Beyond your customers - knowing how you are perceived in the market

As an estate agency, as with any business, understanding your market position is important.

It’s what allows you to set your objectives, know where your audience is and how best to market to them, and to make the right choices for your future growth.

For example, you may wish to be seen as the “go to” for higher end properties in your area. This may mean lower instruction levels, but higher fee commissions. In this instance your brand, advertising choices and even the wording of your brochures will likely reflect your market position.

Equally, you may want to be known as the “friendly and affordable agency”. In which case you might provide very easy to understand content and show off your local knowledge and credentials.

Knowing how you want to be perceived is core to running a successful agency.

But knowing how you are currently perceived is even more important.

Why market perception is important

When a brand gets it right, someone instantly knows what it offers and where it sits in the market.

Consider supermarkets. You know what you will get whether you choose to shop at Lidl or Waitrose. And there is certainly space for both.

But what if you think you’re perceived as the “Waitrose of agents” in your area and offering a fee structure to match, but your local market sees you more as a “Tesco”? A mismatch of brand perception, pricing and services can spell disaster for your business.

And the truth is, you’re often too close to your business to really see how you’re thought of externally.

Knowing what those who have never used your services think of you is a key step in making sure that your positioning aligns to where you want your agency brand to go.

Enticing new customers

By understanding how potential vendors, landlords and other customers may think of your brand, you can either choose to capitalise on it, or shift what you are doing to move you into a different arena.

It could be that you undertake research that finds people in your local area think your services are more expensive than they are. If that’s the case, what a great opportunity to be transparent about fees and entice new customers who perhaps thought you may be too expensive for them.

How KnowYourMarket can help you to discover how you are perceived

Here at KnowYourMarket, our experts work with you to come up with a comprehensive market research strategy and implementation plan to help you to better understand how you are viewed.

From small panel studies to large quantitative research, we allow you to get a wide range of views on your business, branding and messaging. This helps you to make better business decisions and avoid costly brand mistakes.