The 12 Commandments of Estate Agency Marketing

Easter has just been and gone, the chocolate's mostly eaten, and the industry is returning to its favourite pastime: doing the same marketing as everyone else and wondering why it isn't working.

So in the spirit of the season, I thought I'd come down from the mountain (well, a Zoom call from my office) with some guidance.

Actually, not guidance - commandments.

Let us begin.

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1. Thou shalt not hide behind thy logo

Your logo did not win the instruction; you did.

Yet so many agents still post faceless content, corporate graphics, and stock images of smiling couples looking like they've never seen a key before. Nobody instructs a logo; they instruct a person they trust.

Put your face on your marketing, and your team's faces too. Flaws, bad hair days, and all.

2. Thou shalt not bore thy audience

Boring is marketing's cardinal sin.

You can be wrong; you can be weird; you can even be a bit rubbish on camera - people will forgive all of it. What they won't forgive is being bored into scrolling past you.

If you read your last five social posts back and feel nothing, neither will your audience.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of AI in vain

AI is a brilliant tool. But if your AI output still sounds like AI, you're not fooling anyone - you're just making content that feels a bit… AI.

Use it to draft, to brainstorm, to speed up the boring bits. Then rewrite it in your own voice; add the bits only you would say; the specific street name; the funny thing a buyer did last week; the joke your valuer always makes.

AI is the sous chef, but you're Gordon Ramsey.

4. Thou shalt honour thy past clients

Your sold list is the most underused marketing asset in your business.

Every person you've moved is a referral waiting to happen, a testimonial video waiting to be filmed, a "five years on" anniversary post waiting to be written.

Go back through last year's completions this week. Send ten of them a proper message - not a mailshot, a real one. Ask how they're getting on. Some will remember you warmly; some will tell a friend; some will have another property for you.

And it costs you nothing but ten minutes.

5. Thou shalt not covet thy rival's campaigns

Stop staring over the hedge.

If Purplebricks does a TV ad, you do not need a TV ad. If the agent down the road starts posting dance videos, please, for the love of God, do not start posting dance videos.

Copying other agents is the fastest route to looking like every other agent. Your advantage is the bits of you that they can't replicate - your personality, your area knowledge, your team, your stories.

Be yourself, but louder.

6. Thou shalt remember video, and keep it holy

Every week, without fail, create something on camera. A property walk-through, a market update, a "what I learned this week" rant to the lens, a team member introducing themselves.

Not because video is trendy, but because video is the closest thing to meeting you in person. Instructing an agent is a trust decision, and trust is built face-to-face... or the nearest thing to it.

If your competitors aren't doing this consistently - and most of them aren't - you have a gap you can walk straight through.

7. Thou shalt not bear false witness

No fake reviews, no inflated valuations dressed up as "marketing strategy", no cropping the photo so the dual carriageway mysteriously disappears, no ghost buyer register.

The industry has a trust problem. Every shortcut makes it worse for you, and for the rest of us.

The good news? Being genuinely, radically honest is now a competitive advantage. It didn't used to be, but it is now.

8. Thou shalt speak plainly

"Bespoke". "Boutique". "Market-leading". "Passionate about property". "We go the extra mile".

Delete them all.

If every agent in your town could copy and paste your "About Us" page onto their own website without anyone noticing, your website isn't doing its job. Write like you talk. Describe what you actually do, in the words you'd actually use, to a mate in the pub.

Plain beats polished every single time.

9. Thou shalt make graven images

This is the one commandment I'm going to reverse.

Make graven images, and lots of them. Good ones.

Property photography and videography is still the most looked-at, least-invested-in part of most agents' marketing. Terrible listing photos lose you instructions before the vendor has even met you. Brilliant ones open the door.

The same goes for your social content, your website, your window cards, your team photos. Get a proper camera. Get proper lighting. If you can't, find someone who can do it for you.

The eye is the fastest route to the brain, so feed it well.

10. Thou shalt love thy neighbour

Local, local, local.

The agents who will own their patch in five years are the ones who show up now at the village fete, the school fair, the charity quiz, the new cafe opening down the road.

And I don't mean sponsoring from a distance, but actually turning up, saying hello, taking photos, filming little clips, sharing other local businesses on your social feeds.

When it comes to your neighbourhood, act like a neighbour - not a marketer.

11. Thou shalt not sacrifice originality for reach

Not every trend is for you.

If a format doesn't fit your personality, your audience, or your brand - skip it. A smaller, loyal flock beats a viral one-night stand every time.

One hundred people who trust you completely will send you more business than ten thousand who watched one of your videos once and forgot your name.

Play the long game and build a following, not a follower count.

12. Thou shalt show up on the seventh day too

Marketing is a daily practice, not a Sunday service.

The agents who win aren't the ones who do a big campaign twice a year and then disappear. They're the ones who post something useful most days, film something most weeks, and stay in front of their audience so consistently that when someone finally thinks "I need an agent", there's only one name in their head.

Consistency is the whole game.

And on the thirteenth day, he rested

You don't have to do all twelve at once - very few people do.

Pick two or three that made you wince a little as you read them, those are the ones that are talking to you. Work on those this month, and then come back to the others later.

Marketing isn't a religion, and I'm certainly no prophet. But after nearly twenty years of watching agents do brilliant work and daft work in roughly equal measure, these are the patterns I see again and again.

Steal the ones you like, ignore the ones you don't. And whatever you do, don't be boring.

See you next time

Toby