Meld delivered custom, full-service marketing support to Oakridge Real Estate helping them refresh their brand and reintroduce themselves to their market. Oakridge had a strong reputation, but their look and feel was feeling aged at more than 20 years old. It needed to be updated to better reflect who they are today. The agency turned to Meld as a partner who could help them evolve their identity without losing their audiences and create a much stronger presence on digital platforms.
By giving Oakridge the marketing expertise and firepower they needed, Meld helped them reach their goals of elevating brand awareness, increasing market share, and creating a company that regularly attracts the best new real estate talent.
The first step was telling Oakridge’s story (including its evolution to new owners and partners) and developing engaging content around the factors that make this agency special. From Oakridge University, which helps their agents stay ahead of industry changes, to their decades-long community support to real estate expertise and beyond, Meld helped Oakridge tell and show who they are. With so many new real estate companies and groups emerging in their market, Meld and Oakridge worked together to identify and assess competitors to determine targeted ways to move the agency and its agents ahead in the market.
By creating a sustaining marketing plan, Meld was able to hand Oakridge a road map to expand their presence and impact. We guided Oakridge through a brand identity evolution, created a brand foundation with accompanying strategic messaging, built a new, mobile-friendly website, and created new content and design for everything from yard signs to buyer’s and seller’s guides, blogs, postcards, digital downloads, social media, and beyond.
No branding is complete without visuals! Meld set up a series of photoshoots to capture the new brand in its natural environment (from new signage at the office to agents in the field with yard signs). We also photographed agents for bios and at work, with customers, and beyond. These strategic photos were used across the website, platforms and in print, creating a cost effective way to bring the new Oakridge brand to life.
Assorted new templates were created by the Meld team to make it easy for the company and the agents to use the new brand. We created sell sheets, and designed email, newsletter, and designed postcard templates as well as a signage library that allowed the company and agents to select from templates that could be easily updated and printed.
Meld also helped Oakridge audit, assess, and build their digital audiences. As part of this process, we set up and refined platforms while ensuring best practices and effective targeting was employed to reach the right people in the right places with the right messaging.
Once Meld had created all of the assets, we devised a market-wide launch plan and guided the execution—one of our specialties! Meld unveiled engaging billboards to tease the introduction of something new, wrote and distributed press releases, and continued to guide a coordinated rollout of the new brand look and messaging through signs in yards, social media giveaways, a new website, and more! On social media, users were pointed to the website with the task of hunting for an animated acorn hiding somewhere on the site! When a user found it, they would click the hidden acorn to get to a secret page where the user won a gift card!
The coordination of all the launch elements was guided through curated content calendars and execution timelines, included in every launch, typically spanning a two to three-month period, from warming up audiences to launch and after, maintaining the high quality of content going out to audiences.
Billboard Teaser
Meld has extensive experience working with real estate agencies, their agents, and their teams. As the corporate brand evolved, Oakridge teams reached out to Meld to develop subbrands that aligned with the new agency look, but also allowed them to express their individuality. Meld created The Bey Team subbrand, outlining the team’s strategic messaging and creating custom branded assets from print to digital.
The culmination of the brand refresh is reflected in the new website. Meld infused a definitive brand presence with the new identity’s rich navy and pops of green that highlighted clearer calls to action throughout the site. The community pages were crafted to feature prominent communities with unique content that highlighted local parks, school districts, historical landmarks, and more. New agent pages introduced their fresh headshots with updated content that showcased their personality through four fun facts, agent expertise, and personalized headlines.
Meld also made sure the website showcases Oakridge’s impressive story, being voted the Best of the Best Real Estate Brokerage #1 in the Cedar Valley for the past 10 years. That story was continued by highlighting how Oakridge gives back to communities, and even that more than 50 agents at Oakridge were born or raised in the Cedar Valley, giving them a deep understanding of real estate and the community. By making these achievements prominent, they are able to instill confidence and reassurance in Oakridge’s potential agents and clients.
Before
After
Brand Refresh
Signage Templates
Custom Photoshoots
Oakridge Real Estate
Full-service strategic marketing partner. Brand, Photography, Outdoor Marketing, Print, PR, Website, Sub Brand, Launch
Meld provided white-glove marketing to Oakridge. We facilitated discovery sessions with their owners, met and gave counsel to agents and teams, were on-site for the agency photo shoots, attended the launch events, and worked with leaders to explain the how and why behind strategies. We also conducted many meetings via video. Meld has become incredibly adept at creating processes that deliver nearly everything we do via video or through a mix of in-person and remote.