How To Get More People To Use Your Lettings and Estate Agency Blog

Well, You aren’t the problem – far from it. Its the UK estate and letting agency system that is the problem. The system and the techniques of generating new business in estate agency, which used to work 10 or 20 years ago dont work now. That’s not your fault. You aren’t to blame for that. You are an awesome estate agent working in an industry that is really hard work... doesn’t it? A few days ago I promised you I would show you

You aren’t the problem – far from it. Its the UK estate and letting agency system that is the problem. The system and the techniques of generating new business in estate agency, which used to work 10 or 20 years ago dont work now. That’s not your fault. You aren’t to blame for that. You are an awesome estate agent working in an industry that is really hard work.. but it does feel like you are drowning sometimes .. doesn't it? So if the system is a fault, the system can be changed cant it? Of course it can. So how do you get more business, more listings, more instructions, more take ons for your estate agency? Well these are my thoughts … Let me be frank ..  It’s a whole lot easier to

What’s doing the talking for you? What's saying you are the best agent around. An “about” page or a Twitter bio that says you’re an local property expert? Don’t say it – show it in every post, every article, every buy to let deal, every video – everything.

In this 21 st  Century internet 24/7 world that we live in, many people have started to believe everything can be measured. Everything has a number, be it time, click thru rates, sales, targets, open rates etc etc Many people are also believe that an action will always result in a reaction. Estate Agency marketing is now created with the expectation that it will

My good lady wife loves shopping online. In fact, Amazon, they rang her last week to check she was Ok as she hadn’t ordered anything for three days (only kidding .. they rang after two days) She ordered some Gin glasses (not from Amazon) from the internet – you know the ones that look like a goldfish bowl on a stick. The glass seller put the box of six glasses (the box being quite flimsy in the first place) in another brown cardboard box. This brown cardboard box was a couple of inches bigger around the sides of glass box, but the same height as the

If you are an estate agent, most of you are starting to become aware of the creeping menace of the online/hybrid threat that is Purplebricks and their bedfellows, EasyProperty, Yopa and alike. Things are changing in UK Estate agency, in fact things have changed in all aspects of life .. and nobody can deny that fact   We can blame (if blame is the right word – ok, let’s say point the finger at) the t’interweb and mobiles. The internet has become omnipresent and abundant with our phones and tablets. Now we all walk around, zombie like, with our heads in our mobiles, looking how many likes we have on Facebook or watching funny videos of cats.   None of use read newspapers

Some Estate agents boast about having really high conversion rates of 75% to 85%. These listers consider themselves the daddy listers, the big cheese valuers, the mutts-nutts of Valuers. Other Estate Agents have really low conversion rates of 20% to 25% of the free vals / mkt appraisals they go to. These listers/valuers wish their conversion rates were higher Recognise anyone that fall into those two groups? Which group of those would you rather

A 10 min video on how to write one of the best (yet easiest) articles about your local property market .. the town vs town article. Write this article and look and feel like the property guru you know you are. How would that feel?  So watch the video, drop in the numbers and prove you are the local property expert  Enjoy!  PS Where it says the MS Word Document is in the files section  .. it is in fact here. Here is a link to the Word Document,  which is the skeleton of the article.. now just watch the embedded video here .. drop your numbers and happy article writing. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me on 07950147572 or send me an email to christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk

Despite everything we know about the benefits of fostering loyalty with our mailing list (applicants and purchasers list), most estate agency marketing is designed to change what people think or do now (ie the in the short term) Estate Agents rebrand themselves to get a millisecond more attention. Estate Agents offer discounts on selling fees and when we run out of reasons for house sellers to use our estate agency, we invent them. If you are playing the long game in estate agency, you have to dig deeper and think about changing how people feel—not just about your estate agency, but about themselves in its presence. A cherished estate agency brand aspires to change how people feel, not only to influence/manipulate what people think and do. Vendors come back because they feel like it, because they care, not because we made them. Like I said a few days ago .. in the coming weeks, I will share with you the techniques on how to make peo

It doesn't matter how good your estate agency is, if nobody knows about it, knows how good it is, the facts and figures, the features and benefits. .. nothing will happen, so we start marketing ourselves  our firm, our services, giving the potential punters the facts, features and benefits of our agency. We try to make people pay attention to us, we try to sell them on the facts, the features and the benefits of our estate (lettings) agency … we try to change what they think - so we can change what they do. (ie use our agency) In a capitalist free market economy, we are totally inundated with people/companies trying to sell stuff, be that groceries, cars, and in our case, we are doing the same with our estate (and letting) agency services. Everyone trying and sell us stuff with the use of marketing messages, day in day out, week in, week 

Leaflets .. well when I say leaflets, I don’t mean promo leaflets which talk about fees, and your services .. no I am talking about those magazines, newsletters and reports many of you write and produce about what is happening in the local property market –  stuff like this from Charters in Winchester (click on the image to download the gorgeous PDF newsletter) or the reports Savills do (below) Its so easy to think emailing your PDF newsletter is the tops. Yes, of course it is, especially if you are emailing to a few thousand on your linkedin or applicant database you have scrapped. .. but all of you have a list of landlords or people on the market that don’t do business with you, but you would like to. So, yes, by all means bulk email it .. but don’t rely on email…. we all get hundreds of emails a day. .. and it might get caught up in Spam (trust me – i ‘m on many of your lists to get newsletters and the huge number that go straight to spam is eye

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that targets are vital to the success of an estate or lettings agency .. but feel sometimes, estate and letting agency bosses focus to much on them to judge their staff. Let me talk about the people closest to the coal face – the Neg. Negotiators are targeted on Viewings, FV’s/MA’s, Mortgage Appts etc. etc.  So let’s imagine we have a Neg called Jane. She goes the extra mile, often first to her feet, she often spends 10, 15, 20 minutes on her feet going through the different areas of the town on the wallpaper map wall with applicants, and as she has visited all the houses (often on her way home in her own time) unlike her colleagues who are out of the door in at 10 seconds after 6pm, Jane proactively solves buyers (and tenants) problems while they