Case Study: Defining a brand’s purpose before writing website content
Meet the Client
Alexandra Coté and TheFoxTeam.ca are unique in how they connect people to properties because their mission is to truly connect with and understand every one of their clients. Their main focus isn’t the real estate transaction, it’s in honouring the goals and respecting the wishes of the person behind each transaction. It’s in making sure their clients feel comfortable from beginning to end. And, it’s in helping their clients experience the fun in the process, not just the stress. This may seem like common-sense business practice, but Alexandra’s brand of “people-focused real estate” is rare in an industry largely focused on pressure tactics and sales volumes.
The Client’s Challenge
Until the summer of 2020, Alexandra had been operating as a Toronto realtor under her own name. But as a four-time winner of Now Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Best Real Estate Agent in Toronto award (soon to become five-time winner later in the fall), her business was growing fast and she was building a team to work alongside her. She needed all new marketing material, including a website.
As TheFoxTeam.ca was a new brand, before we could effectively write this new website, we needed to understand the brand’s values, key messages, unique selling proposition and target audience. In other words, we needed to understand what made TheFoxTeam.ca different from the thousands of other realtors in Toronto.
Our Solution
Through discovery sessions with Alexandra and interviews with a number of past clients, we dug deep with a series of brand questions and clarity creators to develop the story of Alexandra and TheFoxTeam.ca. From there, we wrote TheFoxTeam.ca Brand Story—an internal document that definitively separates the Fox Team from the competition and make it incomparable in the Toronto real estate world. The brand story consisted of five parts:
The overarching brand story to tell—and understand—TheFoxTeam.ca’s story
Key messages/values on how TheFoxTeam.ca connects with its customers
How people connect with TheFoxTeam.ca key messages
Brand positioning statement
Target audience
This document contained advice to help guide the future development of all marketing materials—be it website copy and design, newsletters, blogs, videos or other promotional materials—so that TheFoxTeam.ca story would always be told consistently. We not only then used it to shape our next steps, but Alexandra could now also use it as part of her onboarding process for future partners or staff.
From there, we wrote the website content on all main pages. To keep with the tone and key messages determined in the brand story, we had a little fun with the ‘About Us’ page—writing each bio to include a Q&A to help clients get to know a little about each realtor—and put our storytelling expertise into practice on the services pages by writing impact stories (instead of services descriptions) featuring real client experiences working with TheFoxTeam.ca. These testimonials about buying and selling property elevated the message on TheFoxTeam.ca’s website beyond the average realtor’s site by truly connecting with customers and showing how TheFoxTeam.ca authentically cares about each client.
TheFoxTeam.ca website launched on November 1, 2020.
We didn’t bring TheFoxTeam.ca to life alone—just the brand story and the website copy. We worked alongside Kosmic Creative who designed and developed the website, Sore Thumb, who produced a landing page video, developed the logo and took some great (and fun!) headshots, and Agency5, who determined an SEO strategy. Read about how we teamed up with them (along with several other agencies) to elevate TheFoxTeam.ca brand.
Testimonial
“Working with Deborah was a relief. I know that may seem a strange sentiment to begin with, but once I handed over the reins I felt a true sense of relief that my brand story was in the right hands. It was a big exhale in a time when I was holding my breath trying to put the puzzle pieces of my brand together. Deborah helped me explore my core values and extract the experiences my clients had had to build an identity and a vision. It fit like a glove! She put the words together like magic, and helped me feel anchored and grounded in my company sentiment and strategy. Thank you, Deborah, you brought TheFoxTeam.ca to life on the page!”
Alexandra Coté
Head Fox