This guest post was written by Chicago Condos specialist, Mert Sahinoglu.
Here are some offline website branding techniques that every real estate professional can apply. Some are very untraditional.
Home/Office Roof
Your Real Estate Office/Home-Office Roof should have your domain name on it. It is great branding for airborne traffic as well as Google/Bing Map Satellite view.
Car
Many real estate professionals already place their website on the side of their cars through stickers. There is one place they miss: the License Plate Frame. No better advertisement in the city or highway traffic jams.
Voicemail/Phone Listing Ads
Make sure that all office/cell phone voicemail messages and real estate listing presentations have your domain name in the message.
Phone Number
Get your phone number to have your domain name (800-real-estate-domain-com). Anything up to a 7 letter domain name should avoid confusion.
If your domain name is quite long (such as buildrealestateresults.com), you can consider getting a short URL. For example, buildrealestateresults.com could be brer.fm. You could advertise it as 1-800-1-BRER.FM. The short domain version of your site can also be used for Twitter links & other social media branding.
Real Estate Office Supplies
All your real estate office supplies should have domain name branded on it. Especially pens and notepads that get “relocated” by your guests.
Donate Domain-Branded T-shirts to Clothing Drives
Donate T-shirts/Caps to clothing drives that aim at the local poor in your area. It is a tax write off and a free advertising. Oh, by the way, you should sometimes wear your own domain branded clothes too.
Brand Your Dog or Larger Pet
All Clothing worn by your dog should have your domain name branding.
What other offline real estate website branding techniques can you think of?
Note from Kathleen:
Mert, the telephone example is really unique. I did a search at GetRealEstateDomains.com (a Godaddy registration site we sponsor), for BRER.com.
While that one is taken, of course, the search always shows alternatives, and there were quite a few. BRER.biz for example, (although it’s not available any more) BRER.tv, BRER.us, etc.
On the screen with the alternatives, there are some tabs under “We also recommend”. Clicking on the International tab brought me to even more alternatives. So, if your desired short name isn’t available, look for alternatives you wouldn’t ordinarily use.
Naturally, you’d always want to keep a clear, .COM name as your default for SEO and to ensure that folks who can’t remember the abbreviation can find your site on a .COM domain.
Now, my only problem is that the acronym for BuildRealEstateWebsites.com is BREW. And, looks like all the beer drinkers of the world have already snapped up all variations of that one!
2 Comments
July 8th, 2010 at 10:35 am
I must admit that branding a pet never occurred to me before I’ve read this article. Does it really help that much? As for the domain acronyms, I don’t think it’s that hard to think of something new and different. Though creating something very similar to the original acronym (which is already taken) might result in confusing your clients, as they may accidentally type in the wrong letters and end up on a wrong website.
July 8th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Hi Elli,
Thanks for stopping by. In advertising, the concept of impressions is an important one. For example, it’s the reason why UPS and Fedex “brand” their delivery trucks. The more often people see a brand, the more likely they are to think of it when they need a package sent overnight.
So, while you might have someone start talking real estate to you when you’re out walking your dog, it’s more likely that when they come across your website online, they’ll remember seeing you and the dog. I’ve had clients with excellent SEO rankings, for instance, tell me that buyers tell them that they just had to call because the agent was “everywhere”. Or at least it seemed that way.
As for the domain name, I won’t be using a short name for my phone number because my numbers are too well established and would have to be changed. But, I did buy BRER.biz so that when I’m talking to someone on the phone, I can direct them to the website without taxing their typing ability!
For the same purpose, I purchased BRERW.com which is directed at the BREW site. I will explain that one as Build Real Estate Results – Websites for lack of a direct acronym.
Anyone else have an opinion on the impressions issue?