Real Estate Brand Ecosystem: Logos that Leave a Lasting Impression
Why is a real estate logo still important? Well, aside from representing your company's brand, today, real estate logos have more visibility than ever. In the past, logos might've appeared on your business card and maybe on some additional promotional material, but nothing more. Today, however, real estate websites, social media accounts, official email and other communication matters can not be imagined without the company logo. It gives your company credibility as well as ensures officiality. What Is a Logo in Terms of Success? What is a real estate logo if not the face of the company? Just thinking of Google, what is the first picture that pops up in your mind? Most probably, the colorful Google logo. It is the same for major companies around the world: Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike and many more. What many guides on creating a real estate logo fail to mention is that a logo doesn't guarantee an instant success. Let's take, for example, Nike. It is one of the most famous logos, instantly recognizable. It stands out, creating a certain perception of the brand. But it wasn't always like that. When the Nike Logo was created at first by a young designer, Carolyn Davidson, the company founders didn't find it appealing. But the products that Nike was creating and putting this logo on were of a great quality, and the marketing efforts of the company were successful, so after some time the company became widely recognizable. Therefore, the Nike logo became a symbol of success. So, what can we take away from the Nike example? Your real estate logo will have success only if the services you offer, as well as the effort you put into your brand, are superb. The Psychology of Symbols The Nike example is just one of many successful logos, and often the success and the good service of the company backs up the logo and makes it recognizable. If we can apply the chicken or the egg question to our case, is it the company that draws attention to the logo or the reverse? In many cases, the answer is simple. The efforts of the company and the quality services they provide make the logo recognizable and fill it with meaning. Only after that do logos become symbols more than just random lettering or shapes. The Principle of Any Good Logo Let's be honest. There is no recipe that guarantees the success of your logo design. But there are some principles that are tested by time. But first, let's discuss what kind of logos are out there. Logomark Logomarks are one of the most often used types of logos. Usually, they consist of abstract or geometric shapes. Take Apple, for example. It has rich symbolism behind its logo. An apple represents knowledge, but also a spark of innovation. The falling fruit was what led Isaac Newton to discover the gravity concept. The real estate industry is full of logomarks. The abstract shape of a building is one of the most popular types of logos still to this day. Logotype A logotype focuses more on the company name. It involves more text than pictures. Perfect examples of the logotype are CocaCola, Google and Facebook. If you want people to pay attention to the name of your company, logotype is a perfect choice. Combination of Both As the title suggests, there are logos that favor both text and geometric shapes—Pepsi, for example. Logo Systems The logo system is somewhat of a new concept. To understand the difference between the logo system and traditional logos, think static and dynamic. When you think of traditional logos, you think of static images that are consistent. Logo systems, on the other hand, can shift and change, adapting to different needs. Google doodles is one of the most famous logo systems. Creating a logo system is expensive and time-consuming. So as experts suggest, this type of logo should be reserved for big companies. Logo Design Trends So, now that you're aware of the different types of logos, let's talk about what you should be looking for in logo design: Minimalistic geometric design Symmetry Perspective drawing Letters that stand out Analogous color scheme Once you decide to create a logo, you can talk with graphic designers and discuss those trends. Once you get your logo designed, you want to place it everywhere and let it work to make a brand impression in your desired audience. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

Battle of the Real Estate Brands: Survey Finds How Well Consumers Recall Top Real Estate Brand Logos
Lucidpress announced the results of a survey showing how well consumers could recognize top real estate brands, as well as how real estate professionals ranked the industry's branding as a whole. When it comes to real estate professionals, they value their brand's position within the industry; they ranked it as the most important branding element of a real estate company's success, closely followed by user experience on the app or website. Only 11% of real estate professionals said the logo was the most important branding element for their company's success. When it comes to consumers, logos are crucial for brand recognition. The majority of respondents were able to correctly identify top real estate brands like Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams, Berkshire Hathaway and RE/Max by their logo alone. However, some elements of the logo were more identifiable than others: 84% of consumers correctly identified Berkshire Hathaway by its font alone. 91% of consumers correctly identified Coldwell Banker by its color scheme. 90% of consumers correctly identified RE/Max's imagery (colors and balloons), but without that imagery, only 63% could correctly identify its font. 81% of consumers correctly identified Keller Williams by its color scheme. Only 30% of consumers could correctly identify Century 21's current logo due to confusion over a recent rebrand. Century 21's recent rebrand didn't just throw off consumers. The majority (56%) of real estate professionals also did not think the rebrand was successful and expected consumers to be confused. The real estate professionals were also right about how well consumers know and can recognize these top brands: 84% of professionals believed consumers could recognize top real estate brands very well at a glance. According to the survey, here are how the top brands ranked in order of most to least recognizable: Coldwell Banker was the most recognizable brand with 91% correct answers. Re/Max was the next most recognized for its trademark at 90%. Berkshire Hathaway took the third spot with 84% of consumers recognizing its font. Keller Williams came in fourth with 81% correctly identifying it by color scheme. Century 21 was last due to confusion over the new logo, with only 30% of consumers identifying it correctly. Read the full results of the survey here.

The Psychology of Font and How to Use It in Your Real Estate Logo
Your real estate logo is a powerful symbol. Whether you intend it or not, it can evoke thoughts and feelings in your leads. The best real estate logos harness this potential. By employing different design elements, they convey an idea and nudge leads to act. In this blog, we will discuss font. Like colors and shapes, font has subtle psychological effects. The better you understand these effects, the better you can use font in your real estate logo and further your brand. Why Is Logo Font Important? Good fonts elicit a reaction. Because you can choose your font, to some degree you can choose the way leads react to your brand. This is powerful and it can have an impact on your lead generation. What Is the Psychology of Font? Different fonts affect people in different ways. To help you choose the right font for your real estate logo and generate more leads, we've provided the four major font styles below and the types of emotions they engender. Serif The oldest of the typeface families, serif fonts have been used in print and design for centuries. A small stroke at the end of each letter gives serif fonts a classical or traditional look. To varying degrees, serif fonts can convey: Stability Professionalism Trust Authority Reliability Wisdom Experience What do you think of when you see serif logos like those above? Let us know in the comments. Sans Serif Sans serif fonts emerged in the neoclassical movement of the late 1700s as a way to represent ancient inscriptions. Today, they are widely used in digital media because of their consistent appearance across devices and resolutions. San serif fonts can evoke: Modernity Innovation Agility Progression Openness Vigor Script Script fonts are those that emulate fluid handwriting styles, such as cursive. Long possible only through hand painting, script has become more popular and more sophisticated as a digital typeface. Script can give rise to emotions such as: Luxury Elegance Individuality Creativity Tradition Sophistication Decorative Decorative fonts are by far the most diverse. They are often experimental, and they can incorporate elements from each of the other large font families. They are intended exclusively for headers and should be avoided as body text. Because they are so diverse, decorative fonts can elicit a variety of reactions. Some of the most common adjectives we associate with them are: Friendly Approachable Energetic Trendy Bold Now you know the psychology of font and how to use it in your real estate logo! To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

8 of the Best Real Estate Logo Design Ideas
You likely already know that a logo is an important part of any business's branding. Not only does it make your modern real estate company stand out from the competition, but a solid logo can attract and win over new customers. That's what we're always aiming for, right? But it's tricky to design a custom logo for your real estate firm. You'll need to think about the colors, fonts and shapes you're using--not to mention arranging each individual element to create an impressive design. So, we collected eight of the best real estate logos to help inspire your own.

6 Kinds of Infographics to Use in Real Estate Marketing
The real estate business is competitive. Marketers are competing for attention in the same arenas for similar audience profiles. With the digital sphere clogged with information, it is becoming harder for marketers to get their content noticed. While content marketing efforts make a difference in the amount of engagement real estate agencies receive, the best way to captivate an audience is by using strong visuals, like high quality images, charts, and infographics. But not all marketers have access to graphic designers nor the time or ability to start learning graphic design software to make such visuals. Fortunately, there are online resources now available to real estate marketers that offer stunning infographic templates, all of which are customizable and shareable. Today we will be looking at the six kinds of infographics you can use as a real estate marketer.

Is It Time to Modernize YOUR Brand?
Let's face it: many of the most well-respected companies in real estate have not spent a lot of time on their logo in a LONG TIME! The industry is besieged with new players with huge marketing budgets and very contemporary branding. While a logo is not everything, it can certainly set the tone and tell others you're evolving and that your brand is still relevant today. Let's look at a few great examples of brand/logo overhauls:

3 Ways to Refresh Your Tired Real Estate Website
How long has the anchor content on your website been up on the web? Take a trip through your real estate website with an eye on how many images and how much text could be updated for a fresh new look and better usability. As you look through the site, keep one question top-of-mind: If I am a regular visitor, would I be bored having seen this content over and over? Here are some tips and ideas for refreshing your site that will make it more interesting, especially for repeat visitors. You could also generate more leads.

5 Tips to Finding Images for Your Website
Images communicate, draw attention and create interest. Images can keep people on your website if chosen correctly or lead people to leave your website. When choosing images for your website, it is important to choose images that are high quality, relevant, aligned with your brand, aesthetically pleasing and attention grabbing. So where can you get great images? Here are five ways we get images for our own site.

Real Estate Iconography
When it comes to crafting a strong brand for a real estate company, never underestimate the power of being able to express a name without directly spelling it out. And there's no better way to do this than with iconography. I've already discussed how much I love typography here. Its power is in its subtlety, as it gives form to your voice and shapes your brand. And it's a popular tool. Take a look at logos from some of the biggest real estate brands in the world: They all use typography as the dominant element forming their logos, and almost all of them exclusively use text. Century 21 is the only one here that references the shape of a house. In real estate, names give you strength and make these logos iconic. Icons are less subtle. The beauty in them is a bit more apparent, in that a singular icon has the ability to express many words, even sentences, at times. At TRIBUS, we've championed a strong icon in our logo (along with typography that we developed extensively), which you can read all about here. Zillow is another real estate company featuring a prominent icon in their logo. Nike and Apple serve as some of the best examples outside the industry.

How to Be Successful Posting on Pinterest: The Infographic
Want to have your pins re-pinned like crazy on Pinterest? Create an infographic. A few years ago I created this infographic about How to Ensure Your Success as a Real Estate Blogger. After publishing it on my website, I pinned it to Pinterest. I had at times noticed that it was repinned quite a bit, but never paid much mind to it. Then yesterday I looked at the stats and saw that it has been re-pinned over 3,100 times. Holy cow! I looked at the stats on all my other pins and saw that of nearly 300 pins, my second highest pinned image is 66 times (and the third highest is just 33 pins). That's almost 50 times the amount of pinning! The thing is, creating that infographic took me 50 times longer than any of the images I posted on Pinterest. So you could say I got out of it what I put in. I haven't created another infographic since then because of the time it took to do that first one (a few hours). That is, until today! Turns out making infographics is no longer the massive chore it was just a few years ago. Using a tool Canva.com, you can create a great looking, super-shareable infographic in about 30 mins. If the results are anything like my first infographic, I plan on doing a lot more of these. How to Make a Successful Infographic The above infographic was designed to be easily noticed and digested. On the next page is a little more insight on the included eight points.

How One Broker Leverages His Public Records/Tax Solution for Sphere Marketing
CRS Data is among the leading tax systems in America, known for their outstanding system design, great customer service, and excellent county record tax collection. If you use CRS today, you are probably a fan. Today, I want to talk about a CRS feature that is making a profound impact on the effectiveness of direct marketing for Murney Associates, Realtors. Murney Associates is a six office brokerage located around Springfield, MO. They are locally known for their excellence in marketing and a strong believer in sphere/farm marketing. Last week, I had a chance to connect with Kyle Drenon, Director of Marketing for Murney, who shared some information with us about how they are training sales associates in their firm to leverage CRS label export with outstanding results. CRS has the ability for sales associates to perform subdivision searches in prospecting. Agents can quickly pull a mailing list of a subdivision and create a farm. Murney provides a service to develop Jumbo, or oversized postcards to mail to that farm. The company manages this marketing communication at a localized level. For example, adding a very localized primary photo from the community on one side of the postcard and adding very localized market data for the neighborhood along with recent listings, sold listings, etc. Mr. Drenon indicates that agents are getting great response rates from these mailings because the consumer is getting information that is highly relevant to them.

Four Tips for Better Banner Ads
The current wisdom surrounding content marketing suggests that it's important to focus on helping—create content that provides value to readers. The world of advertising should be the same. If you've noticed a decline in your banner ad clicks, or are considering using banner ads to bring more visitors to your website, here are four things you should implement in your advertising. Provide Value Your banner ads, like the rest of your content, should provide some kind of value to readers. If they don't, readers won't click them because there's no motivation to do so. Instead of a "buy now" type of ad, offer a free eBook or other downloadable resource. Find what your ideal clients are searching for, and fulfill that need. Be Relevant Going hand-in-hand with providing value, your banner ads should be relevant. It's important to determine who you're trying to connect with and what they want. Even if your ad has a great value proposition, it won't be beneficial if it isn't reaching people who will find it interesting. When you're running a targeted campaign, use any data you've collected on your webpage to determine who is visiting the site you're advertising on and why they're there.

Canva: A Simple, Beautiful Way to Create Great Marketing Content
As a real estate professional, you need to wear a lot hats. You have to be a jack of all trades, and it is up to you to be proficient at each one. However, a lot of Realtors® seem to stumble when it comes down to design. You know your market or properties inside and out and you can tell people about them until the cows come home, but putting those details into a professional looking marketing piece can sometimes be problematic. Canva to the rescue! The hardest part about designing something is getting the project started. Most of us don't have the creative insight and vision to see the final result we want. Canva has 20 different templates and countless design options to get you moving, to spark that imagination and make it your own. Here is a list of some of the pre-sized design templates currently available to create: Facebook covers Posts Posters Business cards Social media graphics Twitter banners Real estate flyers (133 templates just in this category) Facebook ads Pinterest Collages and so much more!

Infographic: How to Sell a Home
Our crew at BoomTown recently came across an informative Infographic on How To Sell A Home created by our friends at Mint.com. This would be a helpful addition to any real estate agent’s content marketing library and makes explaining the process a lot more fun. Enjoy!