Marketing for estate agents, measured in instructions won

1. Portal exposure that pays for itself

Portals are usually the largest line in an independent agency's marketing budget, so judge them on cost per enquiry rather than brand name. Most portal contracts are quoted per branch and never published, which makes your own numbers the only reliable benchmark.

• Write down what each portal costs you per branch per month, including premium and featured add-ons.
• Count the enquiries each portal actually delivered last month — not impressions or listing views.
• Divide spend by enquiries to get a cost per enquiry for each portal, then rank them.
• Run a cheaper portal alongside your main one for a quarter before you cancel anything.
• Re-check the ranking every quarter; add-on spend creeps up quietly.

See what other UK agencies report paying

2. Listing quality: the cheapest win available

Listing quality costs almost nothing to fix and affects every portal you pay for at once. Vendors also judge you on how their neighbour's listing looked, so this doubles as instruction-winning material.

• Lead with a wide, bright, straight-on photo of the best room — never the driveway.
• Publish a floor plan on every listing; buyers use it to self-qualify before enquiring.
• Write a headline that names the thing a buyer is searching for: bedrooms, style, standout feature.
• Open the description with the buyer's benefit, not the postcode and not 'we are delighted to offer'.
• Include an EPC rating and the council tax band so serious buyers stop asking basic questions.
• Add the material information a buyer needs up front (tenure, service charges, parking, known issues).

3. Local visibility beyond the portals

Vendors searching for an agent normally search a place name. Local search results and reviews are where that search lands, and both are free to work on.

• Claim and complete your Google Business Profile for every branch, with real opening hours and photos.
• Ask every completed vendor for a Google review on the day they get their keys — that is when goodwill peaks.
• Reply to every review, including the awkward ones; prospective vendors read the replies.
• Make sure your name, address and phone number match exactly everywhere they appear online.
• Keep a page on your own site for each area you cover, with genuine local detail rather than filler.
• Claim your MoveLane agency profile so your branch appears in our town directory.

See the MoveLane town directory

4. Follow-up speed decides who wins the instruction

Marketing generates the enquiry; response time converts it. An enquiry answered while the sender is still browsing behaves very differently from one answered the next working day.

• Set a written target for first response — minutes for portal enquiries, not hours.
• Send an immediate acknowledgement so the enquirer knows a human has it, then follow up properly.
• Route enquiries to a named person per branch so nothing sits in a shared inbox overnight.
• Call, don't only email, for valuation and viewing requests.
• Track how many enquiries turn into booked valuations — that ratio, not enquiry volume, is your real marketing result.
• Cover evenings and weekends somehow, even if it is an acknowledgement plus a next-morning call.

How MoveLane handles enquiries for you

5. Proof that makes vendors pick you

At the valuation you are competing on credibility, not adjectives. Proof is anything a vendor can check for themselves.

• Bring recent, comparable local evidence to every valuation, including what didn't sell and why.
• Publish your fee structure clearly rather than making vendors ask twice.
• Show your average time to offer and how you arrived at the figure.
• Use real named reviews with permission; never write or buy testimonials.
• Show verification and redress-scheme membership on your website and profile.
• Follow up losing valuations after six weeks — a chunk of them are unsold and rethinking.