I enjoy plenty of things about the Realtor clients we work with, but my favorite things may surprise you.

Super sticky, innovative briefs? Bold ideas? Spacious budgets?

Love that. But what I love even more is busting Realtor brand myths born of low expectations.

If an agent calls me up wanting a rebrand that’s “quickly and endlessly viral” and “helps redefine Gen Z real estate culture without losing our precious timelessness” (these words were said to me once), I can assume impossibilities along the way.

But when agents want to believe in their own stories again…

When they feel confused about why correcting their strategy through powerful brand-building can help them win big…

That’s my favorite kind of low bar.

The fact that folks expect so little from real estate branding is actually the fun piece here. 

And for you, that means becoming the obvious Realtor choice is far more attainable than you’d imagine, and measurably significant for marketing success, client retention, your bottom line.

We can wax eloquent all day long re: why more Realtors don’t go big on brand; that’s not the point.

What does feel helpful is identifying some “most common objections” that agents make about branding, and why those objections just ain’t so.

Let’s talk about three of them today.

These objections are essentially marketing folklore in Realtorland — the untrue stories that refuse to die because real estate branding is a tough world to define, let alone navigate.

You can challenge the myths, though.

And unleash your brand ambition from the sad little bottleneck it’s been stuck in,  in the process.

Let’s go.

MYTH 1: Not Everything Has To Be Brandified

Hard stop here.

It’s a terribly inconvenient truth, but branding is not the firework-style marketing splashes.

It’s a series of moments.

The come-softly, less sexy series of moments that help drive a true brand experience across touchpoints, actually increasing mind share and trust for your audience over time.

It’s consistency.

Busy agents struggle with brand consistency because they’re either 01) trying to do too much in their marketing at once, or 02) they’re only focused on the big swings.

But inconsistency in the little things is a killer.

Inconsistency knows how to punch FAR above its weight in the brand world, sadly — it swiftly undermines all the other big moves you’ve made.

That means you need to see every piece of content as a branding opportunity.

Think far beyond your website and social feeds. Look at your email signature. LinkedIn header. Onboarding process or dashboards.

Are you sending the right signals in those moments, and do the signals align with brand?

Consider your microcopy brand moments, too — like your unsubscribe email, your pop-ups, your client guide welcome notes. Even your FAQs.

The lofty brand values on your office wall or in your marketing strategy deck are only worth a damn if you’ve stress-tested their consistency, while simultaneously proving you understand your buyers’ and sellers’ state of mind along the way.

Tread wisely. Communicate consistently.

MYTH 2: Branding Is the Marketing Team’s Problem

Has the marketing team been informed that branding is their problem, though?

Miiiiight want to check on that.

I kid, I kid.

The reality here is that brand awareness often drifts noiselessly above most marketer’s heads.

Marketers are focused on better leads and more leads, better ROI and more ROI…that’s what they play whack-a-mole with every day.

So really, for your Marketing Director or busy bee admin, or just in your own smart marketing brain, brand often looks like a cost center.

It’s easily ignored.

In reality, brand is a force multiplier (more on that in Myth 3, below) that should be viewed with urgency, and honored for its ability to uplift all the special marketing tactics that fall below it.

If your company is struggling to value brand awareness in its marketing budget, then it’s time to zoom out and think holistically.

Sure, if you’ve never invested properly in brand-building activities and have only ever poured revenue into lead gen, that first month may look like questionable ROI in terms of black n’ white sales figures.

But if you look at your business as a whole and interconnected being, you’ll see how investing in brand pays off dramatically in site traffic, social media engagement, views, content downloads, and more.

Which leads me to the third and final myth for today.

MYTH 3: Branding Doesn’t Actually Drive Pipeline

We’ve all heard the stat that 95% of our potential buyers aren’t ready to buy from us.

That means plenty of real estate businesses are struggling to stay abreast of ongoing pipeline needs — which makes it too easy to neglect brand strategy altogether, or just “shelve it for later” in the name of prioritizing performance marketing efforts.

But when pipelines are under pressure, brand-building matters more than ever.

Take it from Les Binet and Peter Field, arguably the two humans who have done more than anyone to uncover the staggering commercial impact of advertising and marketing. (Their work should be much more famous than it is.)

This chart from Binet + Field tells us what we already know. Brand building, they conclude, is the main driver of long-term growth and profit:

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Ty Heath from LinkedIn agrees:

“Most of your growth potential lies in reaching people who won’t buy from you today, but who will buy from you in future.”

Remember that at the end of the day, you do have the ambition, creativity and wherewithal to get past the myths.

All the misconceptions that Realtorland has calcified into “truths” about branding are in your power to dismiss.

You can refuse to put brand in a corner, and instead place it squarely in the center.

As a strong priority and worthy team player.

As a performance strategy for the long haul.

Between the dashboards and data, your latest high-pressure farming campaign and all the pressing revenue goals —

Brand sits at the heart.

Bust the myths and make brand matter.

P.S – What’s BLUEPRINT, again? 

We’re a gaggle of designers, writers, and creatives on a mission to change the branding narrative in real estate.

We offer a signature branding service and the industry’s most elegant and high-converting digital products to help modern, stylish Realtors do three things:

➝ Communicate their worth;

➝ Become the obvious choice;

➝ Tell the right stories to stand out + SELL more.

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