Elevating a Real Estate Association’s Digital Strategy

Overview

A leading real estate association located in a top-tier real estate market, sought agencyQ's expertise to navigate a critical juncture in their existence. In my role as VP of Strategic Design at agencyQ, I led a comprehensive discovery and design process aimed at crafting a digital strategy to establish them as the premier resource for homebuyers and sellers in their market.

Challenges

The client presented several pressing challenges:

1. Relevance Concerns: The association questioned its relevance in today's real estate market, both to REALTORS and to homebuyers/sellers, leading to concerns about member and customer awareness of their value.

2. Competitive Landscape: Intense competition from industry giants like Zillow, Redfin, and other real estate associations raised doubts about whether they were falling behind.

3. Growth and Value Delivery: The association grappled with strategies for growth and delivering enhanced value, including leads, to a diverse membership with varying needs.

Solutions

Our approach was centered around a comprehensive discovery phase aimed at unearthing valuable insights and crafting a robust digital strategy. To achieve this, we employed a multifaceted approach:

Firstly, we conducted stakeholder interviews, delving deep into the perspectives and expectations of key players within the real estate association. This allowed us to gain a comprehensive understanding of their goals and challenges.

We then embarked on extensive user research to uncover critical insights into the behaviors and needs of homebuyers, sellers, and REALTORS. Crafting detailed personas, empathy maps, and journey/experience maps provided us with a holistic view of the association's diverse audience, helping us identify their pain points and aspirations.

Simultaneously, we performed a heuristic evaluation of the client's existing websites, meticulously assessing usability to identify areas for improvement in user experience and interface design.

Our strategy also included content and competitive analysis. Through content audits, we evaluated the effectiveness of the client's SEO efforts and content strategy. Additionally, competitive analyses allowed us to gain insights into the strategies employed by industry giants like Zillow, Redfin, and other real estate associations.

Lastly, we conducted SEO audits and technical infrastructure assessments to bolster the association's digital presence. These audits provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of their SEO strategy, keyword usage, and overall website performance.

In summary, our solutions were grounded in a multifaceted approach that combined stakeholder insights, user research, usability assessments, content and competitive analyses, and SEO and technical audits. These efforts laid the groundwork for our strategic recommendations, ensuring that the real estate association was well-prepared to address their challenges and thrive in a highly competitive landscape.

The Results

The results of our comprehensive discovery phase yielded vital insights that paved the way for our key recommendations. First, we identified a significant gap in consumer awareness, where potential buyers and sellers had limited knowledge of the association's capacity to assist them. Concurrently, the industry disruptors, such as Zillow and Redfin, exerted a notable influence, creating a disconnect between realtors and consumers. On a positive note, we observed that member trust and confidence in the client's board were on the rise.

Additionally, our analysis revealed an underutilized asset landscape, with the public-facing website suffering from low awareness and suboptimal user experience, while the MLS site held high value for members, and the member site primarily served administrative functions.

Building on these insights, we formulated key recommendations to address these challenges. These recommendations encompassed prioritizing consumer education to heighten awareness of the association's value proposition, clarifying platform purposes and roles, including web and social channels, exploring platform consolidation to enhance user experience, establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for quantifying the digital strategy's effectiveness, and maintaining transparent member communication about the digital strategy's development and the steps taken to achieve the client's goals.

Conclusion

agencyQ's collaborative efforts, guided by my role as VP of Strategic Design, empowered the client to embark on a transformative journey. Through comprehensive discovery, strategic design, and a clear roadmap for implementation, we positioned the real estate association to thrive in a dynamic market. This led to a continued engagement with the client for the design and implementation of the client's new digital presence. This case study showcases how our process effectively addressed the client's challenges, setting them on a path to becoming the preferred resource in their industry.