Erin Brunelle: A realtor who gives a damn
Site creation and brand strategy
Erin Brunelle is a realtor like no other. She’s unapologetically forward, community focused, and sets clients up for success. She’s a realtor that gives a damn. Yet, her marketing was relatively cookie cutter and didn’t reflect her boldness. With a hyper-saturated market, we wanted to hone in and drill down on the extra mile she goes for clients.
We worked on a sharp, punchy brand that conveyed the unique supports that she brings to her clients. I wrote the text with copy editing from April Crowley of Editing without Ego (I can land a punch, she makes it a knock out). We focused on a few main themes, pulling in her charitable contributions, the amount of perks she includes for clients, and the content she's created that highlights local businesses.
I grew up here in Holyoke, and it’s where I’m raising my children. I may be blunt, but I’m also sentimental [...] I believe in systemic structural support and long term commitments to financial sustainability.
With Holyoke’s former mayor, Alex Morse, I co-launched Buy Holyoke Now, an organization that gives people a pathway to homeownership. Buy Holyoke Now is a collaborative effort by an extensive network of lenders, nonprofit groups, real estate professionals, attorneys, insurance agents, and home inspectors, who have come together to provide discounts and other incentives to help encourage homeownership in the City of Holyoke.
For visuals, I paired clean fonts with some weighty vintage flairs. While most real estate agents plaster their site with pictures of keys and houses, we wanted something crisper. We leaned into a sharp monotone pallet (rest assured, it fit ADA compliance). I sampled scans of regional maps from the 1800s and 1900s from open license archives. I then photoshopped the maps to create a subtle monotone texture. She's not a realtor interested in working anywhere, she's interested in working here. She loves Western MA and the rich history here.
Successful campaigning: a few highlights
Shifting algorithms guide Zillow users towards Zillow's own internal sales team as opposed to a property’s actual listing agent. It's been very difficult for realtors in outside firms compete. To combat this, I trusted Erin's gut and forewent MLS entirely by listing a property on ONLY her site. The listing was promoted with a combination of SEO and pay per click social media ads.
Due to the potential for housing discrimination, laws severely limit targeted ads. Despite just limitations on targeted ads, the marketing strategy was wildly successful.
1 minute 23 seconds
spent on page. Time spent on page was 4x higher when Erin emailed the listing to her email list and shared it via social media to only her existing internal audiences.
1,730 page views
300 page views were from returning visitors
$72k above asking
despite never posting on MLS, there was substantial foot traffic at the open house and the sellers received a bit at $72k above asking on an already high priced property.
