Now it's about bringing your network to life . To attract agents to integrate it. To manage the notoriety of your new brand. To put in place the tools that will allow your agents to receive mandates.

In short: you must no longer think just “network”, but “virtual assistant real estate agency” . And to achieve this, here are 4 essential criteria to take into account!

Why a virtual real estate agency?
A virtual real estate agency – what does that mean, exactly?

This means that your network of real estate agents does not need commercial premises to operate. Nor offices. Nor a window.

You also do not need a space dedicated to receiving customers: you will never be in contact with them, it is your agents who will work exclusively with sellers and buyers .

Quite the opposite, therefore, of a traditional real estate agency, which must attract prospects through direct commercial processes: window sheets, advertising panels, local referencing.

It also means something else – an essential thing:

Your virtual real estate agency cannot function in the same way as a physical agency . It must deploy very different communication strategies.

Here's how.

The 4 criteria that define a virtual agency
Here are 4 criteria for moving from a network of simple agents to a virtual agency, that is to say a structure which aims to recruit commercial agents and give them the means to receive mandates .

Here are 4 criteria that will be essential to you as a network head!

Save on installation budget for the benefit of marketing
As we have seen previously – in the key steps to opening a real estate agency – finding a premises where to set up your agency is not an easy task. Positioning alone is a major lever for acquiring prospects. And the budget is substantial, especially when you need a clearly visible window display.

The advantage of the virtual real estate agency is that it does not require premises . You only need a dedicated place, for example at home or in a coworking space, to carry out your activity.

The good news is the substantial savings you make on your rental budget!

And the idea is to save as much as possible on the installation budget for the benefit of your marketing strategy  : regional and national referencing, digital communication, recruitment and monitoring of agents. Everything you'll need to run your virtual agency!

These are the following 3 criteria.

Also Read:  3 reasons to call on a virtual real estate assistant!

The importance of regional, national and local SEO
The key word of a virtual real estate agency is: notoriety .

In fact, no, there are two: notoriety … and SEO . One does not go without the other.

Let’s get this straight: your network cannot function without proxies. And to hire agents, you have to have them come to you. And once you have agents on the ground, they themselves will have to make themselves known in very diverse localities.

However, a network of commercial agents does not need, like a real estate agency, to only work on its local referencing . With a virtual agency, you will have to think broader: regional or even national SEO , in addition to local SEO .

Think about it: you're looking to recruit agents, wherever they are. You no longer address local customers, but employees located throughout France. In Paris. In Marseille. In Lyon. In Nantes. In Lille. Everywhere.

Think about it: your virtual real estate agency no longer has a single showcase, but a multitude of local showcases , embodied by the agents.

Hence the need to reference yourself well on a large volume of local pages: the keywords are no longer “your agency + city”, but “your network + such city”, multiplied by as many cities where you have agents .

Regional and national SEO for your brand, local SEO for your agents!

Hence the need to organize your notoriety on a large scale .

Count on a large-scale digital communication strategy
These needs for regional and national referencing are accompanied by a digital communication strategy designed on a vast scale.

You have two objectives:

Recruitment of agents (B2B marketing)
Communication with prospects through each agent (B2C marketing)
For this dual purpose, your real estate communication must be massive and primarily focused on digital: website, content marketing, SEO, inbound marketing , etc.

Because, yes, in “virtual real estate agency”, the word “virtual” is crucial…

Recruitment and tools for obtaining mandates
Finally, a virtual agency is also defined by an enormous amount of work on recruiting agents and deploying the tools that will allow them to do their work and receive mandates.

Because, one of two things:

Without proxies, your network does not exist . It is therefore a matter of attracting them, recruiting them correctly and providing them with adequate training.
If they do not receive mandates, your agents will not bring you business . It is therefore essential to provide them with the tools and methods that work well.
virtual real estate agency

A virtual agency does not imply low cost!
This is a preconceived idea that we absolutely must combat:

No, launching a virtual real estate agency does not rhyme with “doing low cost” (and it really doesn’t rhyme, in fact).

We must put an end to this vision of a real estate agent who makes phone calls from his sofa, and manages an army of paid agents, who know no more about real estate than the local baker. !

For you, the network head, the absence of physical premises and local advertising means that your budget is redirected to digital media .

For your agents, the fact of working for a virtual real estate agency certainly does not mean that they are paid with a slingshot or that they are launched into the wild without knowledge: the president of Capifrance, Jacques Daboudet, very rightly recalled that in its network, made up of more than 1,400 sales agents, the average honorary rate is 4.48% (read in the report of a conference, reported by Cimm ). To this must be added compulsory initial training and coaches who lead the regional network .