Award-winning estate agent moves on up with new brand look
Logo + Brand + Website Design + Stationery + Brochure
The challenge
Having worked in estate agency for many years and at Mark Smith’s Estate Agents for the last six, Nikki and her business partner Mark took over the company where they continued to deliver a successful service with a great reputation.
Achieving their initial objectives, as well as being nationally recognised with the 2021/22 Best Estate Agent Guide Gold Award, they bravely felt the time was right to make the business truly their own. They were ready for a new name, a new brand and a new look to their Whitstable office.
- Spiller Brooks Estate Agents
- Property
- Logo, Branding, Brochure, Social Media, Marketing
What’s in a name? Quite a lot actually.
Choosing a name for your own business is so deeply personal that it can be an agonising decision. A very public and long lasting choice – your name on the lips and minds of everyone you come across – your whole business life. No pressure then!
It’s a bit like naming your child. Where do you start? A good old fashioned name suitable for life in the established order? Or maybe something more hip and original for the kid who’s going to make waves?
Well like parents, we started with a list; generating one hundred names in categories such as, ‘Kentish way of life’, ‘contemporary and lifestyle’, ‘reflecting coast and town’, ‘The business owners names’ and various others lists befitting property purposes.
Logos
With our client unsure of which business name to settle on, our approach to brand development took the unusual approach of developing two favoured but different ideas in tandem, after which the client was more confident they’d be better able to decide on which they’d build their business and brand.
From all the names thrown into the competition, it came down to a showdown between a brave challenger ‘Pebble Beach’ and a fighter with a more traditional pedigree ‘Spiller Brooks’.
It was a close fight but ‘Spiller Brooks’ was unanimously crowned champion on a points decision.
Colour
A pastel palette combined with a darker neutral colour (for contrast), was chosen to make Spiller Brooks stand apart from the crowd of more conservative primary colours.
Derived out of pure colours (no grey or black added), pastel colours are subtle on the eye and picked to deliver a range of emotions like love, joy, romance, calmness, satisfaction, etc – all ideal feelings for inspiring home choices.
People spend many hours on the internet, the pastel colour palette essentially breaks down the fatigue and gives the viewer something that’s calmer on the eyes. After hundreds of scrolls and tens of loud videos, it feels pleasing to land on a pastel website.
Launching the new brand
Shop interior
Our brand work and guidelines helped inform the interior design.
Designer Amanda McKenna of MPL interiors.
The advantages of direct mail in estate agency marketing
- Direct mail fosters a direct connection to people in the local area and this isimportant because buyers and sellers want to work with people that are local market experts
- Direct mail is tangible resource that people can hold on to
- Direct mail makes it easy to create drip campaigns to nurture prospects over long periods of time
Frequency is important. Fortunately print is lot cheaper nowadays. So whether we’re creating postcards or flyers – we plan for a constant delivery with consistent messaging to keep Spiller Brooks top of people’s minds on the day they decide to move.
Social Media
Once the brand foundation had been built, it was time to start marketing Spiller Brooks. As part of the marketing strategy, two social media platforms were chosen to raise the business profile. Facebook is being used to target local house sellers/buyers and LinkedIn to build industry connections. Our aim, through the varied content we produce, is to position Spiller Brooks as an authority in the property industry.
We have also created various graphics for both platforms to ensure brand consistency and provide the client with key monthly insight data to use within the marketing strategy as we continue to grow the business.
Please read more about our social media services here.
Marketing plan
The client requested that we write a strategic marketing plan to ensure their key objectives for the year ahead are delivered in a targeted, timely, and cost-effective manner.
One marketing method that has already been delivered, was a content marketing article, social media and local app campaign to promote the rebrand of Spiller Brooks.
The campaign saw a social reach of 24,563, a click-through rate of 7,188, and a 633% increase in email sign-ups.
‘Promises’ campaign
Did you know that 80% of traditional mail is opened, yet 80% of emails are disregarded with only 20% being read. Direct mail continues to prove really significant ROI and it’s cost effective enough to regularly be dropping postcards through doors, in order to raise the profile of this old kid/new name on the house selling block.
‘Promises’ campaign
It’s quite inherent in the public not to have much love for Estate Agents, and actually in a survey of the top ten ‘Least Trusted Professions, Estate Agents fell mid-table between Lawyers and Paparrazi. To Brandspace who have spent so much time with a client who is genuinely, emphatically committed and to their profession and caring to their clients – well, we were adamant that at least this Agency must been seen for who they are. We created ideas with humour and personality and stated the promises they all stand by.
