Real Estate Brokerage Consolidates Brand

The Challenge

Focus Real Estate has historically positioned itself as two businesses, Focus Brokers and Focus Property Management. The messaging and brand were similar but different, with two distinct websites, social media presence, and signage. Thiscreated confusion online and offline and made communicating a clear and consistent brand difficult. In the marketing world, "if you confuse, you lose", and that's what was happening to Focus. With this issue becoming increasingly problematic, Joe Phillips, one of Focus Real Estate's owners, approached Tom Fellner from Bryt Idea Consulting to reenvision a consolidated and refreshed brand under one entity (one brand to rule them all!)

The Approach

The approach for the project was simple but comprised many complex moving parts. Essentially, It included:

• Develop a unified and cohesive brand identity by integrating the property management and brokerage websites, design elements, print materials, and messaging.
• Provide expert oversight and consultation across all marketing channels, ensuring brand alignment and consistency with updated brand deliverables and messaging.
• Establish a robust marketing infrastructure that empowers Focus's internal team to effectively implement and execute newly established marketing and brand strategies in the long term.

Implementation

Brand Strategy

To gain a deep understanding of its brand, both internally and externally, and to position the Focus for long-term strategic success, it was essential to take a step back and approach the evaluation with a beginner's mindset. This involves reassessing core values, mission, vision, and overall identity. For Focus, this process included a half-day brand discovery session with their team, facilitated by Tom. During this session, they explored questions such as, "What would your Brand Obituary say?" "What trends are you currently following?" and "What are your brand archetypes?" We also identified what their "Only" is.

Through this process, a clear and consistent brand identity was developed, including three primary brand archetypes: the Caregiver, the Everyday Person, and the Lover. We also created a primary buyer persona named "Active Annie," which helped the team better understand their ideal audience's felt needs, pain points, and habits. Eventually, the beginnings of a foundational brand strategy emerged through the process, providing a cohesive and consistent brand message for years to come.

Through this process, a clear and consistent brand identity was developed, including three primary brand archetypes: the Caregiver, the Everyday Person, and the Lover. We also created a primary buyer persona named "Active Annie," which helped the team better understand their ideal audience's felt needs, pain points, and habits. Eventually, the beginnings of a foundational brand strategy emerged through the process, providing a cohesive and consistent brand message for years to come.

Brand Identity Guide

Collaborating with talented local graphic designers, a brand identity guide was developed based on the initial brand discovery session. The guide featured a refreshed logo and logo specifications, as well as the identification of consistent brand colors, fonts, and design treatments.

Website Redesign and development

Using the Brand Identity document as a guide, Tom began work on the web development process, which included consolidating the real estate and property management websites. A website project specification document was developed, providing a detailed overview of the website goals and objectives, information architecture, wireframes, design direction, and estimated timeline.

One of the more challenging aspects of the development process was the many integrations required for the site which included Appfolio property managment software, Hubspot lead nurturing workflows, real estate IDX integrations, reviews management plugins and customized lead magnet form workflows. Working with Joe, Tom addressed these challenges from a technical and user experience perspective.

Alongside the website redesign, it was essential to reevaluate the marketing automation workflows. With this objective, Joe and Tom conducted a comprehensive review of the current HubSpot email nurturing workflows. They refined and optimized these workflows to establish brand consistency, ensuring they were well integrated into the new website.

To ensure transparency throughout the project, Tom distributed comprehensive monthly reports outlining the project's current status, comparing actual versus estimated costs, payment balances, and commentary on the website's progress. All activities were monitored using Teamwork Projects PM.

By implementing a proven website development process, fine-tuned over years of ideation, Tom was able to develop a best-of-class, lead-optimized website for Focus Real Estate.

The Results

Working with Tom at Bryt Idea Consulting, Focus Real Estate streamlined its marketing efforts and brand representation by consolidating multiple websites into a single, unified brand identity. They established a consistent branding strategy, including updated marketing materials, a refreshed logo, optimization of marketing automation, and revised marketing communications. This approach significantly improved their ability to convey their brand voice clearly and cohesively, both online and offline.

Ready to elevate your brand and marketing efforts? Think about bringing Tom on board to navigate your next marketing initiative, whether it’s a new website, SEO strategies, or fractional CMO services. Bryt Idea is here to help you reach your marketing aspirations. Reach out to me today!