How to write a practical case study for your real estate brand

Whether selling a house for a client, or engaging someone’s service yourself, the impact of a good real estate case study on the marketing/sales process cannot be understated.

While people are exposed to businesses through a wide range of lead generation technologies, the decision to actually engage a business is often made on different, more practical terms.

People understand the basic ideas of marketing, and believe that brands will ‘say anything’ to get them in the door. That’s why they build their own stories about a business over time, based on their interactions with a business and their own ideas about what these interactions should look like.

And this is why an authentic case study can have cut-through, because it actually provides a narrative for what engaging your services will be like for the client, in an accessible and compelling format.

So we’ve put together a quick guide for writing a residential or commercial case study to support your real estate brand.

Developing the case study: focus on the practical narrative!

To create a compelling real estate case study, you need to get out of the ‘pure marketing’ headspace and concentrate on some of the practical details of what you promise and provide to the client.

In real estate, this often comes down to a good client-broker relationship – the promise of a hassle-free experience, the idea of a dynamic and capable person handling the selling process, and so on.

As an exercise, think of the last time you were truly engaged and immersed in your work, and the steps you were taking to support a client on their journey:

• Did they get the best price for their home?
• Were they happy with the services you provided?
• Did they highlight any particular positives for you?
• Did you steer them through unique challenges along the way?

If you can answer these questions, you’re already 50% of the way towards a successful case study.

The other 50% comes from being able to relate these facts from the client’s perspective.

• What problem were they looking to solve?
• What made them choose your business over another?
• What was it like for them to engage your services?

Try to avoid doubling down on familiar brand promises or marketing language when you answer these questions. For a case study to work, it needs to demonstrate these promises in action.

Workshop these questions with your sales team, and you’ll soon find that you have a wealth of stories that can be turned into strong case study narratives.

Support your case study with unique imagery and design

Compelling brand narratives are built with the practical needs of the client in mind. This is doubly true for agents looking to attract buyers and sellers, as we’ve seen above.

The challenge is to represent these needs in an engaging way, and to find the best design and medium to share your stories with the largest number of potential leads.

How is this done? Let’s consider some of the common design steps that real estate marketers can take to add flair to their website case studies:

• Clear and concise lists of the products and benefits involved
• Quality photographs of homes being sold, and of the clients and agents themselves
• Infographics and pop-out lists that provide additional context
• Video or written testimonials from the client about their experience

The goal here is to match the medium with the message, and to think of the brand story you’re trying to tell.

If you’re all about the technical details as a business, then facts, figures and unique infographics can certainly help you build this narrative. A business with a strong B2B focus will rely on these sorts of studies to help seal the deal in the final stages of the sales process.

But be careful not to overload the reader with useless data – this can complicate the practical narrative you need to convey.

If you focus more on client support and services, then videos and images will help capture the lead’s attentions and emotional investment in the story you are telling. For example, consider using videos from an open house, or photos with the client celebrating the sale of their property to set the scene.

A strong real estate brand tells a compelling practical story

This guide has shown a few of the big-picture considerations involved in the planning and execution of a website case study, and why having a clear practical narrative in mind can help you build your real estate brand in particular.

Of course, most businesses will feel compelled to tell all of their stories at once. But it can also be good to develop a case study for each of your ‘brand pillars’ as a business, so that you can build an entire library of stories to support the different sides of the work you do.

And of course, having high-quality information on your audience across every medium is essential. This will help you craft the right narrative for your audience, and convert more real estate leads to your brand in the long run.