So, the UK is in recession, yet no one has informed the property market.
Any Estate Agent who believes this market will last forever, when still 5.3m people are still on furlough and GDP still around 10% lower than going into Covid + the Brexit issue on the horizon and second semi lockdown, has to be mistaken.
I am not a doom-monger, far from it, yet the simple facts are when uncertainty creeps into the economy, and all the above issues will cause that, there is going to be some form of contraction in the property market eventually, even if doesnt affect property values, it will certainly reduce the number of transactions of properties sold.
So, what are agents to do to ensure they get a bigger slice of the pie (ie more houses to sell) if the number of transactions get reduced?
Well let’s look at what you shouldn’t do.
Most agents will cut costs to the bone and one of the biggest things to go is their marketing & advertising efforts. Yet historical, in all recessions, the most successful companies & brands were those that faced down the recession with audacious strategies.
Though it’s not clear how long this Covid-induced recession will last or what the British Economy will look like in the coming years—to recession-proof your Estate Agency and preserve your market share, above all else, please don’t go deep undercover and go radio silent.
Even if it means losing staff, you must always be marketing and advertising your agency in order to beat the tough odds.
Now course, If you believe that increasing your Estate Agency marketing & advertising efforts would be a task or activity that has no hope of success, trust me, you are not alone in feeling that way.
Yet by dropping your Estate Agency marketing, you are actually helping your competitor agents a greater ‘share of voice’, and that increase in their ‘share of voice’ will give your competitor agents more brand awareness, which in turn will give them more listings.
So, what is the ‘share of voice’—and what happens to your share when your Estate & Letting Agency goes radio silent in an economic downturn?
Your agency’s ‘share of voice’ is a gauge or a measure of the agent or agents voice in the local property market that your Estate & Letting Agency has, in contrast to your Estate Agency competitors. It is centred on how much your agency has brand prominence locally and how much your estate agency holds (and ultimately owns) the conversation around being ‘the agent of choice’.
The bigger & better your agency’s ‘share of voice’, the more authority, reputation and approval you will have in your local property market among the prospective property sellers.
In the old days of the 1990’s and 2000’s, an Estate Agency’s ‘share of voice’ really came down to one thing …. the agent that took the largest number of paid for pages in the local rag,
…. yet in this new world of the 2020’s, your ‘share of voice’, it also embraces all of your social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, Facebook adverts and Google Adwords.
[Note I don’t count money spent on the portals as ‘share of voice’ … the portals have homogenised the Estate Agency profession … the portal is the star – not you being on it]
The awesome news is that when a recession hits, most of your Estate Agency competitors will pull most or all of their advertising spend. That means if you stay as you are with your marketing, your total ‘share of voice’ will logically grow (as you have more of the playing field and less competition).
History is full of the best-known brands in recessions. In the 1920’s great depression, Post was the #1 breakfast cereal in the world, yet they cut back drastically their ad budget whilst also-ran rival Kellogg’s more than doubled its ad spend, investing advertising on radio and introducing a new cereal called Rice Krispies … by the late 1930’s – there were the world’s No1 breakfast cereal brand…. Whilst Post are now an also ran USA only cereal brand. Also, who do you think were Google’s biggest customer for Google AdWords during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9 .. Amazon …and we all know how big they are now
These companies, plus many more, made the brave move of increasing marketing and ad budgets throughout historic recessions yet gained the benefits—in ‘share of voice’ & brand awareness, yet also in sales.
So where do you find the money? Owners of Estate Agents need to seriously look at their operating costs, the biggest being staff, portal and premises. If your shop lease is coming to an end soon, do really need to be on the High Street? And many of you have coped with 80% of your FTE staff (with the rest on furlough)? Have you got a bit flabby with the staff numbers? Could you outsource call handing to say Yomdel and Moneypenny? One Negs wage goes a long way in a marketing. Do you really need to be all three portals with their fancy pants, the full bells and whistles, roger me with a cucumber, £2,500 a month package when the basic package will do? [when was the last time someone said, I chose your agency because you have the Rightmove local home page … never!]
Also, lets also look at income ….what you charge, does your Valuer drop their fees quicker than House of Cards in the wind (in fact when was the last time you went out with your valuer on a free val??)
So, you are undoubtedly deliberating how to keep marketing & advertising without ostensible coming across as unprincipled, opportunistic or down right out of touch and thoughtless.
The thing is, people still need to move in a recession and in the last recession, whilst the number of property transactions dropped to about 65% to 70% of the normally long-term average, the crucial thing to outwitting a recession as an Estate Agent is altering HOW you market your agency.
Many Estate Agents are very guilty of chequebook-solution marketing. When things are good, they write cheques with gay abandon. Now every pound will count so changing budgets into new marketing channels, modifying your message, utilisation of video, become the thought leader on your local property market are all important … yet never, ever going radio silent.
The bottom line is no two recessions have ever been the same, yet the one inevitability is that people will still move home.
Even though the vast majority of people might not want to move, this doesn’t mean local people want to stop listening to what you have to say—you just need to speak to them differently.
Your estate agency brand messaging has to shift to be more educational, compassionate, considerate, intriguing, helpful, understanding and empathetic.
People won’t care what you have sold, your market share graphs, your willy waving exercises of how you are doing … its all BS … what should you do?
Follow me on social media, watch my 1,300 videos on YouTube or even pick up the phone to me for me tell you what to do. I know you are too busy now, yet in Spring or Summer next year, when things aren’t as froffy as they are now and the brown smelly stuff is hitting the whirly thing in the corner .. call me on 07950147572.
The clever ones amongst you though, will ring me in the coming weeks – so they can get a unfair advantage over you
The choice is yours