Graphic design is an immeasurably versatile field. Just about every business in every industry relies on some level of graphic design for all their customer-facing content. In the digital world, this content has to be of exceptional quality to garner audience attention. This is true even when it comes to real estate, an industry that now conducts an increasing amount of business online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation procedures.
Real estate brokers and agents need good graphic design to build trustworthy brands, scale their business, and generate consistent leads. But what makes graphic design so important to these aspects of real estate marketing?
Here, we’ll explore the importance of graphic design in the real estate industry and what it means for you.
Why Brokers and Agents Need Good Graphic Design
Conducting real estate business these days all but requires agents to have a graphic designer on hand who can streamline the potential of digital marketing content. This is because so much property exploration and research now take place on the web.
Real estate brokers and agents have been transitioning to more virtual services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the public health crisis keeping many people indoors, a renewed focus had to be placed on digital marketing and connecting with clients through online media. Real estate professionals cannot afford to do the bare minimum when it comes to their online presence. Agents have to be accessible on the web while still showing their personalities. This is where graphic design can be invaluable in digital real estate marketing.
Anyone interested in buying or selling their home wants to work with an agent who invests in digital marketing enhancements like what’s possible through graphic design. This is because such an investment adds professionalism that can attract attention and maximize the return on investment (ROI) of any listing.
Brokers and agents need good graphic design for the marketing benefits alone. With effective design work, these can include:
Building Trustworthy Brands
Graphic design is necessary to standardize a real estate brand image across diverse online platforms. These days, marketing content can take the shape of anything from video tours to physical mailers. If your imagery and voice aren’t consistent, you’ll find clients have a hard time remembering who you are or what you’re all about.
Graphic design helps to build trustworthy brands by establishing familiarity. A name, a font, and a logo all can help stick in a potential client’s mind and tie their perception of real estate expertise to a specific brand. Graphic designers encourage this by crafting brand content that supports and pays homage to brand values.
A well-designed logo, for instance, can let clients know instantly that content reflects a real estate business that is committed to professionalism and quality. It can also imply the kind of properties and clients a brokerage typically serves. Take a look at some of these examples to get a sense of how a logo can establish a real estate brand.
Scaling Real Estate Business
Then, graphic design can serve a real estate business by helping them scale. There are plenty of avenues a broker or agent might take in their marketing work, and all of these require engaging content to support them.
For instance, videos need graphics and images to compel an audience and relay information at a glance. Additionally, social media posts get shared an average of two times more if they contain an image. But creating compelling infographics isn’t just a skill every real estate agent has. Developing quality content that is actually capable of scaling a business requires the help of a graphic designer.
Real estate professionals can better grow their potential with high-quality graphics. Truly effective content will even bring in traffic long-term.
Generating Leads Long-Term
Online visibility is dependent on two factors: your ability to Search Engine Optimize (SEO) content and the shareability of that content. A graphic designer is key on both counts. That’s because graphic designers understand how to optimize content and create something truly memorable.
In one real-world example, marketing director Kenneth Burke streamlined a content article for greater success online. This included incorporating high-quality visuals to aid in audience comprehension. This revision boosted the ranking of the page across search engines and lifted hits to 15,000 per month.
For real estate agents looking to attract new clients over time, building high-quality content like this can help you get seen. And graphic designers are here to help.
The Role of Graphic Design in Real Estate Branding
With all the benefits possible through effective graphic design in real estate branding, agents should be exploring the potential of a designer employed on their own staff. After all, content marketing has been found to generate over three times as many leads as outbound marketing while costing 62% less. Additionally, it can transform the potential of real estate listings.
But real estate agents and brokers need graphic designers if they are to maximize their success. That’s because quality, professional imagery is required across the gamut of real estate content. This includes:
Websites
Websites have to look clean and run smoothly to achieve decent traffic. Graphic designers can be instrumental in this process because they understand the accessibility features needed from a User Experience (UX) design perspective. With a good UX, real estate agents can obtain and maintain their client base while offering unprecedented value to their clients. This means greater acquisition and retention potential.
Video Content
Video content is powerful. Vlogs from real estate agents explaining market trends and best practices, for instance, can be a great way to engage with a client base. However, graphic design can elevate video content through informative visuals and brand-standardizing imagery.
Social Media
Finally, social media is a necessary tool in any agent’s real estate marketing toolkit. To maintain a powerful presence on social platforms, however, agents need visual content. From infographics that show the state of the market to the layout and background of your social profiles, graphic design can add value.
These are just a few of the many mediums that real estate agents are using on the job. Each one can be elevated with the expertise of a graphic designer, meaning that there is untold opportunity for these artists in the flourishing real estate market.
Real Estate Means Opportunity for Graphic Designers
Graphic designers are a real estate marketer’s best option for enhancing branding. They add value by standardizing a trustworthy brand image and attracting leads through quality content. For graphic designers, showcasing this value can open up the door to many mutually beneficial opportunities.
Understand the importance of graphic design in real estate then build your portfolio of content to show prospective clients what you can do for them. After all, graphic design can transform any agent’s potential; they just might not know it yet.
