There are 353 letting agents on Rightmove in South West London.
That’s a lot of agents to choose from
A landlord can choose from one office boutique letting agents, cheap as chips online agents, regional chain agents like Foxtons and Thamesview, national franchises like Martin and Co and Belvoir, national Corporates like Countrywide or Sequence, young whippersnapper agents or old school Chartered Surveyors that have been around since 2BC
Landlords could pay as little as 2% for a managed service or as much as 14% managed .. all for what appears to be the same service
It’s clear that each letting agent tells a very distinctive account/story of themselves. I call it their ‘brand narrative’ and this narrative/story, using the agent’s website, boards, fees, purpose, network, people, office location etc is designed to communicate to the landlords. To communicate with the sole purpose of attracting landlords to use their agency.
.. its that simple .. we use our brand and everything that goes to make up marketing that brand to attract landlords to us
So, some agents go for ‘value’ end of the market, whilst other agents go for ease, some agents talk about their network with the branding and others talk about their team. Some landlords chose the agent by the atmosphere of the office or simply the agent they have always used (or their mate told them)
Each landlord has a different point of view about the value of a letting agency .. nonetheless, if you sat and watched all those landlords who popped in to the offices of their agent on ‘estate agency row’ in your town, you would find it hard to tell those landlords apart.
So where does a letting agent start?
The first step to attracting the landlords you deserve is to understand what it is those landlords want.
What interests those landlords?
What those landlords care about?
What keeps those landlords up at night?
What intrigues and excites those landlords?
…. And this is where do you come in …
Your letting agency can’t fulfil those unstated or unsaid desires or unmet needs of a landlord you haven’t fully understood.
The biggest challenge letting agents have is that most people (landlords) think we are all the same.
.. and the only way, we as letting agents, can change that perception is to tell a different story, tell a different narrative, a different account with our ‘brand narrative’.
….but most letting agents say I do brand awareness …I spend loads of money on it and still it doesn’t attract landlords.
All I would say is, ‘brand awareness marketing’ did work 10 years ago ..and it worked 5 years ago .. but not as well nowadays.
You are pumping out marketing, with your brand story, your brand narrative .. it’s just that we as letting agents are not telling a narrative (or story) that matches the point of view of our prospective landlord.
It doesn’t matter how good your letting agent service is if you don’t understand the point of view of the landlord who will buy it.
Just like going to a party and having to listen to someone that talks about themselves all night (and we all know what we think of those people) .. that is what our ‘brand awareness’ marketing has become.. the story, the narrative (the ‘brand narrative’) we portray seems to always talk about ourselves, our agency and our services.
Our story is just like the dull self centred person at that party .. and landlords arent listening .. hence we arent getting the landlords we deserve
The initial step to mastering the art of telling people (landlords) about your brand narrative and being a better letting agent is to stand in your landlord’s shoes.
I created the ‘How to Attract Landlords to Your Lettings Agency Blog’ , with over 430 blog posts going back to 2013 to enable you to do exactly that.
If you are a more visual creature, I also created this “Grow Your Letting Agency TV Channel” on YouTube with hours of training videos on how to get more landlords
Both will help you find more ways to resonate with landlords and differentiate from your 353 competitors.