Building Your Brand With Community Engagement

Your business as a realtor means you are an integral part of your community. To stay relevant you have to engage with your community – the people and businesses around you.

This week, we’re continuing in the vein of building your personal brand. How do you do that by being involved with your community?

There are 2 types of involvement with community that real estate agents tend to gravitate to:

1. “Giving to a cause”- with the belief that this is community involvement. Actually, this is “community giving.”
2. Hands On – Volunteering your time. THIS is community involvement. Involving yourself shows you CARE about your community and your friends who live here. It’s one of the most valuable things you can do to help people get to know you and know your name. This is how you create a “Know, Like, and Trust” kind of relationship.

You can open the door to potential listings and sales by staying top of mind. You should try to have your business represented everywhere residents look by keeping your finger on the pulse of your community.

Community involvement works because:

• It costs less – stay close to the community you serve, without spending big $$.
• Builds loyalty – when you focus on building/nurturing your community, you create a strong emotional bond with people.
• Maintains authenticity – you stay relevant and your customers see you as authentic.
• Builds trust – show that you and your community have shared values.
• Creates longevity – the longer you work within your community,  the longer (and better) a relationship you cultivate.

Looking for ways to get involved? Start with these 11 great ideas:

1. Promote local businesses. Start visiting area businesses, and talk to them during times when they aren’t too busy. Let them know you sell homes in their area, and the people who buy these homes will be future customers for them. Talk about sharing promotion ideas- your newsletters, gift certificates, contests, etc., and anything they’re doing promotion-wise.
2. Participate in holiday food drives . You can donate to a family in need- collect food at your office or plan a food drive event.
3. Sponsor a youth team. You can help with uniforms, donate time or money, get involved with the staff, and attend games when you can.
4. Sponsor an event. Self- explanatory…your name will be on flyers, signs, their Facebook pages…you get the picture.
5. Adopt a brick or roadway. Donate park benches, clean roadways and have your name on the “this road is sponsored by”sign.
6. Participate in street fairs. Have a booth space and offer home searches and market watch data. Bring flyers of listings, offer free copies of your newsletter and a sign-up sheet for people who want to be on your list or who want your free information for buyers or sellers. (If you’re a Service For Life! member, you have those types of reports as a member benefit. If not, you can put reports together of information that may be helpful to people looking to buy or sell).
7. Rotary clubs/Chamber of Commerce. Membership benefits: prestige, continuing education, personal growth, public speaking opportunities.
8. Sponsor/Volunteer hospitals/schools/churches. Help to collect money, bake sales, donate at garage sales, help with field trips, contests and prize donations.
9. Hold community garage sales for charities. You can spend time at the event, talking with people and showing your smiling, helpful face.
10. Hold a contest or offer a scholarship. Promote locally. Hold an office contest and donate the prize to a local charity. Or, a really great idea is to sponsor a scholarship. Put up a $2,500 college scholarship for a local applicant each year. Advertise your website by having applicants go to your site to sign up for the scholarship. You can leverage this into great exposure. Speak or present the award at graduation, send letters to parents and present the idea to their circles of friends and associates. Place local radio announcements or TV announcements. The possibilities are endless here.

Once you get the ball rolling and put a few of these ideas to work for you, you’ll find new ideas just start to pop up. YOU know and love your community. You know what people are talking about, what they’re doing, where they live. When you’re truly engaged and involved with your community, you will find that people know who you are and what you do. You’ll be seen as the local expert, and who else do you think folks will turn to when they think of real estate? You’ll be a trusted friend, instead of the salesperson out pushing for listings.

Got more ideas? Please share them with us here: https://agentinnercircle.com/get-started/