Real Estate Branding: Grow Your Sphere Of Influence

Real estate branding goes beyond static websites and yard signs (which 69% of realtors already use). In such a competitive industry, success demands serious marketing investment—both time and strategy.

Real estate branding uses marketing strategies to expand audience reach, build client trust, and grow your business in the digital age. But figuring out where to start can feel overwhelming.

This guide will give you practical real estate branding strategies that actually work, as well as a step-by-step action plan for leveling up your real estate marketing game sustainably.

6 actionable real estate branding ideas for a digital-first audience

The way people communicate and receive information changes quickly and can make real estate branding seem like an overwhelming task. Let's explore why investing in a strong brand pays off and how to do it.

1. Build credibility and attract the right clientele

In an industry that is as competitive as real estate, your go-to-market strategy must aim to attract, retain, and win back clients.

"First impressions mean everything" has never been more true in today's mobile-first world. A clean website with professional photography has become the baseline expectation.

Building trust and credibility requires information—delivered through a strong online presence that reinforces your agency's brand.

The team at Creig Northrop discovered this firsthand in 2015, managing over 1,000 listings annually. The team elevated their real estate branding by adding Matterport 3D experiences to their listings—in doing so, they increased sales transactions by 10% as well as demand by 3x each year.

How to do it:

With the Business Card and Quick Link plugin in Matterport’s 3D tours, you can embed your business details and contact info within the listing and highlight your brand to buyers (and sellers).

This provides a seamless way to include your agency's information while customizing details for each property. While Matterport already helps you track traffic and engagement metrics for your 3D tour, plugins like Business Card and Quick Link give you a new way to generate qualified leads.

2. Stand out from competitors with unique listing experiences

Beyond basic information, you can differentiate your listings by providing rich context about each property.

Real estate photos, videos, and 3D tours are now the industry standard, reflecting digital transformation in real estate. A typical listing will already include the basics like:

• Property size

• Number of bedrooms

• Number of bathrooms

• Features specific to the property

These basics won't cut it anymore in today's market—as Ben Goldberg, Senior Account Executive at Matterport, highlights:

"It's definitely more competitive out there. It's more competitive to get listings, it's more competitive to attract buyers... there's an opportunity for tech-savvy Brokers to really jump ahead."

Interested in hearing more? Check out our webinar Add Life to Your Listings.

Listings with richer context naturally attract more serious buyers. Providing context through your marketing assets creates impact—and Matterport's 3D tours excel at this. They give buyers comprehensive information, context, and visual understanding as they search for properties.

How to do it:

Digital twins can deliver more value with real estate marketing add-ons and plugins that add an experiential layer to your listing. They are:

1. Compass & Minimap plugins

2. Detailed floor plans

The Compass and Minimap plugins let buyers navigate spaces as if they're on-site—at any time of day. These plugins are yet another way to bring the listing to life by giving buyers a sense of the physical space and even help them envision interior design and furnishing options to best utilize natural light.

It creates a polished, memorable experience for today’s home buyers that surpasses typical virtual tours. It demonstrates your attention to every aspect of the buyer's journey, leaving a lasting impression.

3. Reinforce your brand with custom in-tour elements

Real estate brand marketing requires visibility—without consistent exposure, recognition is impossible. Your listings must be unique while also reinforcing brand recall.

Beyond adding your business information to the tour, there are other, more subtle ways to reinforce your brand within 3D tours by imbuing them with custom in-tour elements. Consider branding elements like color schemes for interactive components and staged furniture.

Powered By

How to do it:

Reinforce your brand by differentiating with something as simple as a detailed floor plan that includes your custom logo design.

Matterport floor plans can also be customized with furniture placement or color scheme, giving your clients yet another way to explore a property.

Some listings typically include square footage, year built and a rough scan of a black and white floor plan. With Matterport, you can create a schematic floor plan directly from your 3D tour, helping your listing feel unique and build your brand.

4. Use social media to reduce ad spend

Running ads—whether print or digital—quickly becomes expensive. While real estate branding requires time investment, it doesn't have to demand a heavy financial burden of advertising. 

Social media profiles are free to make, and websites can cost less than $100 per year to maintain. You can invest in advertising to drive traffic to these channels, but you don't need to.

How to do it:

Leverage free resources available. Create social media profiles for your business and join any local real estate and home groups. Engage directly with your audience to build relationships without advertising costs.

You can also consider setting each of your agents up with professional, branded profiles so they can interact with your target audience as well. If you go this route, make sure you have brand guidelines established and that everyone is consistent in representing the agency well.

If you’re not web savvy or can’t afford a graphic designer, consider purchasing an affordable template that gives you an eye-catching site without all the development costs.

5. Keep real estate branding consistent across all marketing channels

Maintain brand consistency across all channels, regardless of your branding approach. Your audiences across social media, website, and in-person interactions may differ—yet your branding must remain consistent.

This means consistent brand colors, the same core values, and other elements everywhere your target audience can land.

When you’re consistent, your real estate business benefits in a number of ways:

• Your brand identity is stronger and more recognizable

• You look more professional and established

• It’s easier to build trust when your brand is consistent

• You build brand awareness through repetition

• Your visual identity is stronger, benefiting local digital marketing

How to do it:

If you want to ensure branding consistency in any homes you’re showing, 3D tours make it easy to quickly walk through your properties and make sure staging is accurate.

Real Estate Analytics (REA), a Singaporean property technology company, makes real estate data accessible to consumers, professionals, and institutions in order to make informed decisions regarding their properties. Since then, the company standardized their online property listings using Matterport 3D tours and managed to increase their online listing engagement by 50% and sales by 20%.

Gabriel Mejia, Chief Strategy Officer at Real Estate Analytics, says that their brand has benefited from this by providing a unique user experience:

“Since working with Matterport, we have been awarded the best Online Services in Real Estate by the Singapore Business Review for our work in aligning technology with our company mission and values.”

6. Make communication easier than the rest

Buyers often must provide their email, phone number, and a message to contact real estate agents online. This intimidates first-time buyers and overcomplicates a simple process.

How to do it:

Stand apart and market your agency as one with an open door. Give your audience a number of ways to reach you:

• Feature your phone number and email prominently on all branding

• Give users the ability to fill out a form on your site if they wish

• Include contact information on all 3D tours using the Business Card plugin

• Respond to questions and queries promptly on social media posts

You can also go a step further with Matterport, which offers a dedicated link for the MLS that removes branding, while agents can use a branded link for personal follow-ups. Ben Goldberg highlights this strategy in our webinar, Add Life to Your Listing:

"When someone comes to an open house and agents collect that potential buyer’s information they're emailing the branded 3D tour link as a follow-up".

Both home buying and selling processes are lengthy, complicated, and stressful for many people. Any steps you can take to make it easier for your audience will help you stand apart from competitors and give people a great reason to refer your services to others.

Your real estate branding action plan: Step-by-step

You likely now have several tactics in mind for improving your real estate branding. The problem is, tactics without strategy rarely succeed. Here's how to build a branding strategy that works for your business.

1. Audit your current brand presence

Start by auditing your existing brand presence. Review all current assets for inconsistencies in imagery, tone, or brand alignment. Matterport's marketing features can help you centralize your marketing assets for you to reference as a source of truth across your audit.

Some common places to look for these issues are:

• Social media (both the overall brand and individual agents)

• Website

• Print marketing materials (flyers, brochures, postcards, signage, etc.)

You can use whichever project management tool you prefer, but even a simple spreadsheet would work fine. Here's a simple way to organize your audit—have columns for:

• Public URL (if applicable)

• Source (e.g., social media, website, print)

• Adjustment required (text-based notes field)

• Priority level

• Status

Keeping your audit organized this way should help reduce potential overwhelm and show you what you need to tackle first (sort by priority).

2. Define your digital marketing toolkit

If you're already using real estate marketing tools, now's the time to audit those as well. Focus on the tech you need for a digital-first approach and reducing as much redundancy as possible.

Here is a list of the general types of marketing tools you likely use or need:

• Customer relationship management (CRM)

• Email marketing tool (if not included in the CRM)

• Social media management tool

• Project management tool

• Content marketing tools, like a video editor, photo/graphics editor, etc.

• 3D tour technology (for stand-out listings)

• Asset management tool

Among this list of tools, one of the most important is asset management. You need a source of truth for branded assets that simplifies maintaining brand control. The Matterport platform can help you centralize your branded assets alongside your virtual listings.

3. Create a content plan for social media and listings

Great listing content means nothing without a distribution plan. Single posts without follow-up won't generate results.

You ideally have multiple media types for each listing (still photos, video, and a 3D tour). Create a content plan that maximizes each of your branded assets for your property listings by creating separate posts with each type. For example, let's say you have three properties to market per week:

• Monday: Property A video, Property B stills, Property C 3D tour.

• Wednesday: Property A stills, Property B 3D tour, Property C video.

• Friday: Property A 3D tour, Property B video, Property C stills.

On other days of the week, you can create posts for business updates, agent highlights, location highlights, etc. Adjust the schedule to however many listings you have.

3D tours offer a key benefit: immersive experiences that work across multiple platforms. With custom branding elements inside the tour, they highlight your brand within the experience, which can become a core part of your content strategy.

4. Monitor and adapt based on client feedback

Improving your branding strategy requires understanding how audiences receive it. You need to analyze your performance by monitoring the data and gathering qualitative feedback to continuously improve.

The quantitative data you can gather from a branding campaign includes:

• Social media engagement (likes, comments, shares)

• Engagement with immersive 3D tours (click-through rates, plugin interaction, dwell-time, etc.)

• Lead generation and conversion rates

For gathering qualitative data, you can:

• Include a feedback survey in your follow-up communications

• Check for brand sentiment in social media comments, direct communications, website reviews, and third-party review sites.

Each data point reveals what resonates with your audience, enabling you to refine your approach for maximum impact.