Creating a positive association with something of emotional or intellectual value helps to establish brand value. Content marketing presents an opportunity to create this kind of brand value in an authentic and informative way.

Douglas Elliman is the fourth largest real estate brokerage in the US (over 5000 agents), with operations in NYC, Long Island and the Hamptons, upstate New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Their marketing efforts include both corporate and regional branding. BlankSlate was tapped to help with regional marketing in Brooklyn.

The combination of historic brownstones and modern new developments, plus its youthful and multicultural environment, have turned Brooklyn into a worldwide brand. The result is increased demand, rising values, and an attractive market for brokers. Elliman’s marketing team wanted to reinforce its position as a leading real estate brand in Brooklyn.

Rather than focus on Elliman’s listings, offices, or agents, we would educate the reader with detailed, informative content produced by local bloggers that follow the Brooklyn real estate market day by day, creating a positive association between the Brooklyn experience and Elliman.

To accomplish this, we created a series of posts that were published on Brooklyn’s largest real estate site, Brownstoner. Our team of creatives — writers, photographers, illustrators, and editors — went to each of the neighborhoods and walked the streets, profiled restaurants, shops, interesting architecture, business development… everything that makes up the fabric of the neighborhood.

Each article begins with an original illustration of the neighborhood that pops off-screen, which highlights a level of caring, creativity and attention to detail.

Then, we had to write great stuff. For example, this is the intro to the Montague Street article in historic Brooklyn Heights:

As far as Brooklyn neighborhoods go, Brooklyn Heights is tiny, a wedge bordered by Cadman Plaza and its busy series of parks, walkways, and municipal buildings to the east, the Brooklyn Bridge to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the south, and the East River to the west. It’s just about 15 blocks tall and five blocks wide. The role it plays in Brooklyn’s history, and in the popular imagination, looms much larger. Its lovely, tree-lined streets and spectacular homes have been the setting for television series and movies as varied as The Patty Duke Show, The Cosby Show, and Moonstruck.

We also sent photographers around Brooklyn to capture the sights and architecture of the covered areas…

 

and provide easy navigation to visit all of the other guides in the series.

 

As the campaign grew, we created a dedicated landing page on Brownstoner that was populated with excerpts of all the articles. This created an eye-catching home for the content that can be shared with customers or discovered through web searches.

To broaden the campaign’s reach, we published the content on other Brooklyn sites in the BlankSlate Network that target various audiences and demographics. The campaign also included display ads to support brand messaging, social networking to extend organic reach, and utilized content networks to access a broad cross section of geo-targeted readers from publications that included Business Insider, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, and many more.

By creating memorable, authentic content about Brooklyn while positioning Elliman’s name alongside, we have been able to link the two brands together. We have seen great results in social engagement, overall traffic to the content, and Elliman brand awareness from readers.

Real estate marketing can be more than just property listings. Contact us to learn how we can create positive associations that aligns with your market!

#Elliman