Have you ever wondered what you really need in your branding toolbox? The things that will make your marketing pop, your audience swoon, and your potential clients gush, “Wow I love what you’ve done with that brochure”?
Well, today I’m going to break down the 7 things every Realtor should have in their visual arsenal. These are things that will make your marketing, branding, and social media efforts so much easier – and will make onboarding new team members practically painless.
ONE | YOUR LOGO
You need some kind of logo, even if it’s just your name written out in your favourite font. The reason? So your audience starts getting familiar with your content! If you’ve got a logo, keep every single version of it in an easy-to-access folder. Or you can pop it into a Canva document for easy access.
No logo? No problem. Before working with me, so many of my clients believed they needed a stellar logo to get more clients. The truth is some of the most successful Realtors I’ve worked with used their name in a fancy font as their logo and called it a day! So if you don’t have the budget for a full brand buildout or aren’t sure what you want your logo to look like quite yet, then whip open a Canva doc, hit “T” on your keyboard, and type out your name. Choose a font you love, adjust the spacing, and add your designation below it.
Pro tip: Use the Styles tab to let Canva do the heavy lifting for you. There are hundreds of pre-selected font pairings ready and waiting for you in Canva.
TWO | COLOUR PALETTE
Creating one colour palette that you use across ALL of your business’s marketing assets is essential. And keeping those colours in a doc you can send to designers, photographers, stylists, marketing agencies, and anyone else you need to get up to speed on your brand quickly will make the dreaded back and forth emails a thing of the past. Thank goodness, right? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
To create a colour palette in Canva, head over to the Elements tab, select a shape you want to use, and duplicate it a few times. (Ideally, your palette will have 3 to 5 colours.) If you’re not sure where to start, try the Styles tab – Canva has tons of ready-to-use colour palettes ready to use with the click of a button!
THREE | FONTS
Fonts help set the tone of your brand and should remain consistent throughout every single piece of your marketing. Changing fonts all the time can change the entire look of your marketing (and confuse the heck outta your clients…) so choose 2 fonts – 1 for headings, 1 for subheadings – and be done with it!
Pro tip: When in doubt, use contrast! Pair sans serif (the ones without feet) with serif fonts (the ones with feet).
FOUR | BRAND IMAGERY
Brand imagery (the photos you use in your marketing) helps set the tone for your brand. Without a cohesive look, you might be confusing your audience. Being intentional with the photos you use on social media and in your marketing will create an overarching visual tone that your audience and potential clients will become familiar with. If your brand is modern minimal and you land on a boho chic image that you just love and want to use, I’m gonna encourage you to resist. Staying consistent means better brand recognition for you in the long run, which is how you build trust and familiarity with your audience.
So how do you find those images? Simple: You do a lot of the work right in Canva. Head over to the Photos tab and select a photo whose tone or feel looks like one you’d like to see throughout your marketing. Next, hover over the photo until the 3 dots in the upper right-hand corner appear. Click the photographer’s name to open their gallery; oftentimes, their work will consist of the same tone, which makes it easy to find similar images.
Create a gallery with these images so that you (or your designer) can grab them at any time. Brand imagery is also an amazing asset to send to photographers when trying to communicate the look you’re going for. Just send them your gallery and they’ll know exactly what they need to do on shoot day!
FIVE | MOODBOARD
Moodboards help organize your thoughts around a project and convey your ideas about what you’re looking for. You can create these for your brand, your social media, your farming material, staging projects, anything!
The first thing you should do before enlisting a designer or marketing expert is to create a moodboard.
Let’s say you’re going to hire someone to help with your social media, for example. You call them up and say something like, “Yeah, I just want something really high-end and luxurious.” You might *think* you’ve given them enough info to succeed but really? You haven’t given them anything at all. Your idea of high-end might look like a Gucci suit slinking out of a Masserati while your new social media manager might think Nike is the height of luxury. The point is…everyone has a different point of reference so the best way to convey what you want is to show them.
The good news is you don’t need to start from scratch. Grab this template and just swap out the photos and colours for your own anytime you start a new project.
SIX | INSPIRED CONTENT
Similar to moodboards, inspired content helps show others what you value, what you love, and what you aspire to. Anytime you find marketing you love or social posts that make you feel a little green with envy, grab a screenshot and place them in a folder. When you need to easily share what you love with someone on your team, you’ve got a folder ready and waiting. This is a huge time saver that really doesn’t take that much effort to set up.
SEVEN | BRAND BOARD
Lastly, you’ll need a brand board. This will outline your fonts, colour palette, logo, and logo variations – all in one place. Think of it as an at-a-glance look at your brand. This document is so helpful for new team members or contractors to get a quick idea of what your brand is all about.
Where moodboards outline ideas around a project, your brand board is the north star, guiding everything you do when it comes to marketing your company. If you want to get your hands on a brand board template make sure to sign up for the VIP Insiders.
