expect from you.

Making sure that you’re always putting your best foot forward, whether with your physical appearance, your business cards, or your online presence, will optimize your real estate branding as a true luxury real estate agent.

1. Niche Targeting

A winning luxury real estate marketing strategy requires knowing exactly what you can deliver and who you can deliver it to. While it’s true that luxury real estate itself is already a niche, it’s made up of other, smaller niches that you can specialize in. There are a few reasons you want to think about narrowing down your niche, but the most important one is that most clients  (especially wealthy clients) like to work with experts. 

For instance, if you were going to hire a photographer for your wedding, you’d want a wedding photographer rather than just a general photographer or someone who does sports photography. You would reasonably assume that a wedding photographer could do a better job.

If you were going to look for a wedding photographer, you’d likely put “wedding photographer” and your city into your search engine to eliminate other kinds of photographers. Narrowing your search to specifically focus on working with real estate investors, for example, will help you stand out among online search results over time, and can also help you build credibility surrounding your expertise.

When you’re a new luxury real estate agent, you may shy away from picking a niche because you want to remain open to any business that comes along, which is a good way to get experience.

Just keep in mind that once you’re further along in the process, the more specifically you can position yourself in the luxury home marketing space online, the easier it will be for your target market to find you and trust you as you grow your career.

2. Pay Attention to Visual Aesthetics

Now that luxury home marketing is rapidly becoming digital, having a visually pleasing brand can help you stand out among the competition. The best way to make your brand look professional is to keep it simple: choose just one or two complementary fonts for your website and marketing materials, and just one color besides black and white to use for a logo and for your website design.

Having too many colors and fonts can appear unprofessional and distracting. If you take a look at luxury fashion and hotel websites, their brands come across as simple, yet high-quality, throughout all of their marketing messages. Emulating those brands can help your brand look well-established.

3. Choose a professional, yet conversational tone

“Luxury” doesn’t necessarily mean “formal”, but your brand’s voice should come off as authentic, sophisticated, and smart. Using slang or coming off as too casual can undermine your credibility, but writing like you’re typing up an academic essay can sound too stuffy and impersonal. Your tone should strike a balance between welcoming, warmth, and wit.

If you’re uncomfortable with writing your agent bio or your own social media posts, there are plenty of freelance writers and marketers who can help you if your brokerage doesn’t include in-house marketing. 

If you’re doing it yourself, a good way to master your brand’s voice online and in any other luxury home marketing materials you have is just to make it sound exactly like how you would speak to a client. You don’t need to use unnecessarily complicated language to brand yourself as “luxury”.

Need more real estate branding tips? Want to stand out in luxury real estate? Click here to learn more about getting your CLHMS designation!